9. 9. Urgent Debate: The UK Government-DUP ‘Confidence and Supply’ Agreement

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:52 pm on 27 June 2017.

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Photo of Mr Neil Hamilton Mr Neil Hamilton UKIP 5:52, 27 June 2017

Indeed. Well, for once, my former colleague talks sense—[Laughter.]—as he always used to. But that is exactly the—. We are in the era of power politics. There’s no good complaining about unfairness—life is unfair, as we know. Goodness knows, I’ve been on the receiving end of so much unfairness in the course of my life and I make no complaint about that, of course. I must be a masochist to be in politics at my age. But, nevertheless, the DUP have done what they were elected to do—get the best deal for Northern Ireland.

What is Plaid Cymru doing? They’ve been elected to get the best deal for Wales but they’ve utterly failed to take up the opportunity. In fact, the Welsh Labour Party in the last general election did as much as it possibly could to pretend they were no part of the Labour Party nationally and that Jeremy Corbyn didn’t exist. Why don’t they use the independence that they sought to persuade the Welsh people that they had from Labour nationally to do a deal with Theresa May themselves? They could transform British politics by breaking away from the Labour Party nationally and doing what they claim to want also—a deal in the interests of the people of Wales.

So, I’m afraid, although I very much welcome the opportunity for us to debate this matter today, that the debate is actually just an exercise in humbug, hypocrisy and sour grapes. Theresa May did get the largest number of seats. The DUP are prepared to do a deal. They’ve got a deal. Yes, we are the losers, but who’s responsible for that? Not them, but Plaid Cymru, the Labour Party, and their little helper from Brecon and Radnor.