UK farmers split on Brexit vote

The nation will this week decide on whether to exit the EU, with pollsters indicating the vote is too close to call.

United Kingdom farmers are beneficiaries of the hefty EU farm subsidies program, but other concerns, such as national security and frustration at increasing regulation have many backing the so-called ‘Brexit’.

An informal vote held at the UK’s premier arable field day, the Cereals event held in Cambridgeshire last week, showed strong support for leaving the EU.

With 1700 votes cast, 64 per cent, or 1085 votes, were to leave the EU and just 36pc or 615 votes wanted to remain an economic part of Europe.

Central English farmer Andrew Brown, based in the small county of Rutland, said he could not fathom why the agricultural community was in favour of leaving the EU.

“It’s like turkeys voting for Christmas,” he said.

“The idea that we will leave and the EU will keep trading with us as per normal is ludicrous.”

Mr Brown said he was concerned the UK’s reliance on European markets for agricultural products would put farmers out of business if they were not able to compete in Europe due to tariffs imposed.

“At present we have got the best deal possible, we compete on a level playing field into Europe.”

However, pro-Brexit Member of Parliament Stuart Agnew said farmers could not assume subsidies would remain post 2020 if the UK decided to stay.

“There are issues with the Italian banks, the Euro is in crisis, so don’t think that just by staying, everything will be rosy.”

Fellow exit campaigner David Campbell Bannerman, an eastern English MP, said claims UK agriculture would suffer if it left the EU were overblown.

“We are the second biggest market for products such as French cheese, are they going to stop doing business with us,” he questioned.

Mr Agnew agreed.

“If they start applying tariffs we will win and they will lose.”

A farmer from Leicestershire, who asked not to be named, said while she could understand the economics of the push to remain she favoured exiting the EU.

“There are a lot of factors there, far more than just the economics, and I think many people just want to take control of their own destiny once again.”

Brexit proponents have also said leaving the EU would allow Britain to forge closer ties with its traditional allies.

“It will mean better opportunities for members of the Commonwealth, who at present are discriminated against here in favour of the EU countries,” Mr Agnew said.

Excessive EU regulation has been nominated as a major negative for British agriculture, with many producers saying edicts from Brussels cost their businesses money without delivering the benefits they were supposed to.

However, Mr Brown said he did not think exiting would provide a solution to this.

“If we are to sell to the EU post exiting they will require our producers adhere to the same standards theirs do.”

The issue has stumped Britain’s peak farmer group, the National Farmers Union (NFU).

It has an official policy in favour of remaining within the EU, but there have been fierce battles among its membership on its position.

NFU president Meurig Raymond said Britain’s farmers could not expect the same market access should they leave the EU.

“You can get divorced and get divorced cordially, but you can’t expect a free pass back to the farmhouse the next week,” he said as way of an analogy.

Mr Raymond said a full free market situation would be disastrous for the UK’s farmers.

“We would be so uncompetitive as to not even matter.”

He also said he feared agriculture, as a relatively small scale industry in the UK would be compromised in an independent Great Britain in favour of winning concessions for big employers such as car manufacturing or the coal industry.

Mr Brown said he understood there were concerns about the Eurozone’s finances, but said the alternatives were far worse.

“I am not jumping out of a plane that may or may not land without a parachute, which is what the Brexit boils down to.”