I listened to Neil Hamilton. I have to say, he seems to forget his role in destroying the Welsh economy in much of the 1980s and 1990s. If I had stood here and said 18 years of Conservative Government were an absolute disaster and that is a reason then to get rid of the UK Government, he would say, 'No, no, no. It was because people voted for the Conservative Party in Government', and that's a legitimate viewpoint. In the same way, it's a legitimate viewpoint to say that people have voted for a Labour-led Government in Wales over the past 21 years, otherwise the risk lies in saying that somehow people are too stupid to understand how they voted, and that is the reality of it.

Now, I very much welcome what Darren Millar said, in some ways, because I think it's important that the Welsh Conservative Party becomes a proper Welsh Conservative Party with a proper leader, which you don't have yet, with a proper leader, and then outlines and puts itself forward as an alternative government, whilst accepting the institutions of devolution. I think that's very fair—as long as you remain an alternative government, from my perspective, but I think that's absolutely what is right for the Welsh body politic. I try to be as objective as possible.

What I did disagree with, and I'll come back to it in a second, is his view of the constitution as tinkering, and I'll explain why. I listened carefully to Gareth Bennett, and if he'd only realised it, he was making the case for another Brexit referendum, because if you say, 'Well you have to have a referendum every 15 to 20 years', well that applies to any subject. We'd have another referendum on AV, for example, on the voting system. We would continue to have referendums on Sunday opening. They were every seven years, of course, up until 1996, but that is the argument, essentially, he was making, that generations change therefore you must have a referendum every now and again to make sure that people are supportive of an institution, whereas I would say you judge that through an election. If a party, or parties, were elected to this place with a majority and said, 'We want a referendum on abolition', well there it is, then. That's the way you win an argument, by winning an election, not by demanding something that—especially from somebody who sits for a party that he did not get elected to this Chamber to represent—is not an attractive democratic argument.

If he listened to himself, he was making the case for the abolition of the Scottish Parliament. Now, if there was ever anything that would drive neutral voters in Scotland towards independence, that would be it. And he also implied that we'd see the abolition of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Now, 25 years of war led to the establishment of peace in Northern Ireland and that Assembly and its Executive. To simply dismiss it as an irrelevance is an act of gross irresponsibility. Now, I remember what Northern Ireland was like. Nobody would want to go back to what it was in 1992, believe me. My wife grew up in the middle of it, and to suggest somehow you just get rid of the Northern Ireland Assembly as if there were no consequences, in a society where there is no shared identity, is frankly—and I use this word advisedly—barmy. 

But we have to remember, of course, that independence, in itself, can often be a cataclysmic event. Yes, there are examples of independence that was peaceful—the Czech Republic, the Slovaks, Iceland, Norway, going back more years—but quite often independence is accompanied by a great deal of bitterness and sometimes war—Yugoslavia, Ireland. Ireland had two years of civil war straight after independence, and there was then a low-level war that was fought in Ireland for at least 70 years that hugely affected its economy and hugely affected its people's identity. Thankfully those days are behind it. 

And so my argument is basically this: I think there's an alternative. Now, for those of you who have trouble sleeping, you will know that I've given some lectures on this, recently in Aberystwyth University and elsewhere. The point is this: I believe in a sovereign Wales, but I believe that we can share that sovereignty with the other three entities within the UK. It's a kind of confederation. Now, I grant you that shared sovereignty doesn't have the same resonance electorally as 'Free Wales' or 'Rule Britannia', and it's a difficult concept to explain, but I say this to Darren Millar in the spirit of debate: I think we've moved well beyond constitutional tinkering; this is fundamental to the future of the UK. It's because of the constitutional inadequacy of the UK that we have these tensions. We have an opportunity now to set things right, get a constitution that works, where everybody understands where they stand and who does what, an equal partnership of four nations and one where sovereignty is held by each of the four nations but shared for the common good in areas where it is right to do so. I do fear that, if we don't go down that path, in 10 years' time, the UK will be a memory, and that is something, personally, that I'd regret.