I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this somewhat fiery debate today. Since the referendum and since entering the Assembly, I've done all I can to try and unite those people who voted to leave and those who voted to remain in the EU in my constituency. It would be naive to second-guess exactly why each and every person voted the way they did, although I do believe in some of the comments made by Alun Davies there. But also what is really clear to me—when I spoke to constituents, and those included students, businesses, older voters and others, it is clear that they voted in the hope that their lives and living standards would get better. Nobody wanted to vote to make themselves poorer or to be worse off.

Llywydd, earlier this month, I had the opportunity to host a Brexit conference, which we discussed in this Chamber before, and the views and findings from that conference were very clear: people wanted clarity for future investments, they wanted people to work together cross-party, and they wanted the Prime Minister to rule out a 'no deal'. I still believe to this day that the Prime Minister has been on the back foot and has been far too slow to rule out that no deal. Any view that not doing so is somehow strengthening her negotiating hand is a farce, and because that hasn't been the case so far, despite the Prime Minister's so-called tough approach to Europe, she has had to face embarrassing defeats and our reputation around the world has been damaged.

The Prime Minister should have and could have extended that hand of friendship, not just to those in Europe but to MPs across the House of Commons, AMs in this place and especially to the business community. The Prime Minister did not have to do this alone, but as a result she has been found wanting. And it's not the well off who will suffer and it's not us directly in this Chamber who will suffer. It's the people, like many of my constituents, who struggle every single day to make ends meet: those on universal credit, those who go to food banks, those struggling to make their mortgage payments, those taking the risks to start new business and those who work for businesses that trade with Europe. And I'm not prepared, Llywydd, to see those people suffer because politicians can't work together because certain politicians—