Sajjad Karim, rapporteur. – Mr President, I will indeed be brief: you have indulged me more than enough earlier in proceedings today and I am obliged to you for that. I wish merely to finish off by saying the following: that this is not, and never was intended to be, a navel-gazing exercise. This is about the future of democracy in Europe, throughout Europe, for each and every one of our citizens. I only wish that we had had proper procedures in place many, many years before. It is quite clear that our national governments cherry-pick when it comes to Europe. When we provide something good and positive, they claim it for themselves and they say they have delivered this. When we deal with something that is a tricky proposition to sell before constituents, they automatically say: ‘this is from Europe and nothing to do with us’. And when you have that level of verging-on-almost-dishonesty in our political system, is it any wonder that today we find ourselves where we are?

Just on a personal basis, I have led on this file with the confidence of colleagues now for many, many years here in this House. I rather suspect this will be the last time that I do so, because of the particular dynamics in terms of the UK situation, and it is a matter of great personal regret for me that, based upon the lack of truly democratic transparency for our citizens, my country finds itself in this particular situation today. But of course, I wish all of my colleagues well. I will watch from afar as this Union deepens and strengthens, I hope, always remembering that at some stage I tried to play a constructive role whilst I was here.