Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:28 pm on 27 March 2019.
Diolch, Llywydd. There's a temptation, as our fate is being decided tonight in that other Parliament by a series of pink slips—there's a redundancy metaphor there that I could develop—[Laughter.]—for us to hold our breath, but even as Westminster collapses into cacophony, we need to struggle even further to make our voices heard.
Sixty years ago, a former Conservative Prime Minister referred to the wind of change sweeping through another continent. Brexit, if it happens, will be a wind of change between us and the continent, but let's be clear about one thing: it will be a destructive one. In Westminster, over two and a half years, it has raged like a maelstrom, it has defenestrated our political institutions and it's eaten away at the very foundations of our democracy. Westminster itself has become a spinning weathervane, facing all ways at once, and at the heart of the vortex is a vacuum where once there was a Government. Now, Brexit has already done deep damage to our democratic culture, to civility, to tolerance, and that damage will not be undone easily or quickly, whatever happens. We should have no illusions about that. It's done damage because of one simple fact: the main proponents of Brexit lied to us. There is an honest case to be made to end the relationship between ourselves and the European Union. It's not, in my view, a particularly strong or compelling one, which is why it's not the one that was made. I give way in regret—[Inaudible.]