On the continuity Bill, it is something, of course, that we’re still considering, but it would be better if progress was made in the JMC(EN). Are we in a position to recommend to the Assembly that we should approve the withdrawal Bill as it stands? No. I said that in what I said at the start of my statement. Are the UK Government now more engaged? The answer to that is ‘yes’. Why? Well, I think they’ve done the arithmetic in the Commons and the Lords. I think if they had a majority of over 100 we wouldn’t be in this position now. But it’s quite clear that the penny has dropped in that regard.

Damian Green is somebody who strikes me as somebody who you can talk to, and who will talk back at you—that helps. His involvement has certainly helped the process thus far, and we need him to continue in that role. Does this mean that we’re in a position where everything that we wanted has been produced? No. Do we think that common frameworks should the subject of agreement between the Governments? Yes, I’ve always said that. Much of what the leader of Plaid Cymru said I’ve said already, over many months. Do I think that the rules of a single market should be agreed, co-decided? Yes, I’ve said that many times, and I’ve said that there needs to be a court. One question I neglected to answer from Mark Isherwood is that there needs to be a court that will adjudicate on the single market. The Supreme Court of the United States is the court that regulates interstate commerce in the US. The European Court of Justice does it in the single market. The EFTA court does it for EFTA. There needs to be a court that regulates the UK single market. The Supreme Court could do that. It’s fairly easy to designate the Supreme Court as the court that would do it. What cannot happen is that the rules are made by the UK Government and disputes are decided by the UK Government. We’re still in a position where we have started a dispute resolution process over the Northern Ireland money with the UK Government and they are refusing to take it through the dispute resolution process of the JMC because they say that there is no dispute. Well, clearly there is. Now, we can’t have a situation like that continuing in the future, and, as I’ve said before, the JMC needs to evolve into a proper UK council of Ministers that deals with devolved issues and that takes soundings, at the very least, on non-devolved issues, in order for the UK to work properly.

In terms of the legal advice and the power grab, I could have given her that for nothing, because we know that’s the case already. She will know, in the discussions that have taken place between our parties in the past few months, that we all agree there’s going to be a power grab. That’s what clause 11 says. It would prevent the Assembly from using powers that would come to us automatically if they weren’t diverted down a side track to Whitehall. As I’ve said before, I cannot come before this Assembly and suggest to the Assembly that it should voluntarily give up powers that would arrive on its doorstep for an indefinite period. I’m not prepared to do that, and clearly that is still the position at the moment. More work needs to be done.

On the ports, again, it’s something that I’ve raised with both the UK Government and the Irish Government. I raised this issue with the Taoiseach. The reality is that 70 per cent of the trade between GB and Ireland goes through the Welsh ports. If it’s seen as easier to go through Liverpool and Cairnryan and Troon in Scotland into Northern Ireland, and then down over what would be a more seamless border, we will lose trade and we will lose jobs. That seems very clear to me. And so would Ireland, for that matter—so would the Republic of Ireland.

On the questions that she asks me, do I regret the triggering of article 50? No. I think that was in keeping with the referendum result. Do I regret the lack of progress since then? Yes, very much so. Very much so. I would have hoped there would have been much more progress than this by now. On the withdrawal Bill, yes, it’s been delayed. There are clearly problems as far as the UK Government is concerned, on many different fronts. We made it very clear to them that we’re not prepared to move, the Scots and ourselves. We’re not prepared to move on the current situation until we get satisfaction and the comfort that we need on behalf of the people of Wales that powers will arrive here as they should.

Finally, on the issue of ‘no deal’, yes, we can prepare for a ‘no deal’, but I cannot mislead people by saying that we can mitigate completely what the ‘no deal’ means. We just can’t. If our farmers cannot access—. If our sheep farmers cannot access the European market, which is by far the biggest export market for Welsh lamb, there is no other market where they can sell in at short notice. It’s not possible. No matter what people get paid in subsidy, they will find themselves with animals that they cannot sell, and that means the price will drop, as we know. There is no mitigating about that. We have gone out over the years, we have got Welsh lamb into other countries. When I was rural affairs Minister, we worked hard to get Welsh lamb into Dubai, and I know the Llywydd did as well when she succeeded me in that role. It has pride of place in supermarkets in Dubai now. We have other markets around the world where we have expanded Welsh lamb and its reach, but the reality is the European market is still, by far, the biggest market.

There are real issues in terms of the automotive sector and what the tariffs mean for that. A lot of our companies have operated on the basis that they’re European operations—Airbus is the same, the automotive industry is the same. To create an artificial barrier between one much smaller part of that operation and the rest of it makes no sense as far as I’m concerned. So, yes, we can help, but I cannot, hand on my heart, say that it’s possible to mitigate entirely the effect of no deal. If there’s no market then all you can really do is offer people an alternative to what they do already and say, ‘Sorry, you can’t export any more at the same level, we’re going to have shift you and we’ll have to retrain you as something else.’

For me, the way to avoid that is to say no to a ‘no deal’, frankly. Nobody said in the referendum last year that there would be no deal—nobody said it. All the leavers said there would be a deal: there would be a deal, and it would be a deal on the UK’s terms, the German car manufactures would enforce it, and we could be in the EEA. Nobody said, last year, that if we leave the EU, then we should leave everything and go to WTO rules. Nobody said it. And that was a deception; it was wishful thinking by people who came up with ideas that supported their own view on the world.

Finally, what is absolutely crucial is that those in Westminster and outside who think that the future of Wales and the UK and their relationship with the EU should be based on the principles of what seems to me to be nineteenth-century nationalism—that those people should be opposed at every opportunity. We are prepared to work with those in the UK Government who are pragmatic, who want to see the best outcome from Brexit, but that really does mean that we cannot pretend that we’re living in Victorian times and the world will fall at our feet.