7. 7. Plaid Cymru Debate: UK Withdrawal from the European Union

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:33 pm on 13 July 2016.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Leanne Wood Leanne Wood Plaid Cymru 5:33, 13 July 2016

Diolch. I thank all Members for their contributions but, in particular, I want to thank the Members of the Plaid Cymru team: Simon Thomas, who focused on the effect of Brexit on the environment and the agricultural sector; Bethan Jenkins, who focused on our steel industry; and Adam Price, who addressed the wider economic questions arising from Brexit. And, yes, it is time for a paradigm shift in our thinking and a new economic approach.

It is important to understand what happened with this vote. Most of the leave voters that I’ve spoken to, during the campaign and since the result, tell me that they did so chiefly because they wanted change, because they felt voiceless and they’re fed up with being taken for granted by an out-of-touch political establishment. I get that. I respect that.

In closing, I’d like to address this question of racism. I’d like to thank the Member for Caerphilly and Mark Isherwood, and indeed the Minister, for alluding to this too. We cannot and we absolutely should not deny that the tone of the debate and the result has brought out prejudices. It has empowered those who were possibly already that way inclined to crawl out from under various stones to abuse minorities. It’s led to an increase in reported racial incidents, and we ignore that at our peril. And, it is not scaremongering to say that when the facts back it up.

Issues of class and inequality were at the heart of this referendum result. The fact that people in those areas that benefit most from the EU’s structural funds voted in the greatest numbers to leave can’t really be taken as anything other than a loud protest against being squeezed—a loud shout out against poverty and against remaining at the bottom of the wealth league, despite having had access to those funds for many years. The increase in the cost of a holiday abroad or mobile phone roaming charges means very little if you haven’t got the money to afford a holiday or a mobile phone. Many people had lost hope that politics could change things, and this referendum gave them the power to land a blow on the political elite, and they took that opportunity. So, people shouldn’t be written off as uneducated, stupid, or even as acting against their own interests for voting to leave for those reasons. It’s not an irrational response to the current political situation, post banking crash, when there are so few opportunities to make your voice heard. Those voices must be heard.

The promise that the UK would save money by withdrawing from the EU played out well in towns and villages where people have been left behind. People in those places were promised more money and more control. That £490 million figure that I quoted earlier on was given to us by the leader of the Conservatives—a leading Brexit campaigner in the campaign.

Now, I hope that, beyond today, we can have that wider debate and that we can agree that, regardless of what side we were on in the referendum, we in Wales need to take more control and more responsibility over our own affairs. Plaid Cymru will continue to be at the forefront of making sure that we secure Wales’s future. All of us here should commit to nothing less.