Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:53 pm on 2 July 2019.

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Photo of Mark Reckless Mark Reckless Conservative 1:53, 2 July 2019

So, First Minister, you claim to want to avoid 'no deal', but the only measure that has passed the House of Commons has been one that the backstop should be replaced with alternative arrangements. And whatever your own views, surely you recognise that it is that backstop that is a massive barrier to reaching and passing an agreement that would allow us to leave the EU with a deal rather than without a deal. And there is nowhere more than Ireland, as well as parts of the United Kingdom—at least in the near term—that will have significant challenges if there is no deal. If we want to avoid that, surely instead of expressing incredulity about how our own country voted, we should be supporting the case for us to agree sensible arrangements, instead of a backstop that locks us into the customs union and single market unless they give us permission to leave that we cannot agree.

So, I see the Foreign Office have now extended its policy of making you travel by bus in Brussels to the Scottish Government, following the First Minister there promoting independence on a trip to the United States with Foreign Office facilities. First Minister, you talked just now of the £13 billion fiscal gap we would face if we were independent in Wales, yet you pal up with the SNP as if you lead a Government that wants to break up the United Kingdom in a country that voted 'remain'. [Interruption.] But you don’t, and we didn’t. First Minister, do you recognise that hundreds of thousands of people, who used to vote Labour, voted 'leave'? First Minister, haven’t you now betrayed them as a party of 'remain'?