The political choices we make are invariably a mixture of the emotional and rational. A combination of identity and utility. Principle and pragmatism.
So, any border poll campaign – either calling for a united Ireland or for Northern Ireland to remain in the UK – must find an appeal to both people with strong convictions – and those who are persuadable one way or the other.
I was thinking about this when I read about the situation Northern Ireland’s farmers now find themselves in, with no more EU subsidies and no proper replacement scheme from a British government with a thousand more pressing spending priorities.
Indeed, the current controversy is the chancellor’s bid to level inheritance tax on farmland – ostensibly to close a tax loophole where millionaires squirrel away their wealth in land – but in the process bringing small farmers into the scope of the tax for the first time (or so they noisily maintain).
Then there are the free trade deals – the faded jewel at the heart of the Brexit project.
These are now beginning to see cheap New Zealand lamb and Australian beef bound for British dinnerplates. Agreed in haste by Boris Johnson in October 2021, his own environment secretary, George Eustice, decried the deals as a bad for British farmers.
And this is before we strike a trade deal with the USA, which will involve further agricultural concessions, potentially flooding our supermarkets with even more cheap produce.
Where does all this leave Northern Ireland’s farmers?
There are just over 40,000 of them, with another 10,000 or so working in the labour force, according to figures from the agricultural census, conducted each year by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs.
Northern Ireland has around 1.4 million people on the electoral register, so people directly connected to farming accounts for about 4% of the total electorate.
Now, these are merely people who own farms and their employees and does not include those who live and work in the wider rural economy who also rely on those farms for their livelihoods. We can probably multiply that 4% several times over.
Indeed, the Ulster Farmers’ Union estimates that 35% of Northern Ireland’s population lives in a rural setting.
So, what’s my point?
Well, it strikes me that farmers and those dependant on them are having a hard time and it’s going to get a lot harder. Higher taxes, fewer subsidies and increased competition. And none of this likely to ever change.
So how do Northern Ireland’s farmers insulate themselves against this perfect storm?
Well, there is a fairly obvious remedy that would guarantee incomes and eradicate unwelcome foreign competition: Rejoin the European Union.
Ah, but there is little prospect of another referendum on the UK’s membership anytime soon, even in the EU would have us back, which is moot.
An easier route is for Ireland to be reunited, immediately returning to farmers in the sixth north-easternmost counties of the island the agricultural payments they have lost at the hands of disregarding English brexiteers.
So, back to my initial point.
Our political choices are always a mixture of the emotional and the rational. Heart and head. Could the farming fraternity in Northern Ireland and the wider rural economy start to wonder if they might – just might – be better off in a united Ireland?
The political choices we make are invariably a mixture of the emotional and rational. A combination of identity and utility. Principle and pragmatism.
So, any border poll campaign – either calling for a united Ireland or for Northern Ireland to remain in the UK – must find an appeal to both people with strong convictions – and those who are persuadable one way or the other.
I was thinking about this when I read about the situation Northern Ireland’s farmers now find themselves in, with no more EU subsidies and no proper replacement scheme from a British government with a thousand more pressing spending priorities.
Indeed, the current controversy is the chancellor’s bid to level inheritance tax on farmland – ostensibly to close a tax loophole where millionaires squirrel away their wealth in land – but in the process bringing small farmers into the scope of the tax for the first time (or so they noisily maintain).
Then there are the free trade deals – the faded jewel at the heart of the Brexit project.
These are now beginning to see cheap New Zealand lamb and Australian beef bound for British dinnerplates. Agreed in haste by Boris Johnson in October 2021, his own environment secretary, George Eustice, decried the deals as a bad for British farmers.
And this is before we strike a trade deal with the USA, which will involve further agricultural concessions, potentially flooding our supermarkets with even more cheap produce.
Where does all this leave Northern Ireland’s farmers?
There are just over 40,000 of them, with another 10,000 or so working in the labour force, according to figures from the agricultural census, conducted each year by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs.
Northern Ireland has around 1.4 million people on the electoral register, so people directly connected to farming accounts for about 4% of the total electorate.
Now, these are merely people who own farms and their employees and does not include those who live and work in the wider rural economy who also rely on those farms for their livelihoods. We can probably multiply that 4% several times over.
Indeed, the Ulster Farmers’ Union estimates that 35% of Northern Ireland’s population lives in a rural setting.
So, what’s my point?
Well, it strikes me that farmers and those dependant on them are having a hard time and it’s going to get a lot harder. Higher taxes, fewer subsidies and increased competition. And none of this likely to ever change.
So how do Northern Ireland’s farmers insulate themselves against this perfect storm?
Well, there is a fairly obvious remedy that would guarantee incomes and eradicate unwelcome foreign competition: Rejoin the European Union.
Ah, but there is little prospect of another referendum on the UK’s membership anytime soon, even in the EU would have us back, which is moot.
An easier route is for Ireland to be reunited, immediately returning to farmers in the sixth north-easternmost counties of the island the agricultural payments they have lost at the hands of disregarding English brexiteers.
So, back to my initial point.
Our political choices are always a mixture of the emotional and the rational. Heart and head. Could the farming fraternity in Northern Ireland and the wider rural economy start to wonder if they might – just might – be better off in a united Ireland?