We are invited in this debate to treat UKIP as having clean hands on the issue of immigration. We are invited to regard the fact that UKIP have been elected to this place as cleansing the stain of insinuation, dog whistle and bigotry—but they do not have clean hands. Getting elected to the Assembly does not erase the stain of former campaigns where they ran posters of refugees fleeing persecution as a line of migrants into the EU, where they used migrants as scapegoats for all our ills: Romanian crime waves and, ludicrously, M4 congestion. None of you—Neil Hamilton, Caroline Jones, Gareth Bennett, Michelle Brown, David Rowlands—none of you have denounced that campaign.

UKIP instead has played on people’s fears; fears of pressures in their lives. You hid the fact—[Interruption.] You hid the fact that public services depend on migrants, pitting community against community. You hid the fact that working-age populations aren’t big enough for the support we want to give our pensioners, pitting generation against generation.

People do have fears about immigration. We do need an immigration system that reflects our national economic interest and reflects our commitment to compassion. But, you have forfeited any right to be heard on this issue by the distortions and prejudice that you’ve dripped into people’s ears for years—[Interruption.] I’m about to finish.

People look to politicians for leadership and honesty and the results of the general election campaign show they found neither in UKIP.