British government guarantees funding for farming and science

The British government have announced a funding guarantee for science and agriculture to protect organisations and businesses in receipt of funding via the EU after we leave.

The EU makes money available to farmers and landowners via the EU Common Agricultural Policy. It pays them to farm certain things, not farm certain things and sometimes not to farm at all. They pay out about £3bn a year in susbsidies with the big money going to the largest and wealthiest landowners who can claim more than £1m each for their extensive land holdings.

Scientists and researchers can apply for funding from a pot of money called Horizon 2020 which mainly funds scientific research. Again, the big money goes to the large multinational corporations, pharmaceutical companies and prestigious universities.

The Treasury says it will guarantee to match and continue funding secured via the EU for the duration of the funding agreement as if we were still EU members for applications made before the autumn statement. Plans for future funding going forward will presumably be included in the autumn statement.

Because the EU redistributes more than half of what we pay in to its budget to other countries, the Treasury is able to guarantee current funding levels with a surplus that could be used to improve public services, reduce taxes or provide state aid to protect strategically important industries which is illegal under EU law. All the Leave campaigns - UKIP included - said that this sort of arrangement should be expected once we'd voted to leave and here it is. The Remainiacs said that farmers and scientists would be abandoned and driven to bankruptcy without EU handing our money out to them. They were wrong.

EU demands farmers display their logo in exchange for agricultural subsidies

The EU is bringing in rules that will require any farmer receiving more than £7,200 in subsidies to erect signs advertising the fact in time for the EU referendum.

Currently, businesses and organisations that receive grant aid from the EU have to display the EU logo in a prominent place to let people know that the EU has graciously given us some of our money back to us. This has never applied to farmers receiving money under the Common Agricultural Policy until now and will result in the EU logo popping up all over the country.

The EU said that it would be establishing a propaganda unit to for the referendum and it looks like this might be one of their first ideas. It's got an air of Orwell's 1984 about it but instead of pictures of Big Brother, it's the EU logo with slogans to remind us of the wise benevolence of Big Brussels.

If farmers refuse to erect the signs prominently - at their own expense of course - or deface them or undermine the propaganda in any way then they risk being fined and having the few quid thrown their way clawed back.

EU budget reduction proposal set to be blocked by MEPs

Ministers have agreed a reduced EU budget for the next 7 years from around €992bn to €960bn but it could still fail to pass through the EU Parliament and the EU's off-budget spending is still out of control.

Oi, Cameron ... outside

The Guardian is calling this EU "austerity" but shaving €32bn off a budget of almost a trillion euro to be spent by an organisation that hasn't signed off its own accounts for 17 years because of fraud and waste isn't what most people would call austerity.  The Tory press are calling it a "victory".

As part of this "austerity", the French have secured an extra €1bn for Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidies, making a mockery of numerous promises by Cameron and his cronies to demand CAP reforms.  Off-budget expenditure such as building roads and bridges in poorer countries is protected.

Godfrey Bloom's best mate Martin Schulz MEP is leading the plot to block the reduced budget and has managed to secure a secret ballot on the budget allowing MEPs to vote against it without voters finding out how they voted.

Whilst any reduction in the amount of money the wasteful, corrupt EU gets to spends is a good thing, the UK's payments will actually increase thanks to the new rules agreed by Blair and continued by Cameron that continually reduce the rebate.

Jeffrey Titford MEP in Farmers Guide (April 2009)

The CAP - Who Really Benefits? By Jeffrey Titford UKIP MEP

The traditional view of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is that it was created to make Europe self-sufficient in food production and to ensure that smaller farmers were able to make a living. By the early 1970s, the CAP had more than achieved the self-sufficiency target. Farmers, encouraged by massive amounts of taxpayers’ money, were producing far more than EU citizens could eat or drink. Naturally, they chose to grow whatever attracted the largest subsidies, regardless of whether there was a genuine market for what they produced.

A new book, ‘The Great European Rip-Off’, by David Craig and Matthew Elliot and sub-headed ‘How the Corrupt, Wasteful EU is Taking Control of our Lives’, published by Random House has an excellent section where it exposes the history of the CAP and also shows how it is now disastrously failing all but the richest farmers and lining the pockets of many who have little to do with farming.

The book makes it clear that Brussels , in coming up with the CAP, had in fact created a monster, which rapidly grew out of control. In the 1970s, there were beef and butter mountains and a huge 17.8 billion litre lake of extremely poor quality wine. The taxpayer, having shelled out for this over production also ended up paying for most of it to be stored, reprocessed and frequently destroyed. All of this was happening against a backdrop of a billion people in the Third World starving, with about 9 million dying of hunger and malnutrition each year. Not a pretty picture.

The book goes as far as to suggest that had Britain and Denmark not joined in 1973, the hugely expensive over-production generated by the CAP would have bankrupted the then European Economic Community. We now call it the EU. The generous new contributions from taxpayers in these two countries kept the whole thing going and have helped to create the strange situation that we find ourselves in today, where the CAP has become terribly distorted and diverted from its original purpose.

The EU frequently claims that the CAP is a key ingredient in maintaining the EU economy and sustaining a sector that is responsible for 19 million jobs. Among the key benefits the EU claims for CAP is that it ‘spends the money where it is most needed,’ but does it? Traditionally, French farmers are supposed to be the biggest beneficiaries of CAP largesse, although only 10% of EU farmers are located in France . The CAP ensures that they receive 25% of all CAP money. 130,000 French farmers each receive £18,400 per annum. This compares with around 120,000 farmers in the UK , Germany and Spain combined, receiving this level of subsidy. There are also 3,000 French farmers receiving annual subsidies of £91,940.

Indeed, looking at where most of the CAP money is spent, the suggestion that it is being spent ‘where it is most needed’, becomes highly questionable. 85% of the budget (£55.3 billion) goes to just 18% of farms and the most wealthy 2% of farmers and agricultural companies receive no less than a quarter of the total budget. The identity of the recipients tends to be shrouded in secrecy and one Scottish newspaper battled for more than two years to identity CAP subsidy recipients in Scotland . They eventually discovered that the country’s largest farmers were receiving an average of £230,000 a year, while the average subsidy for all farmers in Scotland was a mere £9,000.

Two large food companies in Sweden and Denmark , hardly the most needy of recipients, have been given a combined total of £1.37 billion since 2000. Another major company, Campina operating in Germany , Holland and Belgium has had almost £920 million. Nestle, which operates in Britain , Austria , Denmark , Spain and Holland has received hundreds of millions. Even closer to home, Tate & Lyle is one of Britain ’s largest CAP recipients at £100 million a year.

Landowners who don’t actually do any farming have a hand in the pot and even airlines and cruise ship companies are getting hand-outs as they are allowed to claim because they are exporting food! Think of that next time you tuck into an airline bread roll! However, altogether the most disturbing of the decidedly odd list of CAP beneficiaries is the four French banks, based in the poshest areas of Paris . The BNP, Credit Mutual, Credit Agricole and Banque Populaire have each received over £91.9 million for supporting French agriculture largely through loans to farmers. There are vast sums also given to members of the Royal families of a number of European countries including our own.

When you consider that the average subsidy given to farmers in the EU is probably as low as £8,000 a year, you have to question the whole purpose of the CAP. The problem is that whenever suggestions are made about reducing subsidies, enraged farmers take to the streets to protest, little realising that they are protecting the interests of a lot of very wealthy people. The EU has promised to publish details of CAP recipients this month (April). It will be interesting to see if they keep this promise and if there is any reaction from our normally supine media when they see how the CAP is making the rich richer.