RECENTLY the national Guardian reported ‘....that dozens of peers and MPs received millions in EU subsidies for their estates, according to a new survey by Friends of the Earth, which estimates that almost 50 politicians have cashed in.

Why wouldn’t they if the handouts are on offer?

But look closer at those names and surprise, surprise, some are leading the campaign to block Brexit.

One of those mentioned in the article is the MP for Eddisbury (which voted Leave), Antoinette Sandbach.

The article alleges £23,000 was paid last year to her family farming business in North Wales.

By the way, it isn’t EU money they receive but UK taxpayers’ money that the EU tells us how to spend (and it’s true of all so called EU subsidies and grants – the UK has paid the EU £190 billion net since we joined).

Almost 40 per cent of the EU budget goes on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) which hands out generous subsidies to the likes of farmers and which the French benefit from in the main.

Over 20 years ago New Zealand banned all government subsidies to farmers who are now among the most productive and successful in the world.

Surely these EU payments to MPs that support Remain (mainly Conservative ones) are a massive conflict of interest and invalidate their pleadings for why the largest democratic vote in the history of the UK (to leave the EU) should be ignored or overturned.

John Bickley

UKIP Cheshire West

 

  • Editor’s note: The office of MP Antoinette Sandbach contacted us to say that, although she voted ‘remain’ in the 2016 EU referendum, the MP has since voted on all three occasions in favour of the Government’s Brexit deal.