I thank Andrew R.T. Davies for his greeting there, welcoming me up to speak. Well, we heard from Neil Hamilton we should respect our financial masters, we heard from Gareth Bennett 'for Wales, see England', but I'd like to take Members back to 1998, when the Good Friday agreement was drawn up and signed. That was done as a result of a huge amount of work by John Major, a Conservative Prime Minister, Tony Blair, a Labour Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern in Ireland—many, many politicians who brought to an end a conflict that had bedeviled Northern Ireland since 1969 and had its roots back to 1689 and beyond. The conflict that many people thought could not be resolved because of the lack of a common identity that still exists in Northern Ireland, and yet, cross party, we saw politicians come together and negotiate in a mature way an end to a conflict. And look at us now. Look at us now—a laughing stock. A country that not just is proud of breaking international law, but admits it. States have broken international law for years—the US did it, the Soviet Union did it in the cold war, states still do it now, but I don't think anyone actually was dull enough to actually admit it. 

And here we have ourselves as a country. For years, we have said to others, 'Look at us, we're a beacon of freedom, of democracy, of liberty, because we are a rules-based country, we respect international rules', and here we are, a lawbreaker. How can we possibly preach to others in the future if we are self-confessed lawbreakers ourselves? That is something that has come not just in Parliament from Brandon Lewis as a Minister, but something he has reiterated and has today caused the resignation of Lord Keen, the Advocate General in Scotland, because he respects his professional reputation. That is how bad a situation we are in. 

Let's just remind ourselves: the Prime Minister agreed this withdrawal agreement, Parliament approved it on 23 January 2020—Boris Johnson was the Prime Minister. He said it was an oven-ready deal, an oven-ready deal. Well, the baked Alaska's an Eton mess now, isn't it, because now there is no deal. He has gone back on a deal he himself agreed with, and do you know why? He didn't read it. He didn't read it. I said at the time that this would put a border down the middle of the Irish Sea. The Democratic Unionist Party said it at the time—not my bedfellows, I have to say. The Prime Minister disagreed. And now, nine months later, oh dear, the chickens are coming home to roost. He didn't read the thing at the time, and here is the situation that we find ourselves in. 

He trumpeted it. He advocated it. He supported it. He said this was a deal that would be the withdrawal agreement that would get the UK out of the EU, and now he's going back on it. How stupid does that make us look as a country, and how does that reflect on the Prime Minister? Why would any country trust the UK in a trade negotiation? Why? Because here we have the UK agreeing something then un-agreeing it. Why on earth would anyone trust us? That's the problem. No country with that kind of reputation—. And we see, of course, that Dominic Raab has scuttled off to America, because he can see the effect this is having on American politics and what that will mean for a UK-US trade deal, and here we have a Foreign Secretary who's in that position. 

And let me be quite clear: I agree there have to be rules within the UK single market. I absolutely agree. We cannot have a scenario where Welsh goods cannot go into England—clearly not, and for reasons well made by Darren Millar and others. We clearly cannot have a situation where it is more difficult to invest in one part of the UK because of barriers. We can't have a situation where there are no rules at all—advocated, actually, by the DUP—because in a no-rules internal market the biggest wins, and the biggest is England. We can't win that battle, and we should welcome a rules-based internal market. I welcome that; I think that's absolutely right. My difficulty is this: the UK Government has a direct conflict of interest—it's also the Government of England. It isn't in a situation where it is an overarching federal Government that only represents the entire country—it's also the Government of England. How can we be confident that a UK Government that is the Government of England as well as the Government of the UK will be fair to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? That's the problem I have. It's the equivalent of the German Government dictating to the rest of the EU exactly what the terms of trade within the EU should be. 

It would have been far better if this could have been agreed, and I think it could have been agreed—it could have been agreed. We could have had the four Governments of the UK agreeing on a common set of rules. It's in everybody's interest, even the Scottish National Party, for that to happen, because it's not in the SNP's interest for Scotland to lose access to the UK's internal single market. How much better it would have been if this had been done on the basis of agreement, of consensus, rather than imposition. And I say to the Conservatives opposite: I understand their passion for the union. I understand their need to defend what their Government is doing. I understand that. But surely you can see that by appearing to impose on Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland for that matter, that weakens the union. It doesn't strengthen the union—it weakens it.

The days of the nineteenth century and parliamentary sovereignty to my mind are gone. We need a better constitution, a better UK, and, in that way, we can prosper. I don't buy that independence is the only answer, but I believe this is an equal partnership of nations; Darren Millar is right about that. Let's make it so, let's have a constitution fit for the twenty-first century, and let's move away from this situation where it's simply a matter of Westminster imposes and the rest of us have to accept.