Why is the First Minister still talking the language of Armageddon? This statement refers to a collapse in European trade being a possibility. Even if we don’t actually tie up any deal with the EU, it’s impossible for there to be a collapse in world trade. Can the First Minister confirm to me that, last year, the UK exported to the EU £135 billion in goods and £89 billion in services? That’s £110 billion less than they exported to us. It is massively in the interests of the EU to enter into a free trade agreement with us, because, if they don’t, they’ll be cutting off their noses to spite their faces. The British Government does not, as I understand it, want to see tariffs imposed on exports between the EU and the UK on either side. It is only the EU Commission and other protectionist forces in the EU that are talking in terms of imposing tariffs, so what is the Welsh Government doing to try to influence the Governments inside the EU, apart from the UK, in favour of the free trade that, otherwise, we all want?

The average tariff that the EU imposes against third countries is only 1.1 per cent, and 75 per cent of all traded goods and services trade freely between the EU and the rest of the world on a zero tariff. So, isn’t it utterly inappropriate to talk in terms of a collapse of European trade between Britain and the EU being a possibility?

As regards the other parts of the statement, on the question of repatriation of powers, will the First Minister accept that UKIP is entirely in favour of a repatriation of powers, not just to Westminster but to Cardiff? This is a massive opportunity for us in this Assembly and, indeed, in the Welsh Government. We will recover control of agricultural policy, we will recover control of environmental policy and we will have, in our own hands, all sorts of levers over powers we don’t currently have to make the Welsh economy more competitive in future. Fundamentally, that is what it’s all about—it’s the opportunity to trade competitively not just with the EU, but the rest of the world, which is, after all, 85 per cent of the global economy.

I’ve read the minutes of the European advisory group meeting on 28 September, and it’s very interesting to look at who’s actually on this committee. There’s one person, as far as I can see, out of about two dozen, who’s got any practical business experience, and that’s Kevin Crofton. The others are all very worthy people, but they’re academics, policy wonks or politicians—superannuated or otherwise. What we should be doing, or what the Welsh Government should be doing, is taking advice from the people who are actually out there making goods and selling goods and services in the world, because that’s where the wealth of the Welsh economy comes from now and will come from in future. So, what he should be doing is asking them, ‘In what way can we use these new freedoms that we’ll be given and the new powers that we will get in the interests of the wealth creators of Wales and the jobs that depend upon them?’

I’m very pleased to see that the First Minister is talking in terms of managed migration, rather than, again, these sorts of Armageddon scenarios of building walls down the English channel to keep beastly foreigners out. Nobody is talking in those terms at all. He knows as well as everybody else in this Chamber that the Brexit debate was overwhelmingly dominated by the fears and resentments that had been created by unmanaged migration in the last 15 years. The biggest pro-Brexit votes were in the areas that Labour had relied upon over the last century for piling up the largest number of votes. Consequently, it would be to ignore the wishes not just of the British people, but the Welsh people if they were to resile from the obligation that is placed upon us all, I think, to ensure managed migration. But, of course, that’s going to involve people moving across borders. Of course, the Welsh economy does rely upon interchange, as every economy does—apart from closed systems like North Korea—for a healthy and growing economy. What matters is: what are the terms of that migration policy? So, what we don’t want is uncontrolled and unskilled immigration going across borders, because that is what has caused the principal problem, and the biggest sufferers of unmanaged immigration of that kind are those who are at the bottom of the income scale, because that tends to depress wages and hence depress living standards.

As regards the obscurities in the current negotiating stance of the UK Government, does the First Minister think it might be helpful if we were to invite David Davis and Liam Fox, perhaps, to come down to Cardiff to a Plenary session of this Assembly, in the same way we have Alun Cairns here from time to time, so that we can hear from the horse’s mouth what is in their minds and, insofar as we are unable to discern it, then expose them to the kind of questions that’s he’s obviously failed to elicit answers to in his own attempts to do so?

This is a great adventure that we’re all now embarked upon, whether we like it or not, whether we were in favour of the referendum result or not, but, as I said in my question earlier on, does the First Minister not accept that this is a great opportunity for us in Wales, which we’ve not had before, to take our destiny in our own hands? Politicians are elected by the people and can be dismissed by them if they don’t like what we do, unlike the Commission in Brussels and those who are currently employed in making policy for us who are not responsible, ultimately, to the people of this country or, indeed, any other country, and who are, as a result of that unaccountability, imposing upon the peoples of Europe a crown of thorns in the form of the eurozone, which is a massive engine of poverty and which is impoverishing an entire continent, and therefore restricting the export opportunities of Britain and Wales in particular. So, I ask the First Minister to embrace the future, embrace the opportunity that we have today. Don’t fear the future; it’s ours for the taking.