The post-Brexit scenario for farming in Wales looks bleak. A sovereign parliament could take a lead by making cannabis a new growth industry. There are so many medicinal uses for the plant, and it’s an emerging industry in many parts of the world. A sovereign Wales could control our own natural resources, and crucially derive income from them. I’ve had enough of seeing our natural resources being plundered and given away. Our water is taken away and sold back to us. Our houses are bought up en masse and rented back to us. It’s time for the circular economy, for localism, with an end to neoliberalism and an end to austerity.

Sovereign Estonia has just introduced free travel for everybody in that country. Why? Because 75 per cent of the population voted for it. Sovereignty brings options. In Wales right now, we don’t even have the power to ensure that our children can travel to school safely, because we're unable to legislate on putting seat belts on service buses. A sovereign Wales would have an independent legal jurisdiction. And in a sovereign Wales, everyone would have a stake, every citizen would have rights and responsibilities, with a radical equality for all. Every state in the USA has a constitution, so why not Wales? The criminal justice system could be based on fairness and rehabilitation—no superprisons, fewer inmates, but toughness when required.

A sovereign Wales could have control over energy policy. We're already more than self-sufficient with electricity. We could invest in renewables, tidal lagoons—not nuclear—and we could export electricity, once again deriving a profit. A sovereign Welsh Parliament could usher in a green revolution with energy, clean energy, costing us pennies every month instead of the small fortune that it does. And that would have the knock-on effect of making our businesses and industries more competitive. A sovereign Wales could reinvent and revive mining, but in a virtual sense, with the mining of digital currencies, making a profit in a new, twenty-first century industry.

Wales has so much potential. We are a strong and resilient nation, and the last 800 years have proved that. In these islands, we need to turn democracy on its head—bottom up instead of top down. We should enable sovereign parliaments in Wales, England and Scotland, with further democracy emerging through those parliaments: democratic renewal from communities up, decentralist in nature. On certain matters, it would make sense for our nations to share sovereignty, but it would be for the people of those nations to decide.

I’ll finish with a story about a bus trip I went on in Iceland, where we were passing some mountains. On the left, I could see them, and the guide picked up a microphone and explained that, in 1935, Iceland was the poorest country in Europe. They were so poor back then that people lived in caves in the mountains that she was pointing at. But then, she explained, in 1944, Iceland became a sovereign country, breaking Danish domination. And she said that, in Iceland then, they had a government making decisions in the interests of the people of Iceland, planning for Iceland and not Denmark. She proudly stated that Iceland is now one of the wealthiest countries in the world per head of population. Now, nobody on that bus thought the woman was a nationalist, and she didn't claim to be. She was a normal woman, wanting the best for her family, for her community and her country, just like all of us do who believe in sovereignty for Wales. Diolch yn fawr.