Lord Wigley’s comments on EU membership and Welsh farming ‘twisted’ says UKIP
In response to comments made in the House of Lords by the former Plaid Cymru leader, Lord Wigley, UKIP has called his assertion that eighty per cent of farm incomes in Wales depend on EU funds as ‘twisted’ and pointed out how EU Common Agricultural Policy seriously harms traditional Welsh farming.
UKIP Wales Spokesman:
“If Lord Wigley is proposing a situation where farmers continue to be dependent on faceless bureaucrats for cash in exchange for preposterous legislation that does not put the interests of Welsh farming first, he fails to comprehend the basics of the debate. He has twisted the debate by not mentioning that post Brexit, subsidies would continue to be used to help farming prosper in Wales, with even greater funding available as the UK would no longer paying more into the EU than it gets out. The UK has never had a good deal under the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy. France gets twice the funding for farming, which led to the UK being entitled to a rebate, most of which has now been signed away by successive governments. Meanwhile traditional farmers in Wales cannot cope with the one-size-fits-all legislation coming from Brussels and cannot compete with imports from farmers in Eastern Europe using intensive farming methods and with lower welfare standards than we would accept in Wales. Only by leaving the EU can we ensure that agricultural policy is specifically tailored to suit our farming practices, promote our products and export high quality produce across the entire globe. You simply have to consider the litany of damaging EU policy, from stockpiling cheap produce to Electronic Identity tagging, to see that overall, the EU has been extremely harmful to Welsh farming, particularly our unique Welsh upland farming of which this country should be so proud”
