Tory hypocrisy on CAP

In the aftermath of the Tsunami disaster Michael Howard gave a speech to the Centre for Social Justice on what we in the rich world can do to help the poor.

In one of the best passages, he said for us to lecture developing countries on free trade while we maintain our own trade barriers is “immoral and hypocritical”.

And yet when it came to the biggest trade barrier of them all – the Common Agricultural Policy, the Conservative Party decided to adopt a policy of the rankest immorality and hypocrisy.

Beyond the usual weasel words about the need for further reform (at some unspecified point in the future) we said nothing that would cause Greek tobacco farmers to lose any sleep. Not only were we outflanked by the Labour Party manifesto (which at least including a timetable for the removal of export subsidies), we were also outflanked by that arch-europhile Lord Radice who effectively called for the scrapping of the CAP and repatriation of agriculture policy to each member state.

Imagine if the Conservative Party had called for the scrapping of the CAP. It wouldn’t have won us the election, of course. But, now, as the EU budget goes into meltdown – we’d have been seen as the visionaries. Not only would scrapping the CAP solve the EU’s dodgy finances, it would also give African farmers a fairer deal and give EU nation states an opportunity to reshape farm support in a way that actually protected the countryside instead of destroying it.

Instead, we are left with nothing to say while Tony Blair swings the handbag. The really galling thing is that scrapping the CAP should be a completely obvious way forward for a freemarket, eurosceptic party. There are many other issues where a much harder rethink is needed, but this one should have been a no-brainer.

Until the party learns to think outside of the box, or even dares to lift the lid and has peak at the wider world, we will remain irrelevant – which is exactly what we have shown ourselves to be over the weekend.

Shame on all concerned.

Comments

[James Hellyer]

Last week, The Telegraph carried a story about poor French farmers who said they desperately needed subsidies, otherwise they couldn't make enoght to live on. Was I the only one who read that and thought "get another job, you sponger!"

It's wholly wrong for us subsidise uncompetitive and failing trading practices. It's more so to do it at the expense of the world's poorest people.

We should scrap the CAP. If the EU won't agree, Britain should just stop paying in to that corrupt institution. The EU would then change because it had no other option.

[Tom Greeves]

The European Union is a RACIST institution. It ensures that Africa is flooded with cheap goods (which is a good thing), but concurrently denies Africa access to European markets (which is monstrous).

We should start from the premise that the EU is a sclerotic, undemocratic, white man's club, and that talk of rebates, subsidiarity and all that jazz is just so much fluff.

[George]

The conervatives silence on CAP couldn't have anything to do with all those tory voting (subsidised) farmers could it?

[James Hellyer]

That's almost certainly the case.

Oliver Letwin was on the Today programme this morning and he was very depressing. He talked about how it was essential NOT to scrap the Common Agricultural Policy. He said that the CAP is important for maintaining the look of our countryside because farmers are paid to keep it looking beautiful.