Government Transport Minister Patrick McLoughlin has said that Britain’s farming industry could suffer the same fate as coal in the ‘80s due to the financial shock of leaving the EU.

He told Cambridge Conservative Association that farming and car manufacturing could suffer in a Brexit scenario, and added, “the under-educated and least well-off… would be first to feel the pain of our departure from the EU.”

Prime Minister David Cameron is supporting the Remain camp, after calling a referendum on EU membership for 23rd June. Defra secretary Liz Truss is backing the PM’s position and has used official visits to the West Country, Scotland and - on Friday - Northern Ireland to make the case for the EU to food industry leaders, who Truss said could see their export trade reduced by millions of pounds outside the EU, as a result of relabelling costs and new trade tariffs.  

Prominent members of the ‘Leave’ campaign have rejected these warnings, with farming minister George Eustice claiming that an independent UK government would “Continue to give farmers and the environment as much support - or perhaps even more - as they get now.”

Laying out his vision for agriculture in a post-Brexit Britain, Eustice said “Non-EU countries like Switzerland and Norway actually give more support to their farmers than we do. In the scheme of things, the amount of money spent on our countryside and wildlife is very modest when compared with spending on other departments.  But we could spend our money more effectively if we had control.”

However, Remain campaigners have pointed out that successive British governments have pushed for reductions in farm support within the EU, and, speaking to Farming Online earlier in the year Alan Matthews, Trinity College Dublin’s professor of European Agricultural Policy, pointed out that anti-EU voices who have promised to maintain farm spending are not in position of power to deliver on these promises.   

On Friday, Defra secretary Liz Truss said food and drink exports from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland, worth £850 million a year, would face an uncertain future if the UK voted to leave EU. Truss’ latest warning over Britain’s potential exit from the Union was made ahead of the 148th Balmoral Show. Once again, she said farmers and food producers benefit from tariff-free access and common standards on labelling, safety and welfare, and warned that “It is far from certain what trading relationship the UK would have with the EU, including the Republic of Ireland, should the UK leave.”

Truss said, “Northern Ireland particularly benefits from easy, hassle-free trade with the Republic of Ireland—a vital source of income for farmers and food producers. If we were to leave the EU, Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK would not be able to negotiate a bilateral trade deal with the Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland’s farmers would have no certainty on cross trade arrangements.

“Leaving the EU is a leap in the dark and a risk not worth taking, with no guarantees that such a good deal could be struck outside the EU. Northern Ireland’s world-class farmers and food producers are stronger, safer and better off in a reformed European Union.”

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