Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:56 pm on 5 June 2018.

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Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 1:56, 5 June 2018

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Well, let's just examine that. As I've said—[Interruption.] As I've said—[Interruption.] I mean, you've got to admire his brass neck. You've got to admire his brass neck more than anything else, and his ability to ignore the chaos that his party has created in London, and the fact that Cabinet Government as we know it doesn't exist, actually, in Whitehall under his party.

He asked the question: what's our view? Our view has always been, and I've said this many, many times in the Chamber, that any deal should be approved by the Parliaments—plural—of the UK. That's the situation. If that doesn't happen, well, it could well be there's another election. There would have to be another election. If there is then an inconclusive result, there'd have to be some way of settling it, but we're some way away from that. So, our view as a Government is quite simply this: let the Parliaments of the UK decide as to whether the final deal is a good one or not. 

I come back again to his point. There's an element of incredible double standards in the Tory party, and let me say why. I don't advocate a second referendum on Brexit. I don't advocate that, because I remember his party saying in 1997 that the result of the devolution referendum was too close that there needed to be another referendum, and they stood on that manifesto commitment in a general election. And now they say, 'Well, of course, that was then, this is now.' I don't have that double standard; I argued against a second referendum then, I argue against a second referendum now on the issue of Brexit. When he wants to lecture us about our position, he needs to take a long hard look at his own party and the mess that the leader of the UK is in, the complete lack of planning, the complete lack of unity and the complete lack of a Government.