2. Debate on the EU Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:33 pm on 4 December 2018.

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Photo of Mr Neil Hamilton Mr Neil Hamilton UKIP 2:33, 4 December 2018

Diolch, Llywydd. I agree, but from a completely different perspective, with much of what the Cabinet Secretary has just said. But we need to understand that the background to this is the result of the referendum that was held two and a half years ago. And, without any kind of qualification, the people voted to leave the EU. They didn't vote to give the UK Government a mandate to negotiate, nor, indeed, to bring back to them the terms of the results of that negotiation. What this agreement does not do is deliver on that vote. In fact, it is, in political terms, a national humiliation, a capitulation, which has given the EU everything, and, actually, given the UK nothing. It doesn't take back control of our laws, take back control of our money, or take back control of our borders. As I've said previously, there is no rational explanation to what Theresa May has achieved, except some kind of deliberate sabotage strategy on her part, whereby, in the two years allowed under article 50 to negotiate a deal with the EU, we do absolutely nothing to prepare for the failure of those negotiations, the result of which is we now have a dog's breakfast of an agreement, so-called, with the EU, and a gun placed at our head, saying 'Take it or leave it.' And the 'take it' proposal basically means that we don't leave the EU in anything other than a formal sense. 

Everything that the EU wanted out of these negotiations it's got in the withdrawal agreement, which is legally binding. Everything that the UK might want is in the political declaration, which is not. And the transition period that has been agreed, under article 32, keeps us in the EU for an indefinite period, because article 32 says, in effect, that this agreement shall terminate in the year 20XX. So, there's no means by which we can extricate ourselves from this agreement without the EU's approval. It leaves us with no voice, no vote, and no veto in the EU. Theresa May has achieved what I think anybody would have thought at the start of this process was the impossible of producing an outcome that is even worse than staying in the EU itself. It consigns the United Kingdom to a period of purgatory, when we will have to try and expiate our anti-federalist sins at the EU's behest, whilst actually achieving nothing in practical terms from leaving the EU. This negotiation has been completely bungled, and the best outcome now that we can expect is that, on 29 March next year, I hope that this agreement will be rejected by the House of Commons and we leave the European Union, not without a deal, but on the same terms on which we deal with the rest of the world—the World Trade Organization's terms.