YP Letters: Why has future of farming not featured in EU debate?

FARMERS throughout the UK are asking why has no farming policy, particularly with regard to subsidies, been announced should the UK leave the European Union following the upcoming referendum.

This apparent lack of a policy could simply be due to incompetence, but it could also be a deliberate ploy by the Government. It is openly admitted that many in Government and many other politicians are very keen for the UK to remain within the EU, although given the serious disadvantages of EU membership, their motives are highly questionable.

So perhaps the Government is cynically exploiting the “fear factor” by keeping the farmers in considerable uncertainty about the consequences of the referendum, and thus persuading them to vote to remain in the EU on the basis of “better the devil you know” than risk a leap into the unknown.

If this is the case, no one should be taken in by these manoeuvres. Because, make no mistake, these “fear factor” tactics will be used ruthlessly in the run-up to the referendum, just as Harold Wilson used these same tactics in the 1975 referendum, to frighten the electorate into voting “yes” to the EU, for fear of the unknown consequences of a “no” vote.

Whereas the actual consequences of withdrawing from the EU would be a round dozen immediate and major benefits to the UK and its people.

And what benefits would be lost? In fact only one, and that is a voice in European affairs, a voice that would no longer be needed, and a voice that it seems was very rarely used to any advantage for the UK throughout the entire period of membership.

Further on the subject of Government ploys, no one should believe that Mr Cameron will obtain any meaningful and guaranteed reforms of the conditions of UK membership of the EU, no matter what grandiose promises are made. For confirmation of this, just listen to the declarations of several EU spokesmen, both recently and in the past, who have made their position very clear.

From: Johnny Cooper, Guiseley.

LISTENING to Nick Clegg advocate the UK’s membership of the EU, how are we to believe anything he says? This man sacrificed his party’s position on student tuition fees to become Deputy Prime Minister. Like his colleagues, he needs to realise that the upcoming vote will be a referendum on trust.