Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:05 pm on 27 March 2019.
We've also been told that the pro-Brexit campaign was founded upon lies. Well, truth is many-sided, as we know, and all election campaigns on both sides or all sides are characterised by distortions, exaggerations, misrepresentation and, yes, by outright lies. What about the 3 million jobs that we were going to lose if we even contemplated the prospect of leaving the EU, or the Treasury's own prediction that if the public had the temerity to vote for Brexit, let alone complete the process, then unemployment in this country would rise to 800,000 two years ago, since when, of course, it has halved and we now have the lowest levels of unemployment for 45 years.
I well remember when we were debating going into the European Union, as it now is, 50 years ago, we were told it was a common market and it was nothing to do with political union at all and that Britain had nothing to fear—it was no more really than a free trade area with a few bells and whistles. And I remember Edward Heath saying in order to get his majority—it got through by a majority of eight, actually, in the House of Commons on the crucial motion; I was there outside at the time; I remember it very vividly—he said that it was no intention of the Government of the day to take Britain into the European Economic Community, as it then was, without the full-hearted consent of Parliament and people. Well, the people were never consulted because it wasn't in the Conservative manifesto, even in the 1970 election, and it was rammed through by the most ruthless whipping, as I said a moment ago, on a majority of eight in the crucial vote. There was never full-hearted consent, and that is why this debate has rumbled on for all these years.
In the intervening period of time, of course, we've had numerous treaties which have enlarged the competence of the European institutions and have reduced the roles of national parliaments, therefore have increased the power of unelected technocrats at the expense of those who owe their positions to election by the people. And there's never been a referendum in Britain on any of those, in spite of the fact that it has, from time to time, been promised.
Let's look back to the Lisbon treaty itself, which was originally called the European constitution. If it's a European constitution, it gives the lie to the idea that the EU is never going to develop into some kind of federal superstate; that was the whole point of it in the first place. That's what Monnet and Schuman actually wanted back in the 1940s, but the people have never been allowed to have their say. And Gordon Brown promised a referendum and then he denied it to them, and the Conservatives have done exactly the same thing, until David Cameron was forced by UKIP, breathing down the necks of Tory MPs who feared losing their seats, to promise one, which eventually produced the reason why we're debating this today.
So, the founders of the EU, Monnet and Schuman, saw democracy as a problem, because in the 1930s dictators had managed to whip up emotions amongst the mob, and therefore they thought that if you allowed the people to decide on who had the levers of power in their hands, that that was a very bad thing and, therefore, democracy was a problem. It was a 1940s answer to a 1930s problem, and that's why the structure of the EU is as it is. We have an unelected commission that is appointed for five years, with a Council of Ministers that is very, very indirectly elected through the governmental systems of the individual member states, and there is no means of the people holding these to account, because it's a shifting membership all the time. We don't have elections for the whole of Europe. There is no way in which you can turf out the Government of the European Union, and that is why we've arrived at the place today where a majority of the British people want to leave the EU.
And it is the politicians who don't accept that who are causing the difficulties. Forty nine out of the 60 Members of this Assembly are remainers. Four hundred and eighty out of the 650 MPs are remainers, and it's because of their shenanigans trying to deny to the people of this country what they voted for by a majority just two and a half years ago that all the shot and shell that we hear about is taking place.
What we've discovered, I think, in the last couple of years, though, is the utter pointlessness of the Tory party as a vehicle to deliver Brexit. They triggered article 50 without a plan; they've done nothing since to prepare for life outside the EU; their nominal policy is to leave the single market, the customs union and the jurisdiction of the European court; they've done nothing to build the infrastructure and facilities required by independent countries to manage their trade, and all that should have started in 2016—it hasn't started yet. We should have done all that by the time the article 50 process was completed. The article 50 process is effectively completed because we've had to ask for an extension, but absolutely nothing has been done by the Government of the day to prepare us for life outside the EU. So, yes, it would cost us more than it need do if we were to leave without a deal this week, but that is not the fault of Brexit; that is the fault of having a remainer Prime Minister with a remainer Cabinet in a remainer House of Commons, which has been determined to try to frustrate the will of the British people, and, yes, I do believe that that is a betrayal of the trust that the electorate has placed in them. I believe that the Prime Minister always intended this process to fail, and that's why she has not made those preparations.
Negotiations about a future trade deal should have started in 2016. They haven't even started three years later, and it's clear from the deal that we have paid £39 billion to be stuck in the EU indefinitely, with no voice, no vote, no veto, no unilateral freedom to leave. We are actually in a worse place than we were at the time that article 50 was triggered. It's a Carthaginian peace without a war, an unparalleled humiliation for Britain and a betrayal of Brexit. We are the fifth largest economy in the world, the eighth largest manufacturing country, we have English as a global language, London as the world's greatest financial centre, we have a massive trade deficit with the EU, we pay a huge amount in budgetary contributions, and the EU is shrinking as a force in world trade. I'm amazed—this is my last point I shall come to—that the Tory party in this place has deleted from our motion,
'Regrets that...the EU has taken power away from elected national parliaments', that it will not note that
'national vetoes in favour of majority voting' have become the order of the day within the EU, and that it doesn't accept that
'the European project is a relentless force, promoted by the EU’s permanent institutions' and it doesn't call
'on the UK Government to focus all efforts on reaching a free trade agreement'.
That tells you all you need to know about the Tory party as a vehicle for Brexit and as a party that has good intentions and good faith to deliver on what the British people voted for two and a half years ago, and I urge the Assembly therefore to vote for our motion this afternoon.