Thread by @MonkEmma

I'm going to start by saying:

I'm not a Farmer
I voted remain
I have campaigned passionately to Remain
I am gutted and angry that we have left

But my eyes have been well and truly opened to the attitudes of many people whom I have campaigned alongside previously....

1/

I got involved in a campaign, #SaveBritishFarming, to try and protect our high food standards (after the govt U-turn) and push for an EU trade deal to try and protect our food industry.

Protecting our food supply felt like a mission we could all get behind.....

2/

But the comments and attitudes of many Remainers on twitter have really shocked me.

They seem to lay the Brexit blame solely at the farmers' door.

So as a Remainer, who likes facts over beliefs I wanted to take a closer look...

3/

"All farmers voted for Brexit"

Actually it seems that around 52-53% of farmers voted for Brexit based on several polls before and after June 2016.

So a similar proportion to the UK as a whole.

The NFU campaigned to Remain in the ref. in 2016

4/

Even if EVERY farmer in the UK voted the same way in 2016 it wouldn't have changed the result.

There were ~129,000 farmers in 2016 in the UK

The difference between Leave and Remain was 1,269,501 votes (10 times the number of Farmers in the UK!)

5/

"Farmers were all displaying Vote Leave signs"

Many Farmers did. The Vote Leave campaign were very pro-active with that sort of thing.

The Remain Campaign were woefully inadequate. Some Farmers say they would have displayed Remain signs if they had been given them.

6/

The same could be said all over the country.

The Leave campaign were very active.

The Remain campaign, as the status-quo, was fairly lacklustre.

I don't think this can all be pinned on Farmers

7/

Much of the UK Farmland is owned by individuals who see it as a good investment due to lack of inheritance tax etc.

Dyson alone owns over 1% of all English Farmland.

Like Dyson, many of these people supported Brexit and so had access to all that land to advertise.

8/

And finally, many farmers, particularly those with smaller farms genuinely felt disadvantaged by the EU's Common Agricultural policy.

It favoured large landowners and French farmers gained up to 3 times the subsidies that UK farmers got.

9/

Even ardent Remainers could see that the CAP was a system that needed reform (and it is underway!) and our Farmers felt like they were suffering because of it.

Farmers were told their lives would improve without it thanks to a fairer system being promised by UK Govt.

10/

We were all lied to by the Leave campaign. They were devious and manipulative and they won.

Millions of Brits were taken in by them.

Not just the farmers.

We have welcomed #RemainerNow to our campaign but we seem determined not to support Farmers. Why?

11/

NFU have published reports on the danger of a No Deal Brexit

Farmers for a PV campaigned alongside the rest of us last year. (Remember the Sheep in Westminster and the Tractor message from #LedByDonkeys?)

Many farmers have marched and campaigned like the rest of us.

12/

Farmers aren't the enemy. They didn't cause Brexit. They aren't "only just waking up too late"

The Future of British Farming will impact us all. It is vital we all do what we can to support them.

But if Remainers continue demonising Farmers we'll never get anywhere.

13/

Remainers pride themselves on being open minded, outward looking, and factual.

Yet where farmers are concerned they appear stuck in a mythical narrative of blame and anger.

If we ever want to Rejoin we will need to join with others to campaign.

#SaveBritishFarming

14/ End!