BORIS Johnson has been told he is “sleepwalking” into the break up the Union as his government was accused of being “instinctively hostile” to devolution.

Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford made the comments during an appearance at the House of Lords Constitution Committee.

Drakeford said the UK Government made it increasingly difficult for him to make the case for the Union in Wales.

The Labour politician said: “The state of the Union is under the greatest pressure it has ever been in my political lifetime.

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“In the current UK Government we face for the first time in the history of devolution a Government that is instinctively hostile to devolution.

“The Prime Minister told Conservative backbenchers that devolution was the greatest mistake of the Blair government.

“The actions of his administration bear the hallmark of that. The confrontational approach, the approach of muscular Unionism, aggressively unilateral in the way it goes about things.

“We are sleepwalking, if we are not careful, into the end of the Union as we know it.”

The Prime Minister has previously been criticised for his “muscular Unionism”.

Constitution expert Professor Ciaran Martin said on the Scotsman’s The Steamie podcast that the UK Government’s strategy would make it “impossible” for a new Better Together campaign to fight indyref2.

He said: “In terms of devolution, if you do anything different it’s going to become a football match … I do think that is the fundamental issue.

“Does devolution actually command the support of the Conservatives? A lot of people are deeply suspicious, and I think their suspicions are entirely justified.”

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Drakeford continued: “Every single day they create new tensions between us and go on persuading a growing sector of opinion in Wales that Wales will be better off outside the Union.

“We have example after example of where powers are devolved to Wales and where the approach of the UK Government is to cut in, spend money themselves in those devolved areas, undercutting devolution.

“It stokes political tensions and gives ammunition to those people who have come to the conclusion that the Union is over and we would be better off outside it.

“It is a matter of huge regret to me that I have to roll the stone even further up the hill because the UK actively undermines the case for the Union rather than strengthens it.”