Price meets Sturgeon as Plaid and SNP try to work out alternative plan
PLAID Cymru leader Adam Price met Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon yesterday as their parties work to come up with an alternative to Theresa May’s plan for Brexit.
Mr Price argues that the two-year process which is due to see the UK leave the EU on March 29 regardless of whether an exit deal has been agreed should be extended.
He hopes this could pave the way for a second referendum or continued membership of the EU’s single market.
Mr Price said Labour would play a “critical” role in Brexit but accused Jeremy Corbyn’s party of failing to provide the necessary leadership to address a “Westminster Brexit mess”. Plaid and the SNP, he claimed, were working to plug a “vacuum of leadership”.
Adam Price said: “What we’re trying to do in a responsible fashion is try and see whether there is enough common ground to find a way out of this mess... I
think the first step to my mind is an extension of Article 50 [in] order to give us time to find the alternative.
“May’s deal [is] a complete concoction... It’s not deliverable and actually [it’s] the worst of all possible worlds so that’s a non-starter, despite the fact that they’ve had two years.
“We’re running out of time now because of that and so we need to win some time in order for us to find an alternative and to get an alternative which actually has a majority in the House of Commons.
“So, I think the first step is to get agreement across parties that we need to extend Article 50. Now, that could be to enable a people’s vote to happen; that would be our preference at this stage.
“It could be to look again at single market membership, which we’ve always consistently said is the least damaging Brexit.”
He blamed Labour’s own divisions on Brexit for a lack of leadership, saying: “It’s clearly the case that Labour’s position will be critical. I’m amazed at the lack of leadership that Labour has shown to date.
“It’s a function of their own alternative divisions which are in some ways a mirror image of what’s happened in the Conservative Party.”
The Carmarthen East and Dinefwr AM argued people would expect Labour to be “leading the charge” but said: “Unfortunately, they’re in sixes and sevens in terms of their own position on the people’s vote or in terms of single market membership [so] we’re having to plug that vacuum of leadership at the moment by working together, looking at amendments that could potentially command a majority across the House of Commons so we can find a way forward.”
He said Brexit could fuel support for Welsh and Scottish independence, saying: “I think people are looking on from Wales and Scotland with absolute incredulity at the way in which politicians here in the British political parties are behaving and conducting themselves.
“If that continues [and] we are plunged as a result of it into economic disaster then many people in Wales and Scotland will be asking ourselves ‘maybe we’re leaving the wrong union?’ Maybe instead of leaving the European Union we should be leaving this one?”
He said the devolved administrations had been “treated, really, with low contempt” in the Brexit process so far, and while great focus had been put on Northern Ireland the rest of the UK’s nations had not been “given equal respect”.
Mr Price said: “It’s a bizarre situation. The two nationalist parties, the two parties that have as their stated policy leaving the British state, are the ones trying to kind of sort out the mess in the British state in the heart of the capital here in Westminster – but that’s because nobody else is providing a sensible way forward.”
SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said: “The SNP had a very productive meeting with Adam Price and Plaid Cymru colleagues again today.
“Both parties are committed to working together to stop the UK government’s shoddy Brexit deal, that fails to protect our economic future.
“Our conversation was constructive and I look forward to working with our friends in Plaid Cymru and other opposition parties across Parliament to get a Brexit deal that protects jobs and living standards across all parts of the UK.”