How grateful we all are to Mark Reckless for coming to Wales and telling us all, we poor people, what we didn’t know before. How marvellous it is that we have his wonderful brain power to tell us that we are all wrong and he's absolutely right. It’s beyond parody, the position that he took. Let me just quote two things at him. First of all, the Norway model that he disparages: ‘The Norwegian model is the preferred model’ said Arron Banks—Arron Banks, the money man behind UKIP. That’s what he said. They’re not my words; they’re the words of his own party. Daniel Hannan said the same thing—the Norwegian model. I remember the debate. I remember the debate in the referendum when people were told, ‘Don’t worry, we can have the Norwegian model,’ and the myth has been perpetrated that, somehow, this was a vote for a hard Brexit. It isn’t.

His party has no councillors in Wales at all. I can promise him that if he thinks Labour voters are going to follow a former Conservative MP into voting UKIP, then he needs to rethink his position, despite his obvious intellectual superiority. Can I remind him that the UK begged to join the European Community? It was desperate to join, and I don’t want to be in a position ever again in the future where the UK is desperate to join anything. That’s why it’s so important that we manage this process properly and effectively.

He said that the position we’ve taken was like blancmange. I have no idea what that metaphor means, but what I do know is that the position he’s taken is full of holes, like a Swiss cheese—that’s a better metaphor. It’s all basically this: ‘We will leave the EU, and the EU will fall at our feet.’ Can I suggest to him that that is the most naive position that any politician could possibly take in this Chamber or elsewhere?

Can I also talk about some of the other issues that he raised? This is the fundamental problem I have with the point that he makes on EU regulation. He is right: if we sell to the European market, we follow Europe’s rules, but if we sell in the UK market, we don’t follow them. So, in other words, the UK market will be provided with goods of less quality—shoddier goods—because the standards in the UK will be lower than the standards anywhere else in the world. That means that UK exporters won’t be able to export and the UK would be back in the position it was in in the 1970s when much of UK industry had the reputation of producing rubbish. We don’t want to be back in that position again. We want to make sure that the UK and Wales are an economy where people see we produce goods of the highest quality, priced fairly and, of course, goods that are produced at a premium for those premium markets. What he suggests is a future where the UK sits on its own—a protectionist future—and seeks free trade agreements with countries that have no interest in free trade agreements.

I beg him: show some realism. Show some realism. If you want to criticise, you have a perfect right to do so, but produce your own plan. Don’t just say, ‘This is all wrong, and what we say is all right.’ I have seen no plan from UKIP at all. He chucked the brick through the window; we’ve got to pick up the pieces. At least help to do it, rather than stand on the pavement on the other side criticising the people who are trying to do it. Now, I’m sure we are enlightened by the vast superiority that he displayed to us in the Chamber, but I say this to him: we will, as ever, as will Plaid Cymru, through this White Paper, defend the national interests of Wales, and I’d urge him to do the same.