Wales is paying a heavy price because of the UK’s “fraying relationship” with the European Union, says David Chadwick.
The Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe MP was speaking in Westminster Hall debate this week on an e-petition relating to the UK joining the European Union.
Video from parliamentlive.tv
The Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe MP was speaking in Westminster Hall debate this week on an e-petition relating to the UK joining the European Union.
Video from parliamentlive.tv
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00:00David Chadwick Thank you Mr Chairman, it's a pleasure to
00:07serve under your chairmanship and I'd like to thank the honourable member for Colne Valley
00:11and for tabling this debate and to everybody who signed it. We all know by now that thanks
00:17to the Conservatives and their allies in reform, the relationship between the UK, Wales and
00:22the EU has been severely damaged. Falling out with our neighbours is particularly self-defeating
00:29during this fracturing era of global politics and Wales is paying a particularly heavy price
00:34for that fraying relationship. We are a nation of manufacturers, a nation of small businesses,
00:41a nation of farmers and those three sectors have been throttled by red tape, hindering
00:47our trade with the European Union. In my constituency, a small local business in Radnorshire that
00:53makes parts for classic motorcycles is heavily reliant on EU trade and yet over Christmas,
01:00with no warning or communication from the Department for Business and Trade, they were
01:04just told that they were now incompatible with EU directives and that's just one example
01:09of how Brexit-related bureaucracy is harming businesses and damaging trade with our neighbours.
01:16Farmers and the food and drink industry across Wales are also waiting for the long-promised
01:21UK veterinary agreement. Studies show that such an agreement could boost UK agri-food
01:28exports to the EU by at least 22%, providing a vital boost to rural areas like mine. Yet
01:35we've still received no timeline from the current Labour government on when that is
01:39likely to happen. It's not just the economic impact though, it's the cultural and social
01:45loss for young people too. I thank my good fortune that I had the opportunity to live
01:50and study at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Those sort of opportunities broaden horizons
01:57and contribute to growth. One of the cruelest and most short-sighted decisions by the previous
02:02government was pulling us out of the Erasmus programme. In Wales, the Liberal Democrats
02:08stepped up to reverse the damage. Former Education Minister Kirsty Williams introduced the Tithe
02:14Exchange programme, which unlike its English counterpart, has been praised for ensuring
02:18accessibility for students from less privileged backgrounds. Ultimately, the Liberal Democrats
02:24want to see the UK back at the heart of Europe, rejoining Erasmus, tearing down trade barriers
02:31and signing a youth mobility scheme with our EU counterparts, something the Labour government
02:35has so far refused to do. The arc of human progress should ensure that older generations
02:42pass on more opportunities to younger generations than the ones that they have themselves enjoyed.
02:47We are living in a time when that arc of progress has gone into reverse, and us pro-Europeans
02:53must now win the argument for a stronger EU with Great Britain at its heart. On that point,
02:58I'm concerned to hear the word pragmatic used several times in this debate, because it sounds
03:03like pragmatic reasons are being given as excuses for not making more progress in terms
03:08of rebuilding our relationship with the EU. We should be concerned, I think, about talking
03:13about pragmatism and solely in rational language, because we know that those arguments failed
03:19miserably in 2016, when arguments were built as to why we should stay in the European Union
03:25just based on solely rational economic language. The EU is a pragmatic project, but at its
03:32core it's also an idealistic one. It's a project grounded in ideals, grounded in the idea that
03:38the nations of Central Europe should never go to war again, and it succeeded in that
03:43mission, making it one of the most successful political projects ever in mankind's history.
03:49So when we're making the argument of why we should be rejoining the European Union, let's
03:53use the language of idealism, not just rationalism, because unless we build a case for the UK
03:59to rejoin the EU based on idealist languages and get people to buy into the ideals on which
04:05the European Union was founded, we won't have a long-term buy-in to the project from
04:11the people we need to convince.