Farmers For Action (FFA) has written to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urging him to seek a two-year extension to the Brexit transition period.
“Deal or no deal, Brexit is still a train wreck,” FFA Northern Ireland co-ordinator William Taylor told AgriLand.
“Reports suggest Johnson has asked his cabinet to be free for a vote this week, which could infer they are close to a deal. But either way, Brexit will be a disaster.”
Taylor explained the letter appealed to the Prime Minister to “take stock of where the UK was the day after the 2016 referendum”.
Letter to No. 10
“Dear Prime Minister, The Steering Committee of FFA are most concerned about the current consequences of Brexit – deal or no deal on January 1, 2021,” it reads.
“…in Northern Ireland exports were growing, jobs were aplenty and growing. When we look at England, Scotland and Wales, the day after the referendum again jobs were plentiful, you could say the UK had made a reasonable recovery after the banking crisis.
“Today, four years down the line Northern Ireland is clearly haemorrhaging jobs daily along with Great Britain as a consequence of Brexit and those consequences are about to escalate on January 1, deal or no deal, and our family farmers yet again will be the fall guys in the middle of all this!
“Mr. Prime Minister, we don’t have to remind you that the Second World War united countries in Europe and across the world against dictators and fascists.
When in history was division ever a solution to anything, we ask you.
“Sir Winston Churchill stated after the Second World War, ‘The light which now shines so brightly throughout the world would have been quenched but for the loyalty of Northern Ireland,’ making the point that a united UK needs a united Europe, which must be all-inclusive.
‘A wrecking ball’
“We implore you to draw back from the brink for two years; let’s now have a truthful full-information, no-pressure EU membership debate and a referendum to follow,” it added.
“…Putting an EU customs border down the Irish Sea in peacetime and reinstating EU customs controls around the UK is an economy wrecking ball.
This will not only put southern Ireland’s economy into shock but could be the beginning of the end of the EU and all that it was created to do!
“In Northern Ireland, financial support has been given by your government to help pay for customs clearance and internal UK goods movements paperwork – this will only last a short time and does not account for the massive cost of lorry queues to businesses, never mind increasing emissions at all EU connection ports around the UK.
Another referendum
“FFA UK Northern Ireland is calling on you the Prime Minister to immediately before January 1 put the case to the EU-27 for a two-year delay on Brexit – to allow time for the people of the UK to re-debate membership of the EU, now that they are only starting to feel the consequences of leaving and then have another referendum!
To those who say ‘nay’, we say ‘did democracy end with the last referendum?’
“Remember, in the next two years we need stability and united strength in Europe and indeed across the world to deal with Covid-19 now that it is raging worse than ever…
“Remember, the man that never changes his mind changes nothing, and boy do we need a change of direction!”
