Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:18 pm on 16 January 2019.
Well, I agree with what Alun Davies said about us running out of time, and that should be no surprise to anybody. We've been warned about that for many, many months, that the clock is ticking away. Now we're in the final part of leaving the European Union, and we need more time. We need more time to have the discussions that Alun Davies referred to. There's more than one way in which that could be brought about. I have called today for a suspension of the article 50 timetable, and I think there will be a willingness on the part of the European Union to agree to that, provided they know, in the way that Alun Davies said, that the discussions that are to be held over the next few days are not about tweaking Mrs May's deal at the margins. That will never satisfy 230 Members of the House of Commons. The Prime Minister has to abandon her failed and flawed policy of negotiating through a series of red lines, constantly telling everybody else what she will not agree to. She needs to find out what other people are prepared to agree to. She has to show the flexibility that genuine leadership would involve, and in that way, given the time that Alun Davies has pointed to, there is still an opportunity to do a deal that would be in line with the prospectus set out in 'Securing Wales' Future' and would allow us to leave the European Union in a way that protects our long-term interests.