Gove tells farmers deal will be reached with EU

UK ENVIRONMENT secretary Michael Gove refused to be drawn yesterday on the winner of the Tory leadership race, but he is certain a deal will be struck before Brexit.

Whether it will be Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt who is announced as the next prime minister later today, Mr Gove said sooner or later a deal with the EU was inevitable.

Both Mr Johnson and Mr Hunt have said they would take the UK out of the EU without a deal if necessary.

Speaking to the Western Mail at the Royal Welsh Show yesterday, Mr Gove said a no-deal scenario was bad for Welsh farmers, adding: “I think it’s in everyone’s interest that we get a deal and that’s what whoever is fortunate enough to be prime minister will make it their top priority. Sooner or later there has to be a deal.”

When it came to making sure farmers had access to the £3bn pot of money which is allocated to the agricultural industry from Europe every year, Mr Gove said he would be in a position to “continue to generously fund and support farmers”

However, the way subsidies will be allocated will change post-Brexit, and the Welsh Government is leading the way in how to do this, he said.

“hT e Welsh Government [has] produced some very interesting work on how to better incentivise Welsh farmers to not just produce highquality food but also to improve the environment and to provide other public goods, and we’ll be following a very, very similar path as well,” said Mr Gove.

Industry leaders have warned there could be “civil unrest” in rural Wales if the next prime minister goes down the route of a no-deal Brexit.

Speaking at the show, the Farmers’ Union of Wales (FUW) predicted protests, while NFU Cymru said it would not rule out campaigning to stop Brexit entirely.

And Meat Promotion Wales said the impact of a no deal would be “off the Richter scale”.

FUW president Glyn Roberts said: “If the farming community have their backs against the wall, the only way they’re going to get from there is fighting their way through.”

Just two years ago, Mr Gove attended the Royal Welsh Show and told farmers they should not fear Brexit, telling them he believed a deal with the EU, on which Welsh agriculture is dependent for exports, could be reached.

Asked if he thought he would still be in a job next week, Mr Gove, who was knocked out of the Conservative leadership contest early on, replied: “I don’t know, is the honest answer.”