I just want to say a few words about the single market, which I believe to be a singular British achievement and something that continues to offer great opportunities to Wales, and even greater as it extends more to services, having been based initially on goods. We’ve heard a lot of talk about somehow things will almost be the same if we leave, only we’ll have much more control over resources and over our democracy. Well, things will change, otherwise it’s hardly worth leaving. I don’t think the markets will react with equanimity to a decision that they’re routinely telling us would be damaging to the British, and therefore, the Welsh economy. Something will happen to the pound, and nearly everyone says it will go down. In fact, some leavers are welcoming that because of the fact it would make our exports cheaper. But these facts have to be faced. They’ll have a profound effect on the British economy, and the Welsh economy in the next few years.

And we do hear from some—there was a hint of it in what Neil Hamilton said—that the single market will still be there for us to take advantage of. Well, whatever else happens, our access to it will not be as profitable as it is today. The single market also offers London great opportunities, and if we withdraw from the European Union, the future of London, as the first and still the premier global city, will be affected, and I believe the economy of south Wales needs to attract more and more resources from an overcrowded London, and an expanding London, as we see our own services strengthened, particularly in the professional sphere, and all that would be put in peril and the potential of Cardiff, and the area around Cardiff, as an economic magnet would be much, much weakened.

The single market was invented in the 1980s by the Thatcher Government. I think this is perhaps part of the guilt problem that certain Conservatives have—that it worked: it transformed Europe because we pushed through the principle of majority voting. It was a Conservative idea to get Europe going and, boy, it not only got Europe going, it then absorbed eastern Europe into the current European Union. What would have happened if eastern Europe had become a string of failed states, like we see now around the Maghreb and the middle east? What sort of world would we be living in if that had happened?

There’ve been huge successes in the European Union, not only in the single market, but also expansion and we should give thanks that we live in a more secure world as a result, whatever our challenges, and we do face challenges. But, frankly, to face your challenges without your neighbours is, in my view, a very reckless strategy indeed. Also, to say that you want to be open to the world, but as your first step to that openness, you’re turning your back on your neighbours, is a flat contradiction and I hope the electorate see through it a week tomorrow.