PRIME MINISTER David Cameron used his Welsh Conservative conference speech – in the year of an Assembly Election – to push for continued EU membership.
This may have seemed an interesting choice, given the party’s internal split on the issue, and more so because Leader of the Welsh Conservatives Andrew RT Davies is a confirmed ‘outer’.
Mr Davies did not mention the EU referendum in his speech, and nor did fellow sceptics like David Davies. However, Mr Cameron devoted more air time to the issue than to May’s election.
Mr Cameron is rumoured to be less-than-pleased with Mr Davies’ public announcement that he would be campaigning to leave the EU, and the leader of the party in Wales was referred to once, briefly, in a list below Junior Wales Minister Alun Cairns.
In a lengthy part of his speech (around 1,200 words) the Prime Minister explained how ‘Brexit’ would have a devastating impact on the people of Wales, especially the ones who own farms.
Mr Cameron, who earlier posed for a number of pictures with a lamb, pointed out that 97% of lamb exports went to the EU, but these exports ‘could be slapped with a 40% trade tariff.’
“Let’s just take one example – agriculture,” he said.
“Welsh farmers and food producers rely on the single market.
“It gives them access to 500 million consumers, to whom they can sell their goods on an open, unrestricted basis.
“No tariffs, no barriers, no bogus health and safety rules designed to keep our products out.
“If we left this single market and relied on WTO rules, as some suggest, the extra costs of exporting British beef would be £240m a year.
“An extra £90m would be added to the cost of British lamb exports.
“And just think what that would mean for Wales, where almost 50,000 jobs rely on agriculture, and where the EU accounts for over 90 per cent of Welsh agriculture exports.
“98 per cent of dairy products go to the EU – but outside the single market they could attract a new 36% tariff.
“92% of beef exports go to the EU – and tariffs there could be between 58 and 70 per cent.
“Welsh lamb, such an important export and a source of national pride, would be hit badly.
“97% of lamb exports go to the EU, but lamb could be slapped with a 40 per cent tariff.
“Now of course relying on WTO rules is just one option that people advocate.
“We could go for a Canadian-style free trade deal instead.
“Now let’s note that for a moment that seven years on from the start of talks on a Canadian Free Trade deal, that deal is still not in place.
“Think about the seven years of uncertainty for business, not knowing what the arrangement would be for trading with Europe.
“Seven years of uncertainty for our farmers, not knowing whether those markets would be open.
“Seven years of uncertainty for businesses wanting to invest in Britain to provide jobs and investment and livelihoods not knowing what our relationship would be with Europe.
“Those seven years of uncertainty – they cannot be justified. They cannot be in our national interest and we should reject that idea out of hand.
“But in that scenario, there would also be quotas and restrictions.
“A free trade deal would mean limits on how many tonnes of meat we could export, and very high extra costs and restrictions for goods over that limit.
“Those asking us to leave seem to think that those countries we would have just left will give us some sort of sweetheart deal.
“But why would French farmers not want a slice of the market share of Welsh sheep farmers or beef farmers?
“Why wouldn’t the Italians want to give a greater advantage to their cheesemakers?
Why wouldn’t the Spanish use the negotiation to help their pig farmers?
“Now, the leavers say we should trade more with the rest of the world.
“Of course we should – and we will. But no-one should be naive about how easy this is.”
Mr Cameron referred to leaving the EU as ‘a leap in the dark’ a phrase commonly derided by those who believe in ‘Project Fear’.
He suggested that Wales had an ‘open, dynamic, confident, successful’ future as part of the EU, and suggested that leaving could have a negative impact:
“It’s not an exaggeration to say that Welsh agriculture, Welsh farmers and Welsh jobs could suffer enormously if we left the single market it’s just a fact,” he said.
“And I do think we’re entitled to a few facts from the other side – from those who want us to leave.
“They’re asking us to trust that leaving would somehow be worth the profound economic shock, and the years of uncertainty that would follow.
“They say we’d have more control.
“How exactly?”
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