Campaigners in tractor go- slow line up more Yorkshire protests

A CAMPAIGN group which drove tractors down the high street in Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s constituency to warn of the implications of the US trade deal is planning further protests in Yorkshire in the coming days.

Last month, in an event organised by Save British Farming, demonstrators targeted Northallerton, inset, in a bid to put pressure on North Yorkshire MPs to “do the right thing” and get behind British farmers, as well as consumers and “everybody who cares about food”.

Richard Sadler, a North Yorkshire volunteer with the group as well as being chair of the anti- Brexit North Yorkshire for Europe, said further protests were planned in Yorkshire and elsewhere in the lead- up to the Agriculture Bill returning to the Commons.

He said the many farmers who supported Brexit in the 2016 referendum were “sold a pup”, adding: “Under the current leadership we’ve lurched towards a much more extreme version of Brexit than what we were being sold.

“We’re now heading for the hardest of hard Brexits – and the consequences for North Yorkshire’s farmers will be devastating.”

Mr Sadler added that a postBrexit trade deal with Donald Trump or his successor as US president would allow in “inferior, low- welfare meat from US factory farms”, including “meat from cows and pigs who never see a blade of grass and who are pumped full of antibiotics and hormones that are illegal in this country”. The campaigner added: “When you talk to local farmers, many are already being pushed to the brink and if we allow a US trade deal to take priority over farmers’ livelihoods many will go out of business.”