Aneurin Bevan once said that

'we know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run down.'

Sadly for my party, that's exactly what happened in the European elections last Thursday. Our failure to grasp the nettle on the most important issue of our times left the door open to a ragbag of opportunists, zealots and charlatans. If there was one thing that did unite that unholy bunch, it was the ability to rally around a single campaign message in the pursuit of victory. It was a brutal political reminder that, whilst it is one thing to be nuanced in the drafting of policy, when it comes to the drafting of history, we simply must be bold.

Members in this Chamber will know all too well my views on the issue of Brexit; my stance is honest and consistent, based entirely on the interests of my constituents. And while I was bitterly disappointed that it took those results for my party to change our approach, I am now only interested in working together for the future, not in rehashing battles gone by. Now is not the time to point fingers; now is the time to unite and to fight on behalf of our communities in Wales. This is a moment of national emergency and nobody in Government or opposition who believes we need to act to confront it should be thinking of party advantage over national interest. Because the other thing that the European elections showed is that there is now no majority for Brexit in Wales or the UK, and, above all, there is no mandate for a 'no deal'.

I therefore warmly welcome the commitment from the First Minister not only to fight for a second referendum but for the guarantee that we will be unequivocal in our support for 'remain' in that campaign. There are no immediate elections for us to concern ourselves with now, no narrow political gains to calculate, just a mountain to climb. Just as those of you in this Chamber know how strong my views have been over these last three years, you will also know that, when it comes to matters of principle, I am, like so many others of us here, ready to work across party lines. For those of us who passionately believe that we must go back to the country, for those of us who know how damaging Brexit will be to Wales, it is time to leave our partisan colours at the door and work together on a 'final say' campaign.

Only this week it was reported that the UK manufacturing sector contracted for the first time since July 2016, as stockpiling eased ahead of Brexit. The research said that firms found difficulty convincing clients to commit to new contracts. We've already had too many examples of companies no longer ready to put up with the risk of what Brexit might mean for them. Businesses kept expecting politicians to make the best of a bad situation. Until now, we've only made matters worse—that has to change. And, as if we needed any more clues as to what our post-Brexit future might look like, then we have been provided with them in spades this week through the visit of the US President. As Sadiq Khan has said, Donald Trump is not just here to spread his hateful views and tweet childish insults, he's here because he wants a post-Brexit trade deal with Britain that would force us to agree to anything he wants. It would mean handing over our beloved NHS to private US healthcare firms and abandoning food safety—