That brings us to the emergency question, as I have accepted an emergency question under Standing Order 12.67. I call on Adam Price to ask that question.

Will the First Minister make a statement on the Welsh Government’s policy on Brexit following the rejection of the EU-UK withdrawal agreement in the House of Commons last night? (EAQ0005)

Thank you for that question.

The Welsh Government policy remains unchanged from that set out in 'Securing Wales' Future', published following the 2016 referendum and jointly with Plaid Cymru. We remain committed to participation in a customs union and the single market, dynamic alignment with the social, environmental and labour market standards of the European Union. We believe that the UK Government should take 'no deal' off the table, as such a cliff-edge exit from the European Union will have, we believe, a catastrophic impact on the economy and the people of Wales. These are the positions that have been endorsed by this National Assembly in recent debates on Brexit and the European Union negotiations—endorsed here on 15 January and on 30 January, and in the joint debate held last week in both the National Assembly and in the Scottish Parliament.

Two weeks ago, it was announced with some fanfare that Jeremy Corbyn, having seen eight of his MPs leave the party, had embraced the policy of a people's vote. Two months ago, you agreed to accept a motion that called on the UK Government to make immediate preparations for a further referendum. So, why did the statement your Government released on Monday, and presumably the associated letter to the British Government, not mention a people's vote once? Why, yesterday, did Jeremy Corbyn not mention a people's vote—your own party's policy—a single time in his 24-minute Commons speech? Why, in response to the vote, did he say that the purpose of extending article 50 was to replace Mrs May's 'dead Brexit' with his 'red Brexit'? That is virtually identical to the policy that Parliament just rejected—'a' customs union, but not 'the' customs union, with a say on EU trade policy, illegal under World Trade Organization rules; close alignment with the single market, but not membership of it. A unicorn is still a fantasy creature, whether painted red or blue. At times like this, we need honest politics. We need people to say what they believe and act accordingly. I think it's pretty clear now that Jeremy Corbyn's embrace of a people's vote was an opportunistic act of grand deception. And if you don't agree with that, First Minister, you're either a liar or a fool. [Interruption.]

Adam Price, personal insults are not acceptable in this Chamber. This is an emergency question, a serious matter, and political name calling at this point is not appropriate. I will ask the First Minister to respond to the substantive points in the question. 

Well, I will, Llywydd, as you suggest, ignore the deeply disrespectful remarks of the leader of Plaid Cymru. These are really serious days, Llywydd, with really serious decisions in front of our country. Why does the leader of Plaid Cymru seek to demean those discussions with the sort of remarks that he's made here this afternoon? I deprecate them—I deprecate them absolutely with every force that I can. He should know better. Really, it does no service at all to our nation for him to introduce this question in the way that he did. 

Let me turn, if I can, to the substance of his question. The statement that the Welsh Government made on Monday of this week was about a very specific matter. It was about the amendments that we have drawn up that we think could secure, through a withdrawal agreement Bill, commitments to the political declaration that could deliver the sort of Brexit that has been endorsed in this Assembly. And that is the policy of this Government. We remain of the belief that a deal is there to be done, a deal of the sort that has been long debated and endorsed here. That would be a deal that would require membership of a customs union, full and unfettered access to and participation in a single market, a sensible approach to migration.

It may be—it may be—that Plaid Cymru has long left behind the commitments that they made here in this Chamber. It may be that Plaid Cymru will be the only party in the whole of the House of Commons to try to put an amendment down today on the people's vote. It may be that Plaid Cymru has departed from that position as well and now is in favour of revocation of article 50. I look forward to Members of Plaid Cymru explaining that to people in their constituencies who voted, as Wales did, to leave the European Union. Our position as a Government has not changed. Our position is the one that we have put repeatedly to this Assembly, and it is the position that this Assembly has repeatedly endorsed. 

I welcome the opportunity for this statement today, and I do think it was quite disrespectful in terms of the way that this question was introduced by the leader of Plaid Cymru. We know that the House of Commons has rejected the Prime Minister's withdrawal deal in spite of the assurances that were given by the EU in relation to the backstop yesterday, and, of course, there will be further votes taking place today, and likely tomorrow, in respect of how the House of Commons wants to take things forward.

What I have been impressed with is the way in which the Welsh Government has been engaging with the UK Government in terms of trying to prepare for the potential outcomes, whether that be no deal or whether it be a deal, and let me make it clear that the Welsh Conservatives are committed to trying to achieve a deal so that we can have an orderly exit from the European Union. We believe that it's imperative on the Government of the people of Wales, the Welsh Government—and let's not forget that Wales voted to leave the EU, and leave we must—it's imperative upon the Welsh Government to work with the UK Government to deliver upon the instructions of the people of Wales. So, can I ask you, First Minister, will you provide assurances to this National Assembly that you will continue to work carefully and closely with the UK Goverment in order to achieve an orderly exit from the EU, whether that be with a deal, which, of course, is preferable, or without?  

Well, Llywydd, of course, it is the responsibility of the Welsh Government to work carefully with the UK Government, as we do with the Scottish Government, and every meeting that we attend with the UK Government is also attended by Ministers of the Scottish National Party on behalf of the Scottish Government too. They understand their responsibilities, we understand ours—would that other Members of this Chamber had a similar grasp of what being in Government actually involves. 

Now, we disagree with the UK Government, as the Member knows. We have long argued that the Prime Minister should have sought a different sort of deal on the floor of the House of Commons and that a majority is still there to be found for a different way of leaving the European Union.

In the meantime, and against the day that we were to crash out of the European Union—an eventuality that we resist on every occasion that we are able to—we do prepare, because that's what responsible Governments have to do. We prepare in the field of food, we prepare in the field of water, we prepare in the field of transport, and we prepare in the field of our economy as well. And we'll go on doing that even in times when we have disagreements—profound disagreements—with the UK Government about the way in which they have approached the whole matter of responding to the referendum in June 2016.

Does the First Minister agree with me that political insults come in many forms and a much more serious insult than any epithet that may fall from the mouth of the leader of Plaid Cymru is the insult that is being hurled at the British people by the House of Commons this week? The British people and the people of Wales, having voted to leave the European Union in an unqualified vote of two and a half years ago, now is being betrayed. As Jean-Claude Juncker once memorably said, 

'There can be no democratic choice against the European treaties.'

And so, many countries in Europe have been obliged to keep on voting until they vote for what the Eurocrats want, if they vote against what they want the first time around. The House of Commons voted to have a referendum by 316 votes to 53. The House of Commons voted by 492 votes to 122 to notify the EU that we were leaving, triggering the article 50 process. They willed the means; now they have to will the end.

Just over 100 years ago, we had a great constitutional battle in this country of the peers versus the people when the House of Lords tried to vote down Lloyd George's budget. Today, it's the whole of Parliament that is against the people, because the House of Commons, having a majority of remainers—480 out of 650—are now trying to defy the will of the British people and overturn the referendum result of two and a half years ago. The House of Commons is in the process of expressing its full contempt for the British people, as indeed this institution has done, because there's an overwhelming majority of remainers here as well. Is the First Minister fearful of the growing gulf that there is between the people of this country and the political class that is set to betray them?

Llywydd, I reject the language of betrayal. I don't share the conspiratorial view that the Member has of what is going on in the House of Commons. I think the House of Commons has struggled to deal with the complexities of Brexit. I think it has gone about its responsibilities in a way that many people find baffling. But I don't think it's anything other than honest. I don't think it's anything other than people trying to grapple with those difficulties and those complexities, even if the answers that have emerged so far do not measure up to the scale of that challenge.

Nobody, Llywydd, I believe, voted in June 2016 to leave the European Union without a deal. That is certainly not what they were told by people who urged them to vote to leave the European Union. We were told, as the Member knows, that it would all be done in the easiest possible way—that all the problems would be amenable to easy solutions and that we would leave the European Union in a way where the sunny uplands would be immediately within our grasp. We know now just how far from the truth that has turned out to be, and I don't think that the way that the House of Commons is grappling with all of that amounts either to an insult or a betrayal, and I reject the view that the Member has put to us this afternoon.

First Minister, many of us witnessed the shambolic events in the House of Commons last night, where we saw, again, a Prime Minister losing a substantive part of her policy for the second time by over 100 in the situation. Clearly, they vote today on the situation regarding whether Parliament wants a 'no deal' or not a 'no deal'. I understand that that is not binding. There's also going to be a vote, possibly tomorrow, on whether we have an extension to article 50, but again, if that is rejected, we go for a 'no deal'. We are accelerating towards a 'no deal' exit, which I believe now is the only vision that the Prime Minister and her Cabinet have for this country, because they've made no effort at all to change that direction. They've made no effort to look at the red lines, because we also know that if the red lines were changed, the EU would be listening very carefully to some of the policies. Is it now time to agree with the vice-chair of the 1922 backbench committee that it's actually time for a general election and to remove this Government?

I thank the Member for that question, and I want to agree with the point that he makes, because there may be votes in the House of Commons today that will seek to remove 'no deal' as an option, but none of us should believe that that actually, by itself, obviates that danger. In fact, I think the danger that we will crash out of the European Union on 29 March has grown, rather than diminished, in recent days, and we remain, as you know, firmly of the view that that is an outcome that would be deeply inimical to the best interests of Wales and people who live here and we will go on doing everything we can to argue against it. But the way that events have unfolded in recent days I think makes that danger greater rather than lesser, and that's why we have worked with others in other parts of the United Kingdom to be as well prepared as it is possible to be against that deeply undesirable eventuality. 

Of course I agree with what David Rees has said, but when a Government in the House of Commons fails not once, but twice, to persuade the House of Commons of the proposition that Government puts to the House of Commons in the single greatest responsibility that will ever fall to that Government, then what we need is a new House of Commons. And that's in the hands of the Prime Minister. She can call a general election. And I still believe that that is what, constitutionally, she ought to do. Because we know that that can be denied to us, then we have said as a Welsh Government—and I say it again this afternoon—that if the House of Commons is deadlocked on this matter, then the decision will have to go back to the people who made it in the first place. 

Does the First Minister agree that the European Union could not have been clearer that there is no scope for a further renegotiation and so therefore we have three basic options: to leave with no deal, which would be catastrophic; to back the Prime Minister's deal, which the Commons refuses to do; or to have a people's vote? And does he agree with me that that equally applies to the advocates of Brexit in our party and that a pig in lipstick is still a pig and that the idea of a jobs-first Brexit is equally unconvincing and ridiculous?

I think there are two further options beyond the three that the Member has outlined, all of which I agree are still in the frame. Another option is the general election option that you've heard from David Rees, and the fifth option is a deal that would meet the criteria set out in our paper 'Securing Wales' Future', in the five tests that were put by the leader of the opposition to the Prime Minister in his letter to her, and which yesterday leading members of the European Union were welcoming as a further and different way in which a deal could be done with the European Union. So, I think we are still in the position where all those options could happen. We reject a number of them. We reject no deal, we reject the Prime Minister's deal; the other options, including the people's vote option that the Member has outlined, remain ways in which this position could be resolved. 

Thank you, First Minister.