For years we have been warned of the threat to the UK economy from an overheated housing market and an overvalued pound. Now our Prime Minister has told us if we vote for Brexit house prices will fall and the pound will weaken.
What is not to like? We not only get a higher price for our produce we can also afford to buy a house!
However when it comes to our vote on the EU let us consider the facts not the rhetoric. According to the EU website there are 28 member counties with 24 official languages. There are also five countries “on the road to membership” Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia and Turkey. Despite one official language , French, our 751 MEPs require a rotating army of 9000 translators when Parliament is in session.
When I was looking at crops in France this spring I noted that on the best land there is wall to wall cropping with no buffer zone next to hedges. The French government has the advantage of having the actual text and therefore they understand the rules better than anyone. Hence they allow greening or set aside to be located on poorer areas of land.
Why do we in Scotland not have the same common sense approach as the French? The term “lost in translation” comes to mind. Our Gallic cousins interpret the rules to ensure there is no negative impact on farm incomes.
I would love to be a fly on the wall when an inspector arrives to inspect a French farm. I am thinking a jovial lunch, with maybe a glass of wine, and if the inspector finds some misdemeanour, I imagine him saying “Claude, you old rascal, you are meant to have ear tags on those fine looking Limousin cows. Tell you what, let me send you young Pierre from the office to give you a hand.”
OK, rather fanciful, but EU rules and regulations are stifling our ability to do our job. Hogan can tell us as much as he likes we need his subsidies to survive, that does not explain the hundreds of UK farmers who have emigrated to countries like New Zealand and have thrived unhindered by the mind-numbing rules and regulations imposed upon us by the EU.
Professor Dame Ann Glover spoke recently in Dundee about her role as the chief scientific advisor to the president of the EU Commission, Jose Manuel Barossa, a role that the current president, Jean-Claude Juncker has now abolished.
Ann told us that NGO’s such as Greenpeace were very effective lobbyists and they rely on sentiment not science to push their anti GM agenda. Without experts like Ann Glover, who use evidence to explain that GM and gene editing are safe and offer the key to the next green revolution, we have ended up with a total ban on GM within the EU.
Our MEPs voted for this ban and no doubt Greenpeace and others had an influence unhindered by the likes of Ann Glover to provide the truth. When the EU closes the door on science it is time for us in the UK use the exit door.
Even if we remain, subsidies will be not be worth the pain post 2020 if they even last that long. This is our time and our chance to break free from the shackles of the EU mummy state.
