Can the Counsel General really be surprised that the UK Government hasn't taken him seriously in asking for a role in this negotiating mandate? He mentions constructive engagement, and he doesn't want that at all; he wants destructive engagement. He has remained consistently and belligerently hostile to all the negotiating aims of the UK Government. The people of Wales voted by a majority to leave the EU, and in the last four years, the Counsel General and the Welsh Government have done everything they possibly can to frustrate the outcome of that referendum. We have now left the EU. There are opportunities as well as challenges ahead, but the Counsel General never sees opportunities; he only sees difficulties. The UK Government will plough ahead and deliver on the result of the referendum in 2016, to which the Welsh Government remains as hostile today as it has been in the whole time that I've been in this Assembly. 

At a micro level, I think the Welsh Government could have played an important part in developing this negotiating mandate, but because of the public belligerence against the entire project of the UK Government, he will never be taken seriously. He is not so much wanting to play a part in the negotiations of the UK, but wanting to play a part in the negotiations of the EU; he is a Trojan horse for Monsieur Barnier.