Brexit

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:21 pm on 21 May 2019.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:21, 21 May 2019

I thank Lynne Neagle for that. I agree with her that the outlook for Brexit is bleak, in the sense that having secured an extension from the European Union, we now look as though the Prime Minister is determined to put her failed deal back in front of the House of Commons again, with, as far as I can see, no prospect whatsoever of it succeeding. There will then be three months' worth of a Conservative Party leadership contest in which it will be impossible for any sensible Government business to be done.

It really is for the House of Commons to grasp this issue and to put a proper proposition in front of the House of Commons in relation to a second vote, so that, if that is to happen, we can have that decided upon early, so that preparations can be made during the period that we have left. Now, it's for the House of Commons to make that decision, but the day is coming when that decision really has to be made. If it is made, if that is what the House of Commons decides because there is no other way through this impasse, then, of course, it is not a democratic dereliction to return to people and ask them for a second view. Nothing could be more absurd in a place like this, where we all have to face a democratic decision regularly as part of our political lives, to suggest that going back to people and asking them for their view is anything other than to respect that basic democratic proposition. We will see—it is for the House of Commons to make that decision. If they decide—as we've said here many times, if that proposition is put back in front of people here in Wales, the advice of the Welsh Government will be, as it always has been, that Wales's future is better secured through continued membership of the European Union.