Sir, – Politicians are often decried for saying one thing in an election and doing another thing in parliament.

Probably the worst form of this type of hypocrisy is when elected representatives turn their back on the people that voted them into office and engage in activities which by direct implication will undermine the future prosperity and well-being of those who trusted them at the ballot box.

These were the actions last week of the six Conservative MPs: Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeen and Kincardineshire); David Duguid (Banff and Buchan); David Mundell (Dumfries-shire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale); John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk); Douglas Ross (Moray, Scottish Office Minister) and Alister Jack (Dumfries and Galloway, Scottish Secretary of State).

All of them represent constituencies where farming and food production are vital to the community and local economy, when they voted with the UK Government to defeat an amendment to the UK Agriculture Bill, which aimed to enshrine in law that food imports in any post-Brexit trade deal would need to match UK quality and animal welfare standards.

It was also evident that these MPs do not share the same enthusiasm to stand up for their rural constituents as some of their party colleagues, with 22 Tory MPs representing constituencies in England joining the SNP, Labour, Lib Dems, and all other opposition parties in voting to protect domestic food producers and farming.

In separate statements, Mr Bowie and Mr Duguid attempted to justify their actions by citing the potential risk to any UK-US trade deal as the reason for not supporting the amendment.

So, rather than being motivated to protect their constituents’ interests, they were more concerned with rubber stamping the UK Government’s attempts to appease Donald Trump.

Robert Macintyre

Newstead,

Newcastle-Upon-Tyne.