If we vote for Brexit, many companies will leave Wales, says Carwyn Jones 

As I chatted to voters campaigning across Wales during the recent assembly elections, one notion cropped up more than any other in our conversations – working together.

In communities right across the country, the individuals, families and businesses I met would tell me that they wanted politicians, at every level of politics, to work together to solve the practical problems that impacted on their daily lives. No single issue reinforced this more than the ongoing steel crisis in Wales.

And now, as the assembly election has quickly transitioned into the European referendum campaign, I have noticed that same message and that same theme is still prevalent. There is a widespread belief that our communities will be better off if we cooperate and work together.

There is no convincing people in Wales that the European Union is all sweetness and light. The more distant a political institution feels, the less trusted it becomes. And, despite the hard work of brilliant members of the European parliament like Welsh Labour’s Derek Vaughan, that distance is still there and a major obstacle. When it comes to backing the case for ‘Remain’, people in Wales do have a largely pragmatic view, however.

They want passionately to keep and develop their own clear identity – Welsh devolution is a reflection of that – but they want countries to collaborate on big challenges like the economy, on security and on climate change where answers have to be developed collectively.

That is what gives me hope that this referendum can be won by those of us wanting to see Wales and the United Kingdom remain a part of the EU. While people in Wales understand that our membership brings challenges and that globalisation and free movement can have harsh edges, the opportunities it opens up are important to the success of Wales and its economy.

I believe that the case for our membership is strong and that the practical partnership of nations which the EU represents will chime with that notion of togetherness that was so prevalent in our assembly campaign. Most people understand that while ‘I want my country back’ is a catchy tune, it makes for pretty poor economics and destructive and divisive politics.

At the end of last month I was in Mumbai talking about the future of the Welsh steel industry with senior executives from Tata Steel. Sitting in that Mumbai meeting, talking to Tata’s Indian owners about some of the international bids that had come in from across the world, it struck me how disastrous Brexit could be for Welsh steel. So many of the challenges facing the industry are global in nature – from international steel dumping, to world oil prices, to cross-border tariffs – that it is ludicrous to believe that a UK siege economy could provide our plants at Port Talbot, Shotton, Trostre and Llanwern with a viable future.

Quite simply a viable future for steel in Wales is not possible if we left the EU and it becomes harder to sell Welsh steel, and the products that depend on it, into a European market.

The economic case for Wales in Europe is clear. Almost 600 firms export around £6bn of goods to the EU and around 200,000 jobs in Wales are linked to trade and investment with the EU, 100,000 directly with exports. The EU brings over £500m of funding to Wales annually, has helped create 36,000 jobs since 2007, and helped nearly 230,000 people gain vital qualifications that can help them progress in the labour market.

Some of our biggest infrastructure projects have been supported through EU money such as the £90m Superfast Cymru scheme which has helped over 550,000 homes and businesses across Wales get access to superfast broadband – a big driver of the new economy in Wales, particularly in rural areas. A further £150m of EU funds are earmarked for the new Metro, an integrated transport network for south Wales that will transform the way people live, work and travel.

One of the important reasons for our EU membership is the innovation it fuels in our economy. I was recently at Swansea University’s magnificent new Bay Campus, where you can see the impact European investment in the new site has made – this is now a university on the move with international aspirations to be among the best in the world. £40m of the funding that supported the new campus came from the EU and a further £60m was levered in through the European Investment Bank, one of the first projects anywhere in Wales to get support in this pioneering new way.

Together with the businesses and universities that have accessed £30m through the European commission’s largest research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020, you start to get a picture of the huge impact Brexit would have on key sectors like higher education and the negative multiplier effect it would have on the Welsh economy.

The reality is that there are many different companies in Wales which are here because it is their European base. If we vote to leave, many will go elsewhere – and it is not scaremongering to point that out, simply a statement of fact.

Although the vote looks very tight here in Wales, many of those currently siding with ‘Leave’ are not doing so because they believe the Brexiteers’ spin and fantasy-land notion of independence. In part that is a distrust of who is doing the selling – Wales had 18 years of those same free market rightwingers pushing the deregulation dream, and dressed up in its latest clothing they instinctively understand its dangers.

No, some of those backing ‘Leave’ are doing so because they think we – politicians of all mainstream parties – have stopped listening to them and even given up on them. That is where the nationalist surge came from in Scotland, and it is where much of the United Kingdom Independence party bounce stems from too. This is something Welsh Labour fought hard to address in the assembly elections, and will continue to work on in the coming years. Whether we have done enough for this referendum to convince enough of these people that we are listening, and we are on their side, only time will tell. I am hopeful. But, for me and my party, this is only a staging post on a much longer journey.

The most basic measurement of getting this message right is employment. ‘Better jobs, closer to home’ – that is what Wales wants, and right now it is what Wales is getting. Employment in Wales is now at a record high and has risen faster here than any other part of the UK. Unemployment has fallen faster in Wales than anywhere else and is substantially below that in Scotland and the UK as a whole. We are also winning record-breaking levels of inward investment and continuing to attract high quality companies, such as Aston Martin and TVR, as a direct result of the way we support businesses in Wales. Brexit will not just stall this momentum, it will put the Welsh economic revival into reverse.

I came into politics to stand up for working people and many of the rights we enjoy today – like the right to maternity and paternity leave – are guaranteed by our membership of the EU.

I would never sign up to a future that makes us poorer, leaves us less protected and shuts us off from the world. Wales is stronger, safer and better off in the EU, and on 23 June I will be voting to stay in the EU and keep working together for a better future for Wales.

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Carwyn Jones AM is first minister of Wales