7. 7. UKIP Wales Debate: The European Union

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:10 pm on 22 June 2016.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 6:10, 22 June 2016

Well, that’s an extremely good point that the Member makes. It plays into, I think, the third part of the proposition that we’re invited to sign up to this afternoon: that, somehow, we would be more prosperous if we were to leave the European Union; that we would be more prosperous without the 500 companies from other EU countries that have operations in Wales, providing more than 57,000 jobs; that we would be, somehow, more prosperous if the 70,000 people in Wales who have benefited from European Union funding helping them into work—if we didn’t have that available to us; and that, somehow, Welsh farming would be more prosperous without the €300 million of European funding that it has every year. The notion that Wales would be better off outside Europe is just a product of the voodoo economics that we’ve had outlined to us this afternoon. In its place, we’re offered a self-inflicted, do-it-yourself recession, an enormous act of economic folly, a retreat from the complex realities of the world we actually inhabit; and at best, a retreat to the sidelines and the sideshows of the real world, at worst, a retreat to the contemptible distortions of a poster that exploits the terror of children and the despair of their parents, caught up in events so far beyond their own responsibility or control.

So, Llywydd, there we have it: we want a Wales that is stronger, safer and more prosperous, and we know how to achieve it too. Wales benefits hugely from our membership of the European Union. Wales belongs in Europe, Wales needs to remain in Europe and, tomorrow, let’s vote to make sure that we do.