Well, I have to say to the leader of UKIP: he describes the day as the day of the return of democratic self-government; if Scotland votes ‘out’ in a referendum, I wonder if he would say that about Scotland. But, it’s a strange point to make in that regard.

The UK never lost its sovereignty. It always kept its sovereignty. It’s a sovereign state and it still shares its—. It always will share its sovereignty. It’s a member of national organisations that are multistate organisations where sovereignty is shared with those organisations, otherwise you’d never have any treaties, you shouldn’t be a member of the UN, and you shouldn’t be a member of any supranational organisations. It’s cloud-cuckoo-land to suggest that the UK or any other state, for that example, is in any way wholly sovereign in the classical sense of the nineteenth-century.

There is some irony—and I know this annoyed Plaid Cymru Members, but to me it caused me some amusement—but I never thought I’d see the day when UKIP would accuse Plaid Cymru of not being Welsh or nationalist enough. Given that five years ago, UKIP as a party was robustly anti-Welsh and robustly anti-devolution, there is some irony there, isn’t there, in terms of that? Yes, things have changed. There’s no doubt about that.

In terms of refighting the campaign, the campaign has finished; that was last year. This is a question of what we do next. I have to say to the leader of UKIP that I’ve heard nothing from him constructive at all. We have accepted the result. We’ve put forward concrete proposals. We’ve put forward a White Paper. We’ve put forward proposals for the internal governance of the UK. What I get from him is, ‘It’ll all be fine.’ No concrete proposals at all. I look forward to seeing them when, and if, they get round in UKIP—if they can agree with each other, that is—to producing them.

The other thing I have to say to him is that I disagree fundamentally with him that a free trade agreement will cover everything. It just will not do it. He must understand, surely, that the European Council of Ministers represents 27 different countries. The ratification process for any deal will require the ratification of some national parliaments and, indeed, some regional ones, particularly in Belgium. The ratification process, however, does not include BMW and Mercedes-Benz, who do not have a seat on the table of the European Council of Ministers and will not have the opportunity to influence what the entire European Union does in terms of its final trade arrangements.

In terms of tariffs, I can say to him that the average tariff is 5.5 per cent. There are hundreds of them: there are tariffs on hats and umbrellas. But more seriously, there are tariffs on automotive, aircraft components and most heavily on food, most heavily on food, particularly dairy products. I cannot believe that he believes that the answer to the imposition of tariffs and their effect is to crash the currency. Keep the pound low, make it really expensive for us to import goods, send inflation through the roof, but that’s fine because that will offset tariffs. That is not a sound or sustainable economic policy.

In terms of the WTO, again, he seems to think that crashing out with WTO rules is a good thing. The UK is just 60 million people. The European Union is far, far bigger as a market. We will be hurt hugely by the imposition of tariffs. Our manufacturers will find that their goods are more expensive. Apart from the financial barrier, there is a psychological barrier. If you were an investor from another large economy, why would you invest in a country where there was a tariff barrier in place between one of your factories and the other? That is clearly not going to happen. The automotive industry tells us that, the aircraft industry tells us that. I wonder who he’s speaking to when he takes the views of people on board.

I do look forward to the £350 million a week that will now spent on the NHS across the UK. That has been completely forgotten about, and conveniently. He reminds me of somebody who is part of a group of people who threw a brick through the window and now are criticising the people who are trying to put the window back together again by saying that the window was never broken in the first place or that we’re putting it back together in the wrong way, or even some of his party are arguing that they never put the brick through the window in the first place. The reality is that there are some of us who are trying to move on, some of us who are trying to ensure that the UK has a future outside of the EU, that Wales is not damaged as a result of leaving the EU, but his party has come forward with no proposals at all—no proposals at all. Even yesterday—this is a good one—there was a leaflet saying that UK fishermen would have access to a 200 mile fishing zone. In case he hasn’t noticed, the UK is within 200 miles of other countries all around the UK. There is no 200 mile fishing zone. That only exists if you have a 200 mile gap between you and another country, and that doesn’t exist as far as the UK is concerned. I have to say, the nonsense still continues with UKIP, but I offer him the chance to come forward in the next few weeks with something sensible and concrete that we can debate and examine.