The negotiations between the government and the opposition have broken down, destroyed by the jockeying for prominence of would-be Conservative leaders, and we know that there is no appetite in the parliamentary Conservative party for a form of Brexit that we had consistently advocated, one that retains participation in the single market and a customs union.
The prime minister is quitting and her deal is in tatters. It seems inevitable, given the bizarre process and the wholly unrepresentative electorate that will provide us with her successor, that in July we will have a prime minister who will demand, in a show of bravado, if nothing else, that the EU27 reopens negotiations of the withdrawal agreement. This will be rejected, and the government will set a course to a ‘no deal’ Brexit …
We sought to reconcile the result of the 2016 referendum with the least damaging kind of Brexit, but that effort has now reached the end of the road.
The European elections have shown that the electorate remains profoundly divided, and, indeed, the split has widened, with many of those who voted for Brexit in the 2016 referendum now supporting no deal, and many, probably a majority, wanting us to remain within the European Union. Faced by this sort of binary choice, we are clear that, almost three years on from the referendum, and more than two years after we put forward ‘Securing Wales’ Future’, we as a government must recognise these realities and change course …
So, as a government, we will now campaign to remain in the EU. And to make that happen, parliament should now show the courage to admit it is deadlocked and legislate for a referendum, with ‘remain’ on the ballot paper.
