Llywydd, first of all, I would like to thank you and fellow Members for agreeing to the staging of this debate in the Assembly this afternoon. In bringing this debate forward, I would like to explain why we believe this Parliament should not agree to the EU withdrawal agreement conditionally agreed by the UK Government and the European Council last Thursday as it is currently drafted. I would also like to explain our approach to considering legislative consent for the withdrawal Bill. Let me start with the deal—with the agreement reached. This includes two elements: first of all, the withdrawal agreement, which will bind the UK under international law, and, secondly, the political declaration, which is an intermediate framework essentially and which notes the intention of both sides in terms of the longer term relationship.

In the case of the withdrawal agreement, the only element that has changed since the previous element agreed with Theresa May is the protocol on Northern Ireland. This is interesting in and of itself because many Conservative Members of Parliament, including many Cabinet members, seem to have had a Damascene conversion. Their opposition to many elements of the agreement appears to have disappeared. To give you two examples, I could list their unwillingness for there to be a continuing role for the European Court of Justice in terms of citizens’ rights, and, secondly, on the payment in terms of unconcluded commitments.

The political statement has changed more substantially, but it has changed in a way that is entirely contrary to what we would have wanted to see, weakening the relationship between us in the future to being one that would be based on a free trade agreement alone.