It would certainly be worrying if any major power was able to use dirty tricks to influence the result of a democratic process in any country. It may be worth remembering that it is not that long ago that David Cameron pleaded with Vladimir Putin to interfere in another referendum to ensure that he got the result he wanted. It is important that, if we are going to criticise and call out foreign interference on behalf of our opponents, we should also be prepared to call out foreign interference in our favour.
It is important for the people I represent and the nation that has sent me to this Parliament to be one of its representatives that we seek to retain as much as possible of the benefit of European Union membership, even after we have been forced to temporarily leave it, so we should seek to reverse the Government’s unilateral decision on membership of the single market and the customs union. Plaid Cymru’s short amendment would help to do that by ensuring that, even after leaving the EU, the Government have no authority to leave the European economic area without a further vote of this Parliament.
The first benefit of that would be that the 4 million would be able to relax, if the UK Government say today, “We got it wrong. We’re staying in the European economic area and in the single market.” All the worries about settled status and all the paperwork that people have to go through just to guarantee the rights that they already have would stop, as would all the concerns about how we square the circle of borders or no borders at different stages between the UK, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland if Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom remain in the single market and the EEA.