Mr Neil Hamilton: At 740 new herds, in numerical terms, that’s 740 new sets of tragedy and I don’t regard that as in any way acceptable. As regards the Brexit negotiations that are going on, does the Cabinet Secretary not understand that this could be absolutely fatal in these negotiations for the interests of Welsh farmers? Because we all remember what happened with BSE, that even long after BSE ceased to...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I’m well aware, of course, that that Cabinet Secretary was on the losing side of the argument with the Welsh people over whether it was a good thing for Wales to remain in the EU. It was notable that the biggest pro-Brexit votes were in seats that Labour has traditionally regarded as their strongest heartland seats, which shows you how out of touch with their own traditional supporters the...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Diolch yn fawr iawn, Lywydd. As we approach the end of another hard day at the ‘wordface’, Members may be forgiven for thinking, as we have another debate on Brexit, that the subject may be inexhaustible but we are not. But, I rise to propose our motion that the National Assembly for Wales believes that Brexit gives Wales a great opportunity to boost trade, industry and employment;...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Sure.
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, it’s true that the European Commission will be the body that does the negotiating, but anybody who knows anything about the EU knows who calls the shots within it. I have been a member of the European Council of Ministers, albeit some time ago, but, if you think that Germany will have little influence in these decisions, I’m afraid you’re not living in the same world as the rest...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Yes, certainly.
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, I wonder if Lee Waters is old enough to remember the 364 economists who predicted disaster after the 1981 budget, which proved to be the kick-start to the British economy, which gave us the massive growth—[Interruption.] Which gave us the massive growth that then took place in the British economy in the 1980s. Economics has traditionally been known as ‘the dismal science’ and for...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, I spoke too soon earlier on—we’ve heard the same chorus of Jeremiahs as we’ve heard over the years; the First Minister’s even refighting the 1981 budget. The Labour Party is stuck in a mindset of the past. The reason we had to have the 1981 budget was because of the 1979 winter of discontent when Labour last ruined the country in a big way. But we’re not here to refight the...
Mr Neil Hamilton: [Continues.]—executed by people who we can elect and unelect and throw out if we don’t like the decisions they take. That is something that we can’t do in the EU.
Mr Neil Hamilton: I’ve come to the end of my speech, Madam Presiding Officer, and so I commend this motion to the house today in the spirit of optimism in which it is written.
Mr Neil Hamilton: Diolch yn fawr, Lywydd. Well, I’m delighted to welcome the First Minister to signing up to UKIP policy on immigration. We’re making progress. But I’m sure the First Minister is looking forward with as much relish as I am to the result of the Labour Party leadership election being announced on Saturday. Does he agree with me that the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Can I bring the First Minister back to today, rather than 30 years ago, which is rather more relevant? By the way, Gareth Bennett did not take the view that people coming from Syria are all economic migrants, but the whole point about the law on refugees is that you’re entitled to refugee status in the first country to which you go for protection from the country from which you’re coming,...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Everybody agrees with that general principle and it has nothing whatever to do with the EU because we’re signed up to international conventions under the UN and the Geneva convention. Of course it’s right that refugees should be given asylum and protection from the countries where they can’t live in safety. But economic migration is a fact of life in Europe. Millions of people are...
Mr Neil Hamilton: In one thing, at least, I agree with the leader of the opposition, in that what we’ve heard today from the Welsh Government is a potpourri of platitudes. The one thing it will do is at least help the Government meet its recycling targets, because we’ve heard it all before many times—twice previously since I’ve been in this place from the beginning of May. If you look through the...
Mr Neil Hamilton: That’s silly.
Mr Neil Hamilton: I’m sure the Minister will agree with me that, if this advisory panel is to be stuffed full of faint-hearted Remainers, it will be of very limited use. Therefore, there ought to be a role for Brexiteers such as myself and Andrew R.T. Davies, for example, who have a more optimistic view of the future than some of those that I’ve just mentioned. Although we might engage in what I might call...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I applaud the sentiments that Hefin David brought in his speech, and I feel very similar to him, because I had the misfortune, when I was in school, back in the 1960s, to be faced with an unpalatable choice at the age of 14: to carry on studying Welsh or to switch to German. I took the decision then to switch to German. The result is that I could make a very passable speech here in German,...
Mr Neil Hamilton: A very commendable brevity on the part of my honourable friend. [Laughter.] I’m not sure I shall be able to replicate it, but what one must do, I think, in all these debates on the single market is to keep matters in perspective. Exports to the EU amount to about—talking about the UK now—5 per cent of GDP and, of that 5 per cent, 65 per cent of the trade would be subject to a tariff...
Mr Neil Hamilton: We’ve had, I think we can all agree, a spirited and entertaining debate. I’m disappointed that Rhianon Passmore doesn’t see me as a Byronic hero, but that of course is only today. If she’d known me 40 years ago, she might have come to a different conclusion. But, I’m very happy to swap nineteenth-century literary allusions with her: she has reminded me, from the passion with which...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, there is a problem, obviously, with Welsh-medium schools—[Interruption.] Of course there is, simply because, at the moment, and this goes back to the earlier debate that we had on the Welsh language—maybe, in certain parts of Wales, it wouldn’t be such a problem, but, in other parts of Wales it certainly would, being able to provide this provision. So, ultimately, it can’t be...
