Farm Subsidies

In a "free" market, fully applied, there would long ago have ceased to be any agriculture in this country. Those who rightly joined in the Countryside March are in fact on the same side as those who defended coal, steel, ship-building, and so forth, on the entirely correct ground that economic activity must be morally and practically subordinate to the service of social, cultural, political and environmental goods.

To believe in strong communities, in environmental responsibility, in animal welfare, and in healthy and nutritious food is not only to oppose the hunting ban (although it is certainly that), but also to support farm subsidies, and to oppose the amoral, and thus immoral, "free" market.

The problem is not farm subsidies, which we have had since the War, but the Common Agricultural Policy, which we have obviously had only since going into what was really always the EU.

The same EU that destroyed our coal, steel, ship-building, and so forth, because the whole point of it is to pursue certain economic activities wholly incompatible with social, cultural, political goods such as strong communities, environmental responsibility, animal welfare, and healthy and nutritious food.