I recall that during the campaign leading up to the second EU referendum, one of the selling points made by some leading Brexiteers was that we could be like Switzerland, being totally independent but gaining all the benefits of strong links with Europe with a series of treaties covering different areas of cooperation. Our new Welsh Secretary was typical of the attitude in 2016, in a debate on the Wales Bill, he intervened:
Does the hon. Gentleman {Stephen Doughty] agree that the citizens of Switzerland and Norway are Europeans and may be proud to be European? They are just as European as anyone else in Europe, and he would be just as European as a Norwegian or a Swiss person is after Brexit takes place.I would guess that "Top Cat" is one of those Conservatives cited in yesterday's press "warning the prime minister that there can be no attempts to strike a Swiss-style trading relationship with the EU". Whoever is in the group mounting that threat, it is a sizeable one. It demonstrates that there is a hard core of Brexiteers who never saw Brexit as a means to increasing the wealth of the nation or of its people.
4 comments:
"We"? Wales or your beloved UK?
Preferably both, but at least Wales in the unlikely situation that the Welsh government can negotiate a separate deal with the EU, EEA or EFTA.
But you oppose Welsh independence, but fail to say why.
I do not believe I have ever said directly that Wales should not be independent. I may have pointed out some of the difficulties faced by a completely independent Wales, but I have also advocated more transfer of powers from Westminster to Cardiff. A continuous process of devolution may or may not lead to independence, but what is important is what works for the people of Wales.
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