SIR, – In the EU referendum, the Leave campaign said that the Conservative farming minister, George Eustice 'told farmers at the launch of Farmers for Britain that the UK government will continue to give farmers and the environment as much support – or perhaps even more – than they get now”.

Yet since he successfully got that Leave vote, the spirit of those words has not been matched by him nor the Conservative government in Westminster.

Whilst they say support will continue to 2020 – which is simply the end of the current parliamentary term – what happens after that is as clear as slurry. At the Oxford Farming Conference, in January, the BBC’s rural affairs and environment editor reported that George Eustice had said there would be no more ‘subsidies’ post 2020 for farmers.

And the Conservative government’s Brexit White Paper doesn’t meet the spirit of George Eustice’s promise. It says that 'with EU spend on CAP at around €58bn in 2014 (nearly 40% of the EU’s budget), leaving the EU offers the UK a significant opportunity to design new, better and more efficient policies for delivering sustainable and productive farming, land management and rural communities'.

Following on from that we’ve had the Scottish Conservative leader suggest that powers over regulation will be retained by Westminster rather than devolved 'automatically' from Europe as promised by the Leave campaign in the referendum.

Considering Theresa May is desperate for a trade deal with Trump which could open up the UK to American produce, this has set alarm bells ringing for Scotch quality producers.

Such weasel words come nowhere near the clear promise that farmers and crofters will get 'as much support - or perhaps even more'; and considering Conservative government's habit of cuts to public spending those words hide a myriad of possibilities for a leopard that doesn’t change its spots.

That position of the UK government suggests that just as the UK government sold out Scottish fishermen going into Europe they will use them as a bargaining chip to leave. Perhaps to get other EU states’ support to lobby for the banks in the City of London to still have free access to the EU market.

Any votes the Conservatives get in May this year at the local election in Scotland’s farming communities will be used by them to claim they have the endorsement of those communities to implement that weasel- worded paragraph. Just as with so many other issues, the Tories will take it as a sign that they can do what they like to Scotland and get away with it.

James MacDonald

by Oban, Argyllshire.