6. Plaid Cymru Debate: A confirmatory European Union referendum

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:31 pm on 5 June 2019.

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Photo of David Rowlands David Rowlands UKIP 5:31, 5 June 2019

I'm rather reluctant to follow on from the last person to speak because he said so many good and right things before I even stand on my feet. And I congratulate you on the way that you delivered that, Hefin.

So, the 2016 European Union membership referendum, to give it its correct name, asked the people of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland if they wanted to leave or remain in the EU. I think we should be mindful that the people of the UK were never actually asked if they wanted to be members of a European Union. We were only asked if we wanted to join a common market. And if, as you say, there were lies on the side of a bus, perhaps even that, if it was a lie, pales into insignificance when you think of the lies that actually took us into Europe. We were told there would never be a loss of sovereignty; no loss of supremacy of our British courts; never to be asked to go into a single currency; no loss of our fishing grounds. I could go on with many, many more of the lies that were told us to take us into the European Union.

Although legally the referendum was non-binding, the Government at the time promised to implement the result. The fiasco that followed showed that our politicians' words are of no real value. Brexiteers are being blamed for the division that now clearly exists in the UK population, but it is the remainers' non-acceptance of the democratic referendum that has caused the divide, and surely it is the rhetoric of remainers that is poisoning the debate as we have recently witnessed with the deposed leader of Plaid sharing a post that likens Brexiteers to Nazis. She is, of course, not referring to the Brexit Party in this post, but to all the people—