Farm Diary: Country being reshaped, but rejoining the EU is for the birds

Now before we get excited we must wait to see if they are successful, as they can only be judged on their results when we look back at the next election or even the one after that. Unfortunately for hapless Conservative MP’s, we can certainly judge their last 14 years right now, and it does not make for happy reading.

The obsession with leaving the EU was there before David Cameron, but it was he who buckled and offered a referendum he thought could be easily won, the biggest miscalculation in recent history, as it has greatly harmed this country and Europe. It has ironically destroyed the Conservative Party too, and Kemi Badenoch now has the monumental task of rebuilding trust with the British people.

A lack of talent amongst brexiteers became clear, as the party expelled those on the left, a succession of terrible leaders and total failure in looking after our most basic needs. The party of law and order, the party of sound finance, the party of business (I could go on), failed on every count.

Let’s be honest though, we are not going back and even I can see that it’s a bad idea now to do anything other than the best of what we have. Rejoining the EU is for the birds, or more accurately the Liberal-Democrats.

Last Friday was 5 years since we left the EU, severing our ties with the single market, one of Margaret Thatcher’s biggest triumphs which unleashed a wave of Japanese investment in post-industrial Britain, growing the home market for exporters without tariff or non-tariff barriers.

Economists and analysts confirm the obvious, that Brexit has harmed our economy, as exports have fallen, and our small companies adversely affected.

The working assumption of the OBR is that Brexit will reduce exports and imports overall by 15% and has held this view since 2016. This will reduce the long-term size of our economy by around 4% which is equivalent to £100 billion. Whilst trade deals were chased around the globe, new ones were only signed with Australia and New Zealand, and by the government’s own impact assessment these make little difference.

Immigration was a central theme of the Brexit array of promises, but the Conservatives brought in 6.5 million legal immigrants under their watch and are horrified to now find out that since lockdown, immigration quadrupled as they covered up social and economic failure.

That is not all bad news, as it has ironically put the UK in a good position compared to other European countries when it comes to population age balance and the prospect for more births. The Conservatives unfortunately cannot take credit here as they made such a fuss about immigration and their small unrepresentative party members hate it.

Young people have been the real losers since Brexit, as freedom of movement to live and work across any European country has been largely denied, which has also affected tourists and business travellers and bigger changes in terms of travel are on the horizon.

Sovereignty was the big issue, the ability of the UK to make its own laws and not have to follow EU ones was another prominent brexit promise. Yet in order to minimise disruption immediately following Brexit in 2020, the UK incorporated thousands of EU laws into UK law, becoming known as retained EU law.

According to the latest government count, there were 6,901 individual pieces of retained EU law covering things like working time, equal pay, food labelling and environmental standards.

The previous Conservative government initially set a deadline of the end of 2023 to axe these EU laws, but most of them are still there with added red tape to boot! The UK does now have more freedom in certain areas of tax law, as EU member states are prohibited from charging VAT on education under an EU directive for example. This has enabled the Labour Party to impose VAT on private school fees which has enraged many past Conservative supporters.

No wonder a majority of people in this country now agree that Brexit was a mistake.

Labour now in charge is making all the right noises and ploughing ahead with Conservative type policies and is determined to deliver them. It is a huge challenge and if it had any sense the Conservative party will support most of the plans in order to change the landscape for the sake of the country.

Whilst we argue for years about an extra strip of tarmac at Heathrow or Gatwick, ten new airports have been built in China.

No, I fully support this push for runways, reservoirs, houses, infrastructure and so on; all power to Rachel’s elbow I say!

This government has certainly not made itself popular with farmers, and it’s not just the taxes levied on all business in order to put the country’s finances on an even keel. It continues with the Conservative policies, cutting all support to farmers other than for environmental goods which many cannot access and those who can find that there is a real cost to this and for many its for money forgone.

Indeed 10% of farmland is now targeted in achieving ‘net zero’, turning away from food production to solar panels, forests and nature reserves. This is meant to happen by 2050, and Steve Reed claims that food production will be unaffected is challenged by Defra, which by its own analysis claim that this claim is subject to significant uncertainty.

The Lake District and Devon are targeted to have some of the biggest changes in farming as peat bogs are flooded in order to prevent the release of carbon dioxide, and uplands targeted for tree planting as their sheep farming efforts are dismissed as producing a mere 3% of consumed calories!

Given that climate change is real, given that China, the USA, and others make sure our efforts are meaningless on our own, and given that rising sea levels will flood grade one land; should we not pause?

The last time this country was short of food, every acre was ploughed or stocked in order to feed people. Once they are shrubland and forests, that might not be so easy in the future, and who knows what the future will bring? Having the freedom to wander over National Parks and admire the view loses its appeal if one has little in the way of food to eat.

Farmers will be offered incentives to take their land out of food production, and they will take them if food production makes no profit or in many cases a loss. Planting land with trees is pretty permanent in my experience, a decision which we may one day as a nation regret as for every one acre of grade one land swallowed up by the sea, 50 acres of upland or more will be needed to replace it.

The cash-strapped government in Wales is now in the process of squandering more money which could be used for the failing NHS, social care, education, in allowing local councils to change their town and villages back from 20mph to 30 mph. What a fiasco this has been, and this column has consistently criticised the initiative from the start.

Hundreds of roads across Wales are in the process of reverting from 20mph to 30mph, a move that is expected to cost millions.