Mikey1874 Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joondalupjambo Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 17 hours ago, doddsyJR9 said: The EU are currently debating Gender Issues, while its once Gold Standard economic success Germany is failing. What's great about the EU? The weather? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joondalupjambo Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 So a lorry delivers goods to John Ltd in Belfast from London on a pallet. No checks. John Ltd takes the goods off the pallet and sells the goods, on paper to John 2 Ltd who uses the same warehouse and lorries. John 2 Ltd ships the goods on the new pallet to Cork. No checks at the Border. And this has allowed to happen because the deal says no, or minimal checks on goods going from the UK mainland to NI. If I was the EU I would be wanting more checks on my border. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikey1874 Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 Jacob responding to this Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
periodictabledancer Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 5 hours ago, Mikey1874 said: Well he won't be doing it on BBC after Victoria Derbyshire handed him his arse a couple of weeks ago when he tried convince her his u-turn on Rwanda wasn't a u-turn. Even the most die-hard loony brexiters in what's left of the Tory party know this horse has been well & truly flogged. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
periodictabledancer Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 23 hours ago, doddsyJR9 said: The EU are currently debating Gender Issues, while its once Gold Standard economic success Germany is failing. What's great about the EU? "Germany is failing."..... 😂 Wishful thinking bud. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikey1874 Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 Rejoice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benny Factor Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 2 hours ago, Mikey1874 said: Rejoice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Mighty Thor Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 Oh hai soft lad Mind how you were bumping on about Brexit and farmers? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cade Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 (edited) 8 hours ago, Benny Factor said: "Look we all know this is all lies. You know it, we know it and the rest of the world knows it. But we have to give our Gammon party members and the editors at the Sun, Express and Mail something to wank over, so gies a beak eh" Edited February 1 by Cade Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gundermann Posted February 3 Share Posted February 3 They knew. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ulysses Posted February 3 Share Posted February 3 6 minutes ago, Gundermann said: They knew. A decade of economic and political uncertainty? That's not so bad. The UK left 4 years ago, so it'll all be fine in six years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joondalupjambo Posted February 3 Share Posted February 3 (edited) 4 hours ago, Ulysses said: A decade of economic and political uncertainty? That's not so bad. The UK left 4 years ago, so it'll all be fine in six years. Unfortunately 10 Euro years equates to 20 UK years so we have another sixteen to go before all is well again. Edited February 3 by joondalupjambo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ulysses Posted February 3 Share Posted February 3 1 minute ago, joondalupjambo said: Unfortunately 10 Euro years equates to 20 UK years so we have another sixteen to go before all is well again. Feck that metric system, eh? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doddsyJR9 Posted February 3 Share Posted February 3 8 hours ago, Gundermann said: They knew. How's the economic powerhouse that was Germany doing out of that EU advertising? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gundermann Posted February 3 Share Posted February 3 16 minutes ago, doddsyJR9 said: How's the economic powerhouse that was Germany doing out of that EU advertising? What? Germany's fine. We're literally swimming in shit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Mighty Thor Posted February 4 Share Posted February 4 8 hours ago, Gundermann said: What? Germany's fine. We're literally swimming in shit. I think duddsy is referring to an IMF growth forecast which places Germany behind the UK by 0.1% He's swallowed the single nugget of propaganda where the UK potentially outperforms any major economy. Compare the German economy to the UK since 2010 or even 2016 and you start to see the real picture. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cade Posted February 4 Share Posted February 4 No matter how bad things get, as long as any single large European economy is doing slightly worse, then that means Brexit is working, right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Mighty Thor Posted February 4 Share Posted February 4 1 hour ago, Cade said: No matter how bad things get, as long as any single large European economy is doing slightly worse, then that means Brexit is working, right? In the mind of the flag shaggers that took back control any hole is a goal, so to speak. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joondalupjambo Posted February 4 Share Posted February 4 (edited) How come our farmers are not out protesting? We never got a better deal that the Euro countries out of Brexit surely? https://news.sky.com/story/farmers-say-industry-on-its-knees-as-they-call-for-supermarkets-to-be-fairer-when-buying-produce-13038688 Edited February 4 by joondalupjambo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey J J Jr Shabadoo Posted February 4 Share Posted February 4 6 hours ago, The Mighty Thor said: I think duddsy is referring to an IMF growth forecast which places Germany behind the UK by 0.1% He's swallowed the single nugget of propaganda where the UK potentially outperforms any major economy. Compare the German economy to the UK since 2010 or even 2016 and you start to see the real picture. Sounds like his Edinburgh Academy education was wasted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cade Posted February 4 Share Posted February 4 17 minutes ago, joondalupjambo said: How come our farmers are not out protesting? We never got a better deal that the Euro countries out of Brexit surely? https://news.sky.com/story/farmers-say-industry-on-its-knees-as-they-call-for-supermarkets-to-be-fairer-when-buying-produce-13038688 Because the citizens of the UK are a beaten people. Their feudal lords and masters have managed to convince them that there is no other way and any demands for change are branded "hating Britain" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doddsyJR9 Posted February 4 Share Posted February 4 8 hours ago, Joey J J Jr Shabadoo said: Sounds like his Edinburgh Academy education was wasted. Nope, born in Broughton, Broughton Primary, Broughton High School. Grew up from an early age with the Hearts/Rangers men in Broughton, fighting the nearby Trinity/YLT/Leith mobs. Proud to be Broughton, it was drummed into us. Always will be. My mother worked at Edinburgh Academy as a dinner lady, loved it. Fettes was right across the road from my comprehensive. Wish I'd known Tony was there at the time, I'd have taken a mob across to introduce ourselves. Ha Ha. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joondalupjambo Posted February 5 Share Posted February 5 (edited) 12 hours ago, doddsyJR9 said: Nope, born in Broughton, Broughton Primary, Broughton High School. Grew up from an early age with the Hearts/Rangers men in Broughton, fighting the nearby Trinity/YLT/Leith mobs. Proud to be Broughton, it was drummed into us. Always will be. My mother worked at Edinburgh Academy as a dinner lady, loved it. Fettes was right across the road from my comprehensive. Wish I'd known Tony was there at the time, I'd have taken a mob across to introduce ourselves. Ha Ha. Out of interest was Broughton High School, the new one(s) the nearest state run school to Broughton? Was there not others nearer? Drummond maybe? Bellevue I think it was? Do not know if it is still going to be honest. Edited February 5 by joondalupjambo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WorldChampions1902 Posted February 5 Share Posted February 5 1 hour ago, joondalupjambo said: Out of interest was Broughton High School, the new one(s) the nearest state run school to Broughton? Was there not others nearer? Drummond maybe? Bellevue I think it was? Do not know if it is still going to be honest. You are right that Bellevue Secondary (latterly Drummond High), is closest to both the Broughton area and Broughton Primary. I attended Broughton Primary and was the first intake to the ‘new’ Broughton High on Carrington Road beside Fettes College. That was the early 1970’s and I’m pretty sure Blair had left Fettes by then, so not sure what the OP is on about. Obviously that ‘new’ school has been replaced yet again in recent years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joondalupjambo Posted February 5 Share Posted February 5 (edited) 1 hour ago, WorldChampions1902 said: You are right that Bellevue Secondary (latterly Drummond High), is closest to both the Broughton area and Broughton Primary. I attended Broughton Primary and was the first intake to the ‘new’ Broughton High on Carrington Road beside Fettes College. That was the early 1970’s and I’m pretty sure Blair had left Fettes by then, so not sure what the OP is on about. Obviously that ‘new’ school has been replaced yet again in recent years. Did you live local to the high school or did you live in the Broughton area? I lived in Learmonth, two minutes from the site of the new Broughton high school's but the first one had not been built when I moved from Primary to Secondary education so went further afield. It is probably my memory but I thought if you lived in an area , and you had a state Secondary school in it that you had to go there assuming you did not go private, or is that a more recent policy? I went to Secondary in 1969 so it may have been a free for all back then. Anyway derailing the thread with this but just out of interest. Edited February 5 by joondalupjambo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manaliveits105 Posted February 5 Share Posted February 5 News just in the UK left the EU 4 years ago and there are no plans by the major parties to rejoin Scottish independence is deader than the dodo so Scotland won't be joining on its own May as well get on with things and stop whingeing onwards and upwards Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WorldChampions1902 Posted February 5 Share Posted February 5 1 hour ago, joondalupjambo said: Did you live local to the high school or did you live in the Broughton area? I lived in Learmonth, two minutes from the site of the new Broughton high school's but the first one had not been built when I moved from Primary to Secondary education so went further afield. It is probably my memory but I thought if you lived in an area , and you had a state Secondary school in it that you had to go there assuming you did not go private, or is that a more recent policy? I went to Secondary in 1969 so it may have been a free for all back then. Anyway derailing the thread with this but just out of interest. Grew up in Inverleith. In the early 1970’s, we had the option of going to either Bellevue or Broughton Secondary per the ‘rules’ at the time. As you say, don’t want to derail this thread so let’s keep it on topic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joondalupjambo Posted February 5 Share Posted February 5 31 minutes ago, WorldChampions1902 said: Grew up in Inverleith. In the early 1970’s, we had the option of going to either Bellevue or Broughton Secondary per the ‘rules’ at the time. As you say, don’t want to derail this thread so let’s keep it on topic. Yeah let's not👍 Schooling back then must have been pro Europe we kept getting taught French😄 If Brexit is that good then surely the Tories would have been flooding the media with all the plus points. I keep searching online and certainly more negatives at the moment than positives. Will it improve? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WorldChampions1902 Posted February 5 Share Posted February 5 39 minutes ago, joondalupjambo said: Yeah let's not👍 Schooling back then must have been pro Europe we kept getting taught French😄 If Brexit is that good then surely the Tories would have been flooding the media with all the plus points. I keep searching online and certainly more negatives at the moment than positives. Will it improve? Funny you should say that. When I was at Broughton Secondary studying for my Higher Economics, I went on a 3 week ‘tour’ of Europe on a school trip, to enhance my knowledge of the EEC as it was known then. 10 pupils and 3 teachers boarded the school minibus for the adventure which covered trips to Strasbourg, The Hague, Amsterdam, Brussels et al. A truly memorable experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
periodictabledancer Posted February 5 Share Posted February 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
periodictabledancer Posted February 5 Share Posted February 5 On 04/02/2024 at 10:34, Cade said: No matter how bad things get, as long as any single large European economy is doing slightly worse, then that means Brexit is working, right? Pretty much. The number of brexitw@nkers getting a semi over the failing German economy is comedy gold. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gundermann Posted February 5 Share Posted February 5 23 hours ago, doddsyJR9 said: Nope, born in Broughton, Broughton Primary, Broughton High School. Grew up from an early age with the Hearts/Rangers men in Broughton, fighting the nearby Trinity/YLT/Leith mobs. Proud to be Broughton, it was drummed into us. Always will be. My mother worked at Edinburgh Academy as a dinner lady, loved it. Fettes was right across the road from my comprehensive. Wish I'd known Tony was there at the time, I'd have taken a mob across to introduce ourselves. Ha Ha. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pans Jambo Posted February 6 Share Posted February 6 Where's the VAT cut we were promised? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
periodictabledancer Posted February 6 Share Posted February 6 A reminder of waiting times at Ashford for lorries accessing Dover. This is the new "normal" so the UK media doesn't bother to report it, unless it's affecting English school holidays, obviously, in which case it's all the fault of the French. Lorries held up routinley for lengthy spells , all of which has to be paid for by the consumer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cade Posted February 6 Share Posted February 6 (edited) 50 minutes ago, Pans Jambo said: Where's the VAT cut we were promised? Jeremy Hunt looked at the books again and oops sorry turns out we're far too skint for any tax cuts maybe next time eh Edited February 6 by Cade Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pans Jambo Posted February 6 Share Posted February 6 Just now, Cade said: Jeremy Hunt looked at the books again and oops sorry turns out we're far too skint for any tax cuts maybe next time eh Damn it! Surely they didn't lie about Brexit??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pans Jambo Posted February 6 Share Posted February 6 Cheap clothes, food and shoes after Brexit is what Mogg promised us. He wasn't lying was he??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manaliveits105 Posted February 6 Share Posted February 6 Primark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SectionDJambo Posted February 6 Share Posted February 6 4 hours ago, Pans Jambo said: Where's the VAT cut we were promised? I'm surprised that the Rule Britannia mob aren't campaigning for it to be called Purchase Tax again. VAT was introduced as a result of us joining the Common Market. They wanted stones, pounds and ounces back in the shops. Imagine if we started buying fuel in gallons again. The price of a gallon would cause uproar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pans Jambo Posted February 6 Share Posted February 6 4 minutes ago, SectionDJambo said: I'm surprised that the Rule Britannia mob aren't campaigning for it to be called Purchase Tax again. VAT was introduced as a result of us joining the Common Market. They wanted stones, pounds and ounces back in the shops. Imagine if we started buying fuel in gallons again. The price of a gallon would cause uproar. Exactly, imagine the tears & snotters at seeing 631.9p per gallon (138.9p per ltr) at the pumps! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lone Striker Posted February 6 Share Posted February 6 On 05/02/2024 at 15:40, manaliveits105 said: News just in the UK left the EU 4 years ago and there are no plans by the major parties to rejoin Scottish independence is deader than the dodo so Scotland won't be joining on its own May as well get on with things and stop whingeing onwards and upwards You do realise that membership of the EU isn't required in order to join the European Economic Area ? A government that is willing to explore the economic benefits of joining the EEA is needed. What exactly is so great about continuing to support your right-wing nutjob hard Brexit posh boys ? They've fecked the economy for millions of people - apart from their own ilk who've lined their pockets By the way, are you ri Alban on here too ? Its just that you seem to be doing a fine job of advancing the case for independence. Better than ri Alban does actually. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gundermann Posted February 8 Share Posted February 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikey1874 Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey J J Jr Shabadoo Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 5 minutes ago, Mikey1874 said: I wonder what Elphicke's beast of a husband is up to, nowadays. After he's signed the register, obviously. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Mighty Thor Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 36 minutes ago, Mikey1874 said: 29 minutes ago, Joey J J Jr Shabadoo said: I wonder what Elphicke's beast of a husband is up to, nowadays. After he's signed the register, obviously. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joey J J Jr Shabadoo Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 2 hours ago, The Mighty Thor said: We know the beast's wife tried to overturn the legal process, along with lots of other Tory, nonce sympathiser, by threatening the judge. ****ing Tory nonces. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Mighty Thor Posted February 9 Share Posted February 9 3 hours ago, Joey J J Jr Shabadoo said: We know the beast's wife tried to overturn the legal process, along with lots of other Tory, nonce sympathiser, by threatening the judge. ****ing Tory nonces. Top bird. Slotted right into his warm slippers in the Dover constituency then took 25k off the currant bun for the divorce story. A social climber if ever there was. Tories always Tory Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doddsyJR9 Posted February 10 Share Posted February 10 On 05/02/2024 at 12:43, WorldChampions1902 said: You are right that Bellevue Secondary (latterly Drummond High), is closest to both the Broughton area and Broughton Primary. I attended Broughton Primary and was the first intake to the ‘new’ Broughton High on Carrington Road beside Fettes College. That was the early 1970’s and I’m pretty sure Blair had left Fettes by then, so not sure what the OP is on about. Obviously that ‘new’ school has been replaced yet again in recent years. The Broughton High School had a huge catchment area. We had guys from all over attending, Wardie, Telford, Granton, Drylaw, Broughton, Stockbridge, Craigleith, Roseburn, etc etc. There were over 1500 pupils there when I attended. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manaliveits105 Posted February 11 Share Posted February 11 (edited) Article from the Guardian The EU isnae the promised land after all it seems farming protests - right wing parties gaining support and EU won't meet 2050 green target - disgusting ! are they allowed to blame the war and cost of living crisis ? On the outskirts of the northern Spanish city of Pamplona, a green, red and blue stream of New Holland, John Deere, Massey Ferguson, Fendt and Deutz-Fahr tractors trundled forwards, horns honking and orange lights flashing. Under drizzly grey skies and escorted by navy blue Policía Nacional vans, few were in the mood to explain the motives for their demonstration, but a young farmer from the nearby town of Estella threw open his cab door to share his grievances. “They’re drowning us with all these regulations,” he said. “They need to ease up on all the directives and bureaucracy. We can’t compete with other countries when things are like this. We’re … drowning.” In scenes now familiar from Poland to Portugal, angry farmers last week blocked roads, a port and a large wholesale market, and plan to continue through February. Italian farmers also took to their tractors last week, converging on the outskirts of Rome and staging a symbolic drive-past of the Colosseum on Friday. In recent weeks, large conurbations including Paris and Lyon have been blockaded. City centres in Brussels and Berlin have been choked to a standstill. Farmers have closed down motorways, dumped manure, hurled eggs, trashed supermarkets, set fire to hay bales and pallets, and clashed, sometimes violently, with police. Away from the heat of the protests, in TV interviews and parliamentary speeches, their cause has been enthusiastically adopted by a resurgent populist far right, which sees in the farmers’ revolt a promising new front in its long-running war on “out-of-touch elites”, “radical environmentalism” and “Brussels diktats”. Months from European parliament elections in which far-right and “anti-European” parties are projected to make big gains, farming – which represents just 1.4% of EU gross domestic product – has climbed, suddenly, to the top of the political agenda. Away from the heat of the protests, in TV interviews and parliamentary speeches, their cause has been enthusiastically adopted by a resurgent populist far right, which sees in the farmers’ revolt a promising new front in its long-running war on “out-of-touch elites”, “radical environmentalism” and “Brussels diktats”. Months from European parliament elections in which far-right and “anti-European” parties are projected to make big gains, farming – which represents just 1.4% of EU gross domestic product – has climbed, suddenly, to the top of the political agenda. Why are farmers protesting across the EU and what can the bloc do about it? Read more “Everywhere in Europe, the same questions are coming up,” said France’s prime minister, Gabriel Attal. “How do we continue to produce more, but better? Continue to tackle climate change? Avoid unfair competition from foreign countries?” They are questions to which Europe needs rapid answers. The first stirrings came, appropriately, in the Netherlands – Europe’s most intensively farmed country, home to more than 110 million livestock, including cows, pigs and chickens, and, largely as a consequence, to nitrogen emissions four times the EU average. Five years ago, officials said “drastic measures” were needed, including buying up and shutting down farms. The government unveiled plans to cut nitrogen emissions in half by 2030, partly by slashing livestock numbers by up to a third. Dutch farmers did not wait for the details to make their feelings known. In October 2019, more than 2,000 tractors trundled from all corners of the country to the seat of government in The Hague, causing 620 miles of motorway tailbacks. “No farmers no food,” their placards read, and “Proud of the farmer”. It was the start of a movement that has since snowballed cross the bloc, accelerating rapidly in recent months to leave – so far - only Austria, Denmark, Finland and Sweden untouched. Many protests – as in the Netherlands – are at least partly country-specific. In Italy, demands included reinstatement of an income tax exemption that had been in force since 2017 but was due to be scrapped in the 2024 budget. In Germany, where protests have briefly paused after an estimated 30,000 farmers and 5,000 tractors paralysed Berlin in mid-January, the most explosive issue is a government plan to phase out tax breaks on agricultural diesel to balance its budget. But uniting them all are concerns shared across mainland Europe: falling product prices, rising costs, over-powerful retailers, cheap foreign imports and – in particular – EU environmental rules that many farmers see as unfair and economically unrealistic. “ There are many issues,” said Arnaud Rousseau, president of France’s biggest farmers union, the FNSEA. “But the seeds of these protests are the same: lack of understanding between the reality on the ground and the decisions taken by governments.” Spain’s agriculture minister, Luis Planas, said last week that the causes of the protests sweeping Europe were diverse and complicated, but boiled down to longstanding dissatisfactions and farmers feeling underappreciated. “Farmers want to be listened to and respected,” said Planas. “And they often feel they aren’t respected – especially in Brussels, but also sometimes in Madrid, or in the urban or political sphere.” Some problems are structural. The EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP), the €55bn (£47bn) annual subsidy on which mainland Europe’s postwar food security has rested for more than 60 years, has always been based on economy of scale: bigger farms, common standards. Increasingly, that has encouraged consolidation (the number of farms in the bloc has fallen by more than a third since 2005), leaving many larger operations overburdened with debt and many smaller ones struggling to stay competitive on product price. Others are temporal. The past two years have brought a vicious squeeze on already tight margins, triggered by the pandemic and, more significantly, Russia’s war on Ukraine. Farmers’ costs – fuel, electricity, fertiliser and transport – have soared. At the same time, efforts by governments and retailers to limit the impact of the cost of living crisis on consumers have hit prices. Eurostat data shows the prices farmers get for their products fell on average by almost 9% between late 2022 and late 2023. That squeeze is being further exacerbated by an avalanche of imports, often from countries and regions where farmers are not generally subject to the same strict standards and regulations as in the EU – and so can compete unfairly on price. A flood of cheap agricultural produce, especially grain from Ukraine – on which the EU initially waived quotas and duties after Russia’s full-scale invasion – prompted furious Polish farmers to begin blocking cross-border roads as early as the spring of 2023. Free-trade agreements with non-EU countries are also a source of anger, particularly a forthcoming deal with the Mercosur bloc of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay – all of which use hormones, antibiotics and pesticides banned in the EU. “We have to deal with all these rules and yet we face competition from goods from outside the EU that simply aren’t produced in the same conditions,” said Emmanuel Mathé, a French farmer, during a recent motorway blockade outside Paris. Completing the catalogue of woes, the climate crisis – droughts, floods, heatwaves and other extreme weather events – is increasingly affecting output, particularly in southern Europe. Besides Italy, large farmers’ protests are due in Greece this week. The readiest focus for farmers’ ire, however, is EU environmental legislation. For an already struggling industry, the European green deal, aimed at achieving climate neutrality across the bloc by 2050, looks very much like a bridge too far. The plan’s targets for agriculture included halving pesticide use by 2030, cutting fertiliser use by 20%, devoting more land to non-agricultural use – for example, by leaving it fallow – and doubling organic production to 25% of all EU farmland. Copa-Cogeca, the leading agricultural lobby in Brussels, has described much of the deal’s “Farm2Fork” strategy as a “top-down … poorly designed, poorly evaluated, poorly financed” proposal that “offered few alternatives to farmers”. In response to the growing wave of rural revolt, Europe’s politicians are running scared. The European Commission has made multiple recent concessions in an effort to ease tensions, with its president, Ursula von der Leyen, insisting the bloc had heard farmers’ concerns. Last week, the commission shelved plans to cut pesticide use, saying it had become “a symbol of polarisation”. Last month, it unveiled an “emergency brake” on the most sensitive Ukrainian products and delayed rules on setting aside more land. Presenting the EU’s latest recommendations for cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, the executive last week also eased up on agriculture, removing from a previous draft the stipulation that farming would have to cut non-CO2 emissions by 30% from 2015 levels. While farming would have to transition to a “more sustainable model of production”, von der Leyen said, farmers were undeniably being confronted with a range of problems and “deserved to be listened to … We should place more trust in them”. At a national level, too, governments have scrambled to respond: Berlin watered down its plans to cut diesel subsidies while the Italian prime minister, Georgia Meloni, on Friday agreed to partially reinstate the suspended tax exemption, at least for low earners. Paris scrapped a diesel tax increase and promised measures worth €400m, plus €200m more in cash aid. Farmers deserve to be listened to… We should place more trust in them Ursula von der Leyen Attal also said it was now “out of the question” that France would agree to the planned EU-Mercosur trade deal as it stood and promised the government would stop imposing stricter rules on its farmers than EU regulations demanded. Will it all be enough? The growing politicisation of the movement is a real concern. In the Netherlands, a new populist party, the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB), emerged from the “nitrogen wars”, channelling rural resentment and opposition to “radical environmentalism”. The BBB swept the board in provincial elections last year and while it failed to repeat that performance in November’s general election, it is one of the parties negotiating to form the next Dutch government with far-right, anti-Islam provocateur Geert Wilders. The far-right Alternative for Germany – now second in the polls – has forcefully backed the farmers, as have members of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France, which has said it wants the “abolition”, pure and simple, of the European green deal. The farmers’ protests make an undeniably appealing bandwagon for far-right and populist parties, an extension of the culture wars that allows them to rail against what they portray as an increasingly dictatorial EU, as well as an urban, international elite ignoring – or attacking – oppressed rural workers. While most farmers reject any far-right connection, many have acknowledged that they feel trebly misunderstood: by politicians who impose unrealistic regulations, consumers who know little about how food is produced, and environmentalists who cast them as evildoers. In last month’s protests in Germany, a surprisingly large number of tractors bore placards complaining about Teslas. Elon Musk’s US electric car brand is, it seems, emblematic of the kind of urban wealth that votes green, but knows nothing about farming Back outside Pamplona, the list of Spanish farmers’ grievances sounded all too familiar: they want less bureaucracy, fairer prices, a revision of the European green deal, safeguarding of CAP subsidies and stronger protection against non-EU competition. And in Madrid, Planas was well aware of the political risk, with the agriculture minister saying he was worried that opposition parties were deliberately exploiting the farmers’ protests for political gain. He was particularly bothered, he said, by comments made in congress by Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the conservative People’s party, who accused the socialist-led government of alienating farmers through its pursuit of what he called “environmental dogmatism”. Planas said: “That’s an expression we’ve heard a lot from many sectors that – let’s be clear – are climate deniers and anti-EU. I find it very worrying because I believe that Spaniards understand very well that climate change is here.” Such talk by the likes of Feijóo, he added, called into question the bloc’s approach to fighting the climate emergency, whose effects – most notably a prolonged drought that is having a devastating impact on water supplies – were already being keenly felt on the Iberian peninsula. “Spain is a country that is pro-EU,” Planas said. “That doesn’t mean we don’t sometimes disagree with the odd decision. “But I think what’s happening now is directly linked to the forthcoming European elections.” Q the whataboot the UK though likesy brigade of simpletons Edited February 11 by manaliveits105 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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