“BREXIT is an extremely complicated process, particularly when it comes to agriculture due to the EU’s protection for the sector” is the kind of benign quote one expects from an agricultural economist (“Study predicts Brexit could halve Scotland’s sheep flock”, The Herald, February 19). Yet hidden behind the understated “Brexit is an extremely complicated process” is the potential of utter disaster for the Scottish agriculture sector post-Brexit. With family members involved in farming, I am well aware of the sheer fear of the future across rural communities stretching far beyond the sheep and beef sector. Trade uncertainty highlighted in the article looms large with so many price and market unknowns making key mid-term planning, so critical for farmers, a hopelessly frustrating exercise making “uncertainty” a euphemism. Then there is the impending loss of critical labour for our soft fruit and vegetable growers who have made such an important contribution to Scotland’s acclaimed food and drink industry.

Farmers can’t just turn growing seasons on or off with a flick of a Boris Johnson promise. Underlying farmers’ depression is the absence of any comprehensive political determination (aka the silence of David Mundell and Ruth Davidson) on the replacement of the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) funding that provides €580 million per year to farmers in Scotland . Thirty per cent of CAP funding goes in subsidies through Rural Development payments, so vital for our marginal hill farmers and crofters with so little chance of diversification. Between 2014 and 2020 Scotland is supposed to benefit from a further 4.6 billion euros. Will the British Government replace that loss of vital funding? Scotland should be allowed to negotiate an autonomous agricultural agreement with the EU. A single British-Brexit agreement is not acceptable.

There are 13 Tory MPs in Westminster from Scottish constituencies (mostly rural seats). They can make a difference in a no-majority parliament. Will the 13 find some source of principle in order to protect an industry that is at the very heart of economy? Or will we see the decimation of rural communities in the similar manner to the destruction of our heavy industries under a previous “imperial” Tory Government?

Thom Cross,

18 Needle Green, Carluke.

I NOTE your report headlined “The tragic reality of SNP’s farming subsidy disaster” (The Herald, February 17). This is surely not a news story.

Certainly the Scottish Government deserves to be criticised for its IT failure on EU farm payments, but these payments are guaranteed by the EU and they will be paid – late. This is a serious problem, but not a disaster.

I think it would be valuable for you to concentrate on the real disaster which is facing Scottish farmers, and that is Brexit. Scotland’s Tories are blundering towards a virtual meltdown of large parts of Scotland’s farming with their failure to guarantee a continuation of CAP support if Scotland is dragged out of the EU by Theresa May’s no-hope Government. What they should be offering is an increase in farm support in Scotland to the levels of Norway, Switzerland or Japan.

Instead Boris Johnson, David Davis and Amber Rudd state we should get out of the EU, abandon the CAP and have new trade deals with the likes of America or Brazil or the good old British Empire. What they don’t tell you is that every trade deal will be bought at a price. No doubt America and Brazil will demand that we give cheap entry to their hormone-injected beef which has been fed on GM grain. No doubt Australia and New Zealand would love to send us their butter and cheese produced at animal welfare standards considerably lower than that of the CAP. Scotland may not have the best climate to enable us to produce cheap food but we have the best farmers to produce the highest quality of cattle, sheep, soft fruit and dairy products. Give them their CAP support payments and help keep Scotland at the highest regulatory levels of quality production.

George Leslie,

North Glassock, Fenwick.

NO doubt there were readers just a tad surprised by the despairing attack by columnist Fidelma Cook on UK Brexiters who seemed to be putting their country last and their personal ambitions first (“Am I a naive baby boomer with a ridiculous belief in the decency of man?”, Herald Magazine, February 17). Like maybe half Britain’s citizens, Ms Cook, a reporter of the old school, found herself completely uninformed by Theresa May’s waffle and jargon about sovereignty, control, and so-called “will of the people”.

A trite mantra, Ms Cook called it. What did it mean? Duplicitous politicians playing deadly games, that’s what. Interesting to see your weekly columnist specifically excluded Scots politicians from her hard-hitting attack.

Thanks are surely due to Ms Cook for producing this column, and to The Herald, born 1783, for publishing it when the times they are a-changing.

Jack Newbigging,

Heatherstane Bank,

Irvine.

IT is not surprising that we are now hearing pleas for new arguments to support Brexit. The latest appeal is from Ivor Tiefenbrun (“We need more people making the pro-Brexit argument”, the Herald, February 19). Certainly every day brings more information that questions Brexit.

The background is that the post-1945 order for the world is falling apart. The main initiator and guarantor of the order, the United States, has been renouncing its responsibilities over the years. Moreover the 2008 international financial crisis highlighted fundamental faults in the cross-border multi-trillion-dollar system that allow a hegemon to escape the rules drawn up for nations in the rest of the world.

Last week we had the Munich Security Conference – the Davos equivalent for global security. The conference report pointed out that while US national security strategies in the past have referred to a “rules-based international order”, the 2017 document dropped the assumption. The report said that the EU as a whole could play a stabilising role but the members are facing their own internal struggles and are far from agreeing on a joint grand strategy.

Can the EU fix its splintering politics and persuade the world of the way forward with a rethought enlargement process? Many don’t think so – and therefore sink the lifeboat.

Ian Jenkins,

7 Spruce Avenue, Hamilton.