JIM Fairlie branded Liz Truss’s suggestion the SNP are holding farmers back as “laughable” as he tore into the UK Government’s proposed tariff-free trade deal with Australia.
The MSP for Perthshire South and Kinross-shire brought a Members’ Business Debate to Holyrood on the topic yesterday to discuss the “potential for hugely damaging consequences” to Scotland’s most rural communities.
Fairlie, a farmer himself, didn’t hold back as he compared the Westminster deal to the decimation of Scottish farming in the late 1800s after a liberalisation trade deal with the US and Canada.
He told the chamber: “The excitement at this and future deals to be negotiated are palpable, said absolutely no one who understands or cares about this sector.
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“In the very late 1800s and early 1900s farming in this country was almost decimated as America opened up and transport became quicker, easier and cheaper.
“Grain and meat prices collapsed as the UK Government opted for the liberalisation of markets and as these prices collapsed many tenants simply packed their cars and headed for the towns to try and find work, but the Government insisted that cheap food was the priority.
“So land abandonment, land degradation and rural depopulation was commonplace. The farming sector didn’t recover until after the Second World War when the Government realised German U-boat attacks on merchant ships were going to starve Britain into submission.
“The infrastructure needed for an entire industry had simply been decimated by years of inactivity and loss of skill set which meant that the country had to reinvent its agricultural ability to feed itself. Thankfully the farmers and land girls faced up to that challenge and did exactly that.”
It comes days after Tory Trade Secretary Liz Truss hit out at the SNP for criticising the deal and said they were trying to “deny Scotland the benefits of the UK-Australia trade deal”.
However, Fairlie took his opportunity in the debate to respond, and said: “Despite the protestations of Liz Truss in The Herald, the very survival of the industry is now being jeapordised with a trade deal being proposed with Australia in exactly the same way as the American and Canadian liberalisation deals did almost 100 years ago.
“The spuriousness of her arguments that we in the SNP are holding the industry back are laughable.”
Tory MSP Stephen Kerr (above) was allowed an intervention, though it fell flat as he probed Fairlie on giving one example of when the SNP have supported free trade. In a quip that sent MSPs into roaring laughter, Fairlie simply replied: “The EU.”
Junior SNP minister Màiri McAllan made her maiden speech in the chamber during the debate and said that the deal would have a catastrophic impact on farmers and crofters.
The Minister for Environment, Biodiversity and Land Reform and Clydesdale MSP, who lives on a sheep and beef farm, said: “Make no mistake, any tariff free trade deal will have a devastating effect on Scotland’s farmers and producers.
READ MORE: WATCH: SNP MSP makes need for indyref2 clear in powerful maiden speech
“Let me be clear, this government deeply regrets that we’re being taken out of the EU against our will and it’s our intention that we should rejoin as an independent nation. Despite this we do accept the need to develop free trade agreements in the meantime.
“The Government wants to see Scotland’s trade increase, including with Australia, it’s our 14th largest export market valued at £618 billion in 2018.
“We’re keen to go further, but these gains they must never come at the expense of our farmers, our food producers and our precious natural environment and world leading climate ambition.”
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