The prime minister promised yesterday the British government would continue to support British farmers in the event of the UK leaving the EU.
In an about-turn from Defra secretary Liz Truss’s “No Plan B” response to earlier enquiries about what would happen in the event of a Brexit, David Cameron confirmed in a letter to the English landowners’ group, the CLA, that financial backing would be in place for the industry.
“As long as I am prime minister, I would make sure that an agricultural support system would be properly maintained,” Mr Cameron said.
“However I can obviously not make the same guarantees for future governments. It is unclear, for example, where some of my opponents, including Jeremy Corbyn, stand on the issue.”
In his letter to the CLA, which represents 33,000 landowners, farmers and rural businesses in England and Wales, Mr Cameron said leaving the EU would be a “leap in the dark”.
“Our farmers have often spent generations building up their businesses; what they do not need is the uncertainty and risk that would come with leaving the EU – putting all those years of hard work at risk,” he said.
Mr Cameron was responding to a letter from CLA president Ross Murray which called on the prime minister to set out the government’s position. In his reply Mr Cameron said there were economic and political risks from leaving the EU.
“The International Monetary Fund warned that Britain leaving the EU would pose major risks for our economy. Respected organisations like the London School of Economics have in recent weeks shown that being outside the EU would reduce the size of the UK economy and seriously hit economic growth,” he wrote.
“This would inevitably mean less public money.”
Mr Cameron went on to state that if Britain stayed in a reformed EU he could “guarantee farmers could continue to sell their products without quotas and tariffs to a market of 500 million people”. However if Britain left, continued access to the market would be a matter for the remaining 27 member states to decide.
Responding to the letter, Mr Murray said the prime minister had not provided the reassurance that government had a plan for how it would manage all outcomes of the referendum.
The CLA will remain neutral on whether the UK should stay or leave the EU.
