Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:39 pm on 12 December 2017.
Thank you for the offer, Joyce, but there is no time.
Now, we have to make a distinction here between the very genuine and meaningful rights that we enjoy here in the United Kingdom that have evolved over 1,000 years and more, and the very narrowly focused minority rights stuff that we get told, today, signifies human rights.
We have a functioning democracy here in the UK. We have basic freedoms, and these things have existed in effect for a long time—regardless of whether or not they are specifically written down. Obviously, we don't have a written constitution, but we have a bill of rights, among other things. You can trace these rights back to the Magna Carta in 1215, but they go back even before that to Alfred the Great, who was, to some extent, the English lawgiver. These rights are nothing to do with the European Court of Justice or the European Court of Human Rights, or with any other international organisation. They are rights that evolved here in the United Kingdom, and we won't lose these rights with Brexit. They also don't have anything to do with Amnesty International or Liberty or any other group that is fixated on minority rights.
What we have to understand, in terms of minority rights, is that minorities are members of society. Therefore they—