Go On

You won't know this, because the media refused to report David Davis's Leadership campaign beyond endlessly showing footage of some woman falling asleep. But whereas David Cameron promised a meaningless commitment to leave the European People's Party, David promised an immensely meaningful commitment to leave the Common Fisheries Policy. That had also been Conservative Party policy under Michael Howard.

Annually between 1979 and 1997, every Labour MP without exception, and every Lib Dem or member of the Lib Dems' predecessor parties, voted against both the CFP and the Common Agricultural Policy, in divisions of the House now mysteriously discontinued. (But then, there were hardly any divisions of the House of Commons at all in the last Parliament, due to the lack of any disagreement between the two front benches. However, this discontinuation dates all the way back to the arrival of Tony Blair in Downing Street.)

Yet when Kelvin Hopkins asked Cameron today about progress towards the end of the CFP, he was treated to a dazzling outpouring of drivel, even by Cameron's standards. It ended in blather about the alleged need "to make sure that the Single Market goes on working for Britain". As if it ever has done! Thank you, Margaret Thatcher. And thank your lucky stars, David Cameron, that backbenchers do not get to ask follow-up questions, since you would have been torn apart by Hopkins, who knows this subject inside out.

Since the CAP is also in the news today, we had farm subsidies for 30 years before we joined what was always openly intended to be the EU. They go back to the War. As a safeguard of real agriculture as the mainstay of strong communities, environmental responsibility and animal welfare (leading to safe, healthy and inexpensive food) as against "factory farming", they are a clear example of the importance of central and local government action in safeguarding and delivering social, cultural, political and environmental goods against the ravages of the "free" market. The problem is not farm subsidies per se. The problem is the CAP. The problem is the EU.