Referendum Blog: April 11

Referendum Blog: April 11

MARDELL BIAS?:  Mark Mardell is the former ‘Europe’ editor of the BBC and thus has a special knowledge of EU affairs. News-watch research has established, however, that in the past – like so many at the BBC –  he has been unduly scathing of Ukip and the case for withdrawal, emphasising in one report claims that supporters of exit were the ‘BNP in blazers’, despite their electoral success.  After a stint working in the United States, he has now returned as regular presenter of R4’s The World This Weekend. His programme has been covering the EU referendum particularly closely –  most editions since January 24 have carried features about it, some of them taking up the bulk of the running time. On that basis, News-watch is carrying out a detailed assessment for impartiality, covering editions from January 24.

Meanwhile, an analysis so far has shown that at least one edition (7/2)  has already been definitely biased towards the EU, on the following grounds expressed in a letter of complaint to the BBC:

‘This was a seriously unbalanced item that explored whether David Cameron’s reform package would be accepted by Portugal.  It was followed by questions to two leading figures on the two sides of the EU referendum debate. The sequence inexplicably gave more than double the time to the pro-EU case. Overall, Mark Mardell’s editing presented a one-sided view of the Portuguese attitudes to EU reform. Further, the pro-EU commentator, Sir Mike Rake, the former president of the CBI – whose background as a pro-EU campaigner was not properly identified to listeners – had the time and framework to advance a reasoned case that it was vital that the UK should stay in a reformed EU and that the reform package was in Britain’s interests.  Richard Tice, of Leave.EU was afforded much less time (three minutes compared with eight minutes) to outline why he disagreed, and he was pushed by Mr Mardell’s questions into a narrower and more negative framework.’

The most recent edition this Sunday (10/4) was also seriously out of kilter. Mardell reported from Lake Como in Italy from a meeting about the world economy – with mentions of the possible impact of Brexit – arranged by think-tank The European House – Ambrosetti.   This provides what it calls ‘high level’ papers about economic issues. This example about a ‘multispeed Europe’ makes it plain that it believes that national differences are a problem because they hinder steps towards ‘full integration’.  Rather predictably, therefore, TWTW featured initially a stream of pro-EU guests. First off the blocks was Jason Furman, chairman of President Obama’s council of economic advisers, who said that the European Union had been a success and that exit would be an unnecessary risk.  Yo Yongding, said to be an economic advisor to the Chinese government, declared that he was confident that the British people would not be so ‘stupid’ as to want to leave the EU because the benefits of being a member were so obvious. Jens Spahn, the German State Secretary for finance, warned that if the UK did leave, ‘punishment’ would not be the right word, but the UK would not be able to ‘pick just the good things’.

Pride of place was given to ‘one of the main speakers’ from the Ambrosetti event, Elizabeth Corley, former chief executive and currently vice-president of Allianz Global Investors, a fund said to be worth £355 billion.  Ms Corley did not mince her words. She warned there was no possibility of an amicable divorce; that exit would force the EU from its main task of ‘creating jobs, creating growth, creating opportunities for its citizens’. She fleshed out in detail her reasons in a four-minute exchange with Mardell in which she delivered 700 words in response to just four questions, and also warned that exit would have short and long-term negative impacts on every aspect of the UK economy.

Thus the first part of the programme sequence focused entirely on the anti-Brexit arguments. Next up was John Mills, described as ‘deputy chair of Vote Leave and founder of home shopping business JML’.  Mardell’s tone and approach changed abruptly. With the Abrosetti guests, he had asked straightforward, non-adversarial questions; now he was much tougher. He asked Mills first what his response was to the argument that big business would have to think ‘many times’ before investing in the UK if there was an exit; why he thought people were making up scare stories; that huge companies disputed his arguments that the UK would not create problems for itself; that Elizabeth Corley had noted from her extensive contacts that politicians and business people in ‘Europe’ would not facilitate a friendly divorce; that the German finance minister had warned that the UK could not pick the best benefits of EU membership and discard the rest; that the French government was worried about the rise of the Front National, and did not want to send the signal that leaving the EU was easy (so there would be resistance); and that the Obama adviser and the Chinese economist had warned that a British exit would be bad for the world economy.

Mills had the opportunity to answer each of the points and did so. He rebutted as ‘scare stories’ the idea of negative economic consequences, pointed to the EU’s essential lack of democracy as the reason it was resisting changes, that the perspective being by offered was that of big companies which benefitted disproportionately from EU membership; and that negotiating a trade agreement would be negotiated.   His contribution amounted to 885 words in a five-minute sequence totalling 1176 words and eight questions.

The point here is not that Mills was prevented from answering some of the key anti-Brexit points – he was not, and indeed, he gave eloquent responses to several of them. Of concern are several other issues. First was the set up itself. The Ambrosetti event was clearly a framework for a variety of leading political economic and political figures to express pro-EU points in a strongly pro-EU setting and to warn of the dangers of a ‘leap in the dark’ exit.  Mardell structured their edited contributions in such a way to give the impression of the wide array of opinion against Brexit – from China, from the US, from within the EU itself and from a huge global investment funds that had potential influence over British economic performance. He also assembled a very formidable cast and, through them, a strong array of their pro-EU arguments.   They were introduced as, and came across as, commentators of authority. By contrast, the pro-exit camp was articulated by only one man who was introduced only as a founder of a mail order company. The interview was live (or projected as if live) and Mardell was much more adversarial in tone. Craig Byers, of the Is the BBC Biased?  website observed:

‘If you listen to it you’ll hear Mark Mardell adopting a doubting tone of voice and firing complicated question after complicated question at Mr Mills (and interrupting him), and using point after point from his authoritative high flyers. Now, the answers from Mr Mills haven’t stuck in my head the way Mark Mardell’s questions and the earlier (anti-Brexit) contributions have stuck in my head. (Is that just me? Or would it have been most Radio 4 listeners’ experience?) ‘

The key point here is that editors of radio programmes have tremendous power in orchestrating how contributions sound.  It’s not enough to put counter-opinion on; it will be swamped if the setting is unequal. Here, unquestionably, it was.  A presenter/journalist of Mark Mardell’s experience should do better.

This is the transcript:

 

Transcript of BBC Radio 4, The World this Weekend, 10 April 2016, EU Referendum, 1.11pm

MARK MARDELL:             The possibility that the UK could leave the European Union was the subject of some debate at a conference on the global economy at Lake Como organised by the private Italian’s think tank Ambrosetti House. Speakers set out a range of potential threats to stability – from a Chinese hard landing to terrorist attacks; from migration to Japanese public debt – but every list included Brexit, and not in a good way Jason Furman is chairman of President Obama’s Council of economic advisers.

JASON FURNMAN:          The European Union has been very successful in creating an area in which the free flow of goods and labour has contributed to the growing prosperity in Europe and Leave is extremely uncertain terms of what it actually means, and the amount of time and energy and uncertainty that would go into that rather than focused on what we can do to improve the European Union to work together to improve all of our economies would be an unnecessary risk to take.

MM:      That’s the view from the White House and the world’s largest economy. What about the second largest? Yu Yongding is a senior economist who has numerous posts advising the Chinese government.

YU YONGDING: No-one really gave very serious consideration about this, because of don’t believe it (sic).  They think this political struggle or whatever, I don’t think really British people will so stupid (sic) to vote for leaving EU.

MM:      But as an economist, if it did happen what, would there be any economic impact?

YY:         I think it’s not favourable towards UK, because you have benefited greatly from this kind of union.  For example, free travelling, er lowering investment costs and so on and so forth, so I think you have benefited greatly.  On the whole you should stay.

MM:      What if we did leave?  Here’s the view of Europe’s biggest economy from the German State Secretary for Finance, Jens Spahn.

JENS SPAHN:      Is the difference if you’re a member of the family or if you are just a neighbour.  Erm, and so there will be a deal of course and somehow we will arrange it but I’m not too sure everyone in Europe would really want to give them a big share again then.

MM:      You think that almost Britain would be punished?

JS:          Punishment wouldn’t be the right word.  But as I said, if you decide to leave, you just can’t pick the best things to remain for yourself and get rid of the rest.  It’s a package you get, when you are a member of the European Union, and by leaving you just can’t keep the good things.

MM:      One of the main speakers at the conference was Elizabeth Corley, until last month CEO of Allianz Global investors, now vice president of that company which operates in 18 countries and manage funds of £355 billion. I asked her what she thought leaving the EU might mean.

ELIZABETH CORLEY:        I spend a lot of time in Europe talking with policymakers, regulators some government officials and, and companies. There is no mood for an amicable divorce, if this marriage is severed, for lots of reasons: one it just isn’t possible to do this amicably,  you’re negotiating a trade agreement; secondly it will divert Europe from what its primary focus is at the moment, which is creating jobs, creating growth, creating opportunities for its citizens. It will divert an enormous amount of energy into a negotiation which isn’t going to add any value.  And thirdly I think there would be a risk that if it looked too easy then there might the other referenda in other parts of Europe, so there’s no incentive at all for anybody in Europe to make this easy.

MM:      Is that your political view, which of course you’re absolutely entitled to have, or is it your sort of analysis, as . . .

EC:         It’s a view based on, if you like, exposure to people in Europe, and running a global business and thinking about these things, thinking about opportunities that come from cross border business. So I’m always thinking about, is it easy or difficult to do business cross-border.  And one of the things that makes it much, much, much easier is if you’ve got a trade agreement.  It’s cheaper and it’s easier and I suppose the other thing is, thinking about the economic consequences – there’s a lot of economic research out there,  we’re in the financial markets and there’s no doubt at all in the minds of my economics team and most of the economics out there, that this is damaging economically.  Now, economics is only one reason for the vote, but it’s such a big negative that it can’t be ignored. My concern is that if we talk about GDP growth and economics and the world, it means nothing at all to somebody who says, ‘but I worry about can I get my child into school?’ You know, I’m a grandmother, my little granddaughter is about to try and find a school place, I care about her, I care about my daughter and my husband’s jobs, my brother and sister are self-employed small business people, critically depend on the level of demand. So for me it’s the opposite of political, it’s personal, its corporate and it’s economic.

MM:      What do you think it would mean for the way you and your company do business?

EC:         We have, at the moment, freedom to hire talent wherever we find it in the world, and particularly wherever we find it in Europe.  So, for example, if we find somebody Brilliant in the United Kingdom that we want to hire and create jobs and invest in the UK, we would have to think, not just once but many, many times as to whether we’d continue to do that. So in the medium term and long term it would definitely have an impact on where we invest, where we hire people, the number of jobs we create, the research and development we do, how we create new products. I’m afraid it would have a big impact long-term. And I think that’s also reflected in the, in the survey that the CBI did, and also the work that PwC did for them, which is talking about, if you like, the most favourable option, which is a quick, friendly divorce, and we get a European free trade agreement.  And even under that, the work that PwC economists have done for the CBI says by 2020 our global domestic product will be down 3%.

MM:      If that is the case, and people know it’s a possibility, wouldn’t investment already be being affected?

EC:         It is. It is be affected. And you also . . . this is a general problem that came out for the world by the way, there is already a reluctance on behalf of corporates to invest medium and long-term, because they’re worried about . . .

MM:      In Britain.

EC:         Globally.  Already a concern about investing globally because of the weak demand and the consumers aren’t buying as much as they used to, governments aren’t spending as much as they used to, companies are not spending as much as they used to. Therefore every single country is fighting hard and competing to get whatever investment there is in their countries.  We would be at a significant competitive disadvantage if we’re no longer the gateway into Europe for English speaking countries.  And therefore we would be competing with one hand behind our back for that foreign direct investment.

MM:      Elizabeth Corley of Allianz GI.  So we’ve heard a range of concerns about what leaving the EU would mean, so with me now John Mills, founder of home shopping business JML and deputy chair of Vote Leave, good afternoon.

JOHN MILLS:      And to you.

MM:      And what do you make of that, the argument that they, this big company, would have to think not once but many times about investing in the UK if we left?

JM:        Well, this sounds very much to me like what we had 10 or 15 years ago over the euro, when we were told by all these sorts of people that investment would dry up, that the economy would do worse and worse, that The City would collapse, and it just didn’t happen.  And I think a great deal of what has just been said is sort of scare stories which won’t be the outcome if there is a Brexit.

MM:      Why do you think they’re scare stories, and why do you think people are making those arguments?

JM:        Well, I think that large companies do have some benefits to secure from the European Union, because it’s easy for them to lobby Brussels and to get special advantages for themselves, it’s the smaller companies that are more fleet of foot, who are keener on Brexit, and business is very divided on it, erm, and it simply isn’t the case that there is a massive majority amongst all businesses for staying in. That’s very far from being the case.

MM:      Well, obviously, small business is important, but you have this huge company arguing it would mean a significant competitive disadvantage for Britain.

JM:        But I mean, I’m really not terribly clear where this competitive disadvantage is going to come from, because it seems to me to be extremely likely that there’s going to be some kind of free trade deal between Britain and the rest of the EU if we do come out.  In which case most of the conditions which Allianz and other people operate in will stay the same. I  just don’t believe there’s going to be a massive disruption, a massive change in the way everybody behaves as a result of Brexit, because I think that actually from a commercial point of view there won’t be much change in the conditions that everybody has to operate in.

MM:      Of course, Elizabeth Corley was making that point as well, she says she talks lots of business people and lots of politicians in Europe and she’s certain there would not be a friendly divorce.

JM:        Well, I don’t see how she can be certain, I mean, it seems to me there are a whole range of things where we just really don’t know what the situation’s going to be, one way or the other.  And for the people who are keen on remaining, always to assume the worst, to talk Britain down, to assume that the conditions are going to be more and more difficult, it’s just not a really . . . a realistic scenario, I think that it’s much more likely that very little will change in the commercial a sphere as a result of our coming out of the European Union, it may be easier for us to get trade agreements with other countries abroad, and I think it may well be that the economy would be a bit bigger if we do come out.  But I mean, I think the scare stories that we’ve heard of 9% reductions in GDP, and 3 million jobs being dependent on us being involved with Europe are just really scare stories.

MM:      But you’re talking about, the sort of deal that we’d have, you say it would be a good deal, but then we also heard the German finance minister saying it’s different being a family member to being just a neighbour, we wouldn’t want to give us (sic) a big share, you can’t pick the best, it’s a package, you can’t keep just the good things.

JM:        Well, I think that, that may well be the case, but if you look at the two major components of what renegotiation would be about: one is about trade, where I think it’s very likely that there will be at a trade agreement, I mean, if you look at the moment and the situation from Iceland to Turkey, from Poland to Portugal there’s free trade in industrial goods everywhere, it seems to me inconceivable that you’re going to have then just the UK as one part of the European landmass which doesn’t have free trade, I mean it just doesn’t make any sense, so I’m sure there will be some sort of free trade agreement. Indeed, I think just about everybody who’s looked at this carefully agrees this will happen. (words unclear due to speaking over)

MM:      (speaking over) But there’s a political dimension as well, isn’t there? Because in France they’re worried, the government is worried about the rise of the, er, the National Front who are also wanting a referendum, there are worries about other countries that might want to leave – they would want to give the signal ‘it’s not easy to break up’

JM:        Well they may want to give that signal, I agree, but it’s not terribly easy to see how this would actually translate into threats to the UK. And I think there is a big democratic problem in Europe which is that, by and large, the direction in which Europe is travelling, towards more and more federalism and integration, is not one which is supported by the population in most countries, which is why the Commission is so reluctant to have referendums about any of these things. I think there’s a gap opening up between what people want and the direction in which the EU is going, which is very dangerous and I think the rise of these various parties in different parts of the European Union, which want to come out, or don’t want to be in the euro is very significant. We’re just not seeing Europe carrying its people with it, with the changes and direction that it wants to go.

MM:      We heard from the White House view, which we do know, we heard from a Chinese economist, why do you think these big global figures are saying it would be bad for the world economy – they don’t care about what it means for Britain, but for the world economy.

JM:        Well, I’m not sure it would be bad for the world economy . . .

MM:      (interrupting) No, but they’re saying it would.

JM:        Well, I agree, these people are saying all sorts of things, the question is whether what they’re saying is actually true, and likely to be the result of Brexit.  I mean, it depends very much, of course, on the terms on which it takes place, and how it’s all conducted, but if there’s reasonable amount of goodwill all round, which is in everybody’s interest, I think that we could very easily see Britain refashioning our relationship with the EU much more on intergovernmental terms and as a part of a political project with free trade still being in place, in which case I think the vast majority of people in Britain will have got much closer to what they really want and I don’t think that would damage everybody else.

MM:      John Mills thank you very much indeed.

Referendum Blog: April 10

Referendum Blog: April 10

GREEN BIAS: A previous blog (April 7) highlighted that BBC2’s Newsnight had downplayed serious concerns about the role of the UK and the EU’s green energy regime in threatening the viability of the steel industry. Radio 4’s Today entered the fray the next day with an interview of Femke de Jong, the EU policy director of an organisation called Carbon Market Watch (a BBC website version of the story is here). She maintained that Tata steel was, in effect, being economical with the truth in claiming that EU green policy was a handicap; on the contrary, it had received £700m over six years through the EU’s Energy Trading Scheme (ETS) by being allocated more ‘carbon credits’ than it required – it was subsequently able to sell them.  Today returned to the subject the following day (Saturday), this time with a two-handed interview featuring Jeremy Nicholson, spokesman for the Energy Intensive Users’ Group (EIUG) and former climate change minister Greg Barker, who was said now to be president of the British Photovoltaic Association. Nicholson had the opportunity to say that his group strongly disagreed with claims that the steel industry was not handicapped by green policies, and particularly electricity prices. Mr Barker – who spoke for the lion’s share of the sequence – said steel manufacturers could apply for rebates, and high energy prices were therefore not an issue. Thus over two days, there were two features in which – hot on the tail of the Newsnight analysis – the over-riding weight of opinion was that the EU was not to blame for the steel industry’s woes.  Nicholson could have been asked much more, but was not.  A major issue is in the production. First, not made properly clear to listeners was that Carbon Market Watch is a million miles from being a disinterested party. Its website makes it clear that it wants much tougher carbon dioxide emissions restrictions, and had arrived at the calculations about Tata’s alleged ETS windfalls in connection with its agenda of jacking up energy prices to the maximum extent. Tata itself strongly denies its claims about windfalls, as does the airline industry  (which Carbon Market Watch (CMW) also wants to be hit with higher carbon taxes).  Another point about CMW is that it is funded by the EU, through the European Commission’s Life programme, the EU’s main environmental fund which over the years has disbursed billions of euros on campaigns).   Second, Greg Baker’s current role was said only to be chairman of the British Photovoltaic Association. But he is much more than that in the field of climate alarmism, most notably, a director of The Climate Group, an international organisation which is working on pressuring governments throughout the world to adopt green policies. Its website declares:

‘We work internationally with our coalition of companies, states, regions, cities and public figures on innovative programs around the world. By delivering evidence of success through our pilots and programs, we are inspiring leadership and driving the transformative change that is needed for a clean revolution.’

What’s the main point here? That the BBC’s approach to the Tata steel story continues to be fundamentally distorted and lacking in impartiality. The Today programme gave much stronger prominence to guests who argued that Tata was not hit by EU-related energy prices to the extent claimed, and indeed was substantially benefitting from the Commission’s carbon trading scheme. Both features could have signposted that the ‘green’ advocates (Barker and De Jong) were deeply biased observers who would be expected to play down the impact of the EU’s policies in triggering Tata’s woes.  Further, the programme chose to amplify CMW’s allegations about Tata without subjecting them to adequate challenge. Tata’s denial that it is benefitting from the EU’s ETS scheme was included in the BBC website version of the story, but not on Today. This, overall,  was therefore shoddy and unbalanced journalism on a matter of national importance. Further, the treatment was pro-EU in that CMW’s stance – and that of Greg Barker – amounted to a defence of high energy costs under the EU’s green targets and was given most prominence.

Photo by lorentey

Referendum Blog: April 7

Referendum Blog: April 7

Newsnight claim: ‘green’ costs are irrelevant to the future of Tata steel

CABBAGE PATCH: Radio 4’s magazine programme More or Less, which seeks to debunk and correct the misuse of numbers and statistics, has been attempting to arrive at the truth about a claim by Eurosceptics that the EU has rules about cabbage growing that add up to 26, 911 words. It’s a botched job – and shows worrying keenness to aim fire at the anti-EU side. On the plus side – although not too much, because a moment’s digging on Google reveals the true facts – the programme has established that the EU regulations affecting vegetable production have never been that long (at most around 2,500 words), and not only that, 26,911 number seems to have been both fabricated and used almost ad lib to cover other negative claims about EU rules.  Thereafter, the programme entered far murkier waters. It claimed that all EU regulations relating to vegetable farming had moved into the form of an advice booklet, and the specific regulations had been repealed.  This, however, is only partially the truth, and highly misleading. The reality – as the EU Referendum website points out here – is that yes, the relevant EU regulations were repealed in 2009, but only because the EU decided, under the growing weight and influence of international law, to subcontract the whole field to a higher body, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). It did not abandon or see the light about cabbage regulation, but instead was forced to outsource it. The replacement regulation is 1,606 words, not dissimilar from what it was  before. More or Less is a series and might balance this clearly anti-Brexit item with something equally iconoclastic; but an issue here is that in its efforts to attack the anti-EU camp, it aimed at a pretty rickety (if not downright preposterous) target and in so doing could not even get its facts right.

BIAS BY OMISSION:  One of the major points of debate in the Tata steel story is the role played by escalating energy costs in an energy intensive industry. The anti-EU side says that price hikes in electricity forced upon companies by EU climate change directives, working in tandem with the 2008 UK Climate Change Act, and the new punitive carbon trading taxes, have put not just Tata, but the whole of UK manufacturing industry in danger. The other signs of this are the closure earlier this year of the Redcar steel plant, and before that, on Anglesey, of an aluminium smelting plant. The pro-EU (and green) lobby, for example, Labour deputy leader John McDonnell, argue otherwise – they say that energy is only around one percent of steel production costs and thus coincidental in Tata’s current woes. Where does the BBC fit in this equation? Newsnight on Tuesday night looked at the issue – and through the lens of a report by a Financial Times journalist decided to come down heavily on the ‘marginal cost’ side. Flying in the face of opinion from a steel industry spokesman that such costs did matter, the FT man reiterated the same 1% figure as John McDonnell, and this was rammed home to viewers by graphics, together with opinion from Lord Deben (formerly John Selwyn Gummer), who for years has been advocating extreme climate alarmism. The concerns of anti-EU side were thus unceremoniously junked. There was no attempt to bring into play opinion such as this from the climate and energy expert Paul Homewood, who spells out here why the reality of continually escalating electricity prices make production in the UK untenable – and a flight to plants in cheaper energy regimes such as Thailand  (already the home of Tata production) the only viable options for the future. Homewood’s figures – together with arguments from the respected commentator Matt Ridley –  are summarised here by James Delingpole.  For years, News-watch research has shown that the BBC has been ignoring opinions that run counter to climate change alarmism. It is continuing with the Newsnight coverage of the Tata story, and adds up to pronounced, deliberate bias against elements of the anti-EU case. As the referendum looms, that’s very serious bias by omission.

Referendum Blog: April 6

Referendum Blog: April 6

PAUL MASON:  For years, Paul Mason was the economics correspondent/editor of Newsnight. He was part of a team lead by the programme’s ex-Guardian editor, Ian Katz, and News-watch has assembled over the years evidence that pro-EU slant has been a serious problem, especially, for example, on the day that David Cameron announced that the EU referendum would take place (back in January 2013), when the programme line-up was 18 pro-EU figures ranged against one ‘outer’ – predictably, Nigel Farage. The suspicion is that there is a BBC/Newsnight  ‘mindset’ in play that is deeply liberal-left. So what has Mason done since leaving Newsnight?  He’s surfaced as a Labour party ‘adviser’ and is also writing articles for the Guardian on his political beliefs. A thorough analysis of his views is here. In a nutshell, Mason emerges as a died-in-the-wool, old-fashioned Marxist who is still chanting 30-year-old hard-left, anti-Thatcher rhetoric.  The BBC claim, of course, that all their journalists leave their prejudices at home – but the track record of Newsnight, and its early pro-EU approach to reporting the referendum debate, reported elsewhere on the News-watch site, suggest strongly otherwise.

BIASED AGENDA?  How does the Today programme arrive at its coverage agenda? Clearly, there are certain ‘hard’ breaking news stories such as the death of icons such as David Bowie it feels it can’t ignore.  But other choices are much less obvious. This morning the programme chose an item angled on a report from the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) which suggested that Brexit would lead to increases in food prices and seriously negative impacts on the nation’s farmers. The report was commissioned by the NFU from an agricultural intelligence unit based at the university of Wageningen, and was projected as unbiased. A moment’s digging, however, on the unit’s website shows that it has received significant funding from the EU, both for specific research projects and for exchange schemes involving academics and students. The issue here is the extent that Today should tell its audiences about such connections. It is against BBC editorial guidelines not to do so.

 

Photo by MACSwriter

Referendum Blog: April 5

Referendum Blog: April 5

EX-PAT BIAS  BBC2’s Newsnight examined last night opinion about Brexit among ex-pats in the Costa Del Sol.  Reporter Sekunder Kermani had drawn the short straw of being sent to sunny Malaga…and he made it clear that most Brits there were deeply worried about exit. He assembled from his contributors and his own comments a long list of reasons: pensions being hit, ex-pats becoming illegal immigrants overnight and being forcefully sent home to a Britain with room for them, the withdrawal of free health cover, the imposition of border controls, supplies of Yorkshire tea and corned beef being withdrawn from local shops and rising taxes.  He found only one ex-pat who wanted to vote for exit. True to BBC form, his contribution was edited to project him as a little Englander whose main reason for wanting Brexit was that he was worried that Tunbridge Wells was being swamped by Eastern Europeans. His choice of camera shots throughout the feature was totally patronising and clichéd: designed only to show how downmarket and narrow the English abroad are, and thus to exaggerate the ‘little Englander’ narrowness of our approach to ‘Europe’.  Of course, under BBC rules, daily current affairs programmes are not required to be balanced in each edition; features broadcast on other days can be taken into account in a running tally. News-watch will await them with interest. But meanwhile, the signs are not good – our analysis of World Tonight showed clear bias in similar ex-pat features, especially one contrasting opinions in Freiburg, Germany, and Guildford.

PERFIDIOUS ALBION: Radio 4’s Inglorious Isolation segment continued today after World at One with a contribution from French journalist Catherine Guilyardi. It was sharply intelligent analysis of the genesis of some of the key differences in attitudes towards national identity between the United Kingdom and France. Her main point was that Britain had remained stubbornly ‘isolationist’  towards the concept of European unity whereas France had seen the need to understand that ‘Europe’ as a concept had soul and was prepared to work towards that end. Her analysis ranged through the English Civil War and the French Revolution, to the Sun’s ‘Up Yours, Delors’ headline, and a focus of her argument was that the British pursuit of self-interest through diplomacy – especially after the Second World War – annoyed the ‘straightforward’ French, who in consequence saw Britain as ‘perfidious Albion’.  There are still three more editions of this series to go, but it seems from the first two that the over-riding aim is to portray the UK as isolationist, selfish – and rejecting of the sunny uplands of EU integration.  The question mark looming increasingly in a series being broadcast during the build up to the EU referendum is, ‘where’s the balance?’.

Photo by Rob Greg

Referendum Blog: April 4

Referendum Blog: April 4

INGLORIOUS ISOLATION: All this week, Radio 4 is carrying after World at One a series called Inglorious Isolation: A European’s History of Britain. In each 15-minute programme, a prominent ‘European’ is giving a view about the impact of the UK on his or her own culture. First off the block today is Italian architect Francesco da Mosta – and it’s already available on iplayer. He’s a charming and entertaining raconteur…but the problem here, as he spoke about the origins of British stoicism in Roman philosophy, and the influence of the Grand Tour, leapt out. The over-riding aim of the series is to show that Brits are ‘European’ and have been deeply influenced by European values. Yes, of course, we have to an extent – but in the context of the impending referendum, this is bias. ‘Remainers’ push with every sinew to tell us that we are ‘European’ and that to leave is turning our back on both geography and our heritage. Brexit supporters say we are not turning our back to ‘Europe’ at all – simply the EU.  The programme construct thus inevitably favours the remain’ side. News-watch will analyse the series of a whole and assess the extent to which this concern is borne out.

CLIMATE CHANGE BUBBLE: As the referendum campaign unfolds, a major issue has been how the BBC has been reporting the EU’s strident, ideological approach to green and related energy issues.  This was exemplified in an edition of Radio 4’s  Costing the Earth analysed here. The supportive approach by the BBC to climate change alarmism is part of this tapestry of concern and is clearly a biased approach. Today, for example, the BBC is reporting uncritically that ‘according to models’ Antarctica is going to melt, causing eco disasters on an unprecedented and unimaginable scale.  Scientists who disagree, such as those here, are seldom ever reported on the BBC under their crazy rules of ‘due impartiality’. That means that in one important respect, the pro-EU environmental/green agenda narrative is broadcast unchecked.

BBC SOROS LINK: The BBC is going overboard today on the story that damning files about offshore funds have been leaked from a Panama source.  It’s the subject of a BBC1 Panorama programme this evening, is the lead story on the BBC website, and filled the ‘front page’ 7.10am and 8.10am slots on the Today programme. A huge issue of concern here is how they BBC came to have the story in the first place.  It was unearthed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The Corporation, it transpires is closely associated with the group to the extent that it is named as a ‘partner organisation’. Clearly, with the Panama files it was an early recipient of the data – Corporation staff  had been working on the Panorama programme for some time before the files were made more generally available. An issue here is how the BBC can justify such a relationship, because despite its high-flown title, the ICIJ has a deeply biased agenda which, for example, pushes climate change alarmism. Further, it is funded partly by George Soros, who is strongly pro-EU, along with a raft of left-leaning foundations whose agendas are politically partisan.

Photo by Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the BPL

Radio 4 World Tonight investigation finds more BBC pro-EU bias

Radio 4 World Tonight investigation finds more BBC pro-EU bias

A News-watch investigation into one of the BBC’s flagship news programmes has found it to be heavily biased in favour of Britain remaining in the EU.

Twenty  consecutive editions of the programme – one of the main ‘hard news’ formats on the BBC – between February 22 and March 19 were surveyed. The main finding was that staunchly pro-EU figures had the lion’s share of comment.

Senior figures such as former French Prime Minister Edith Cresson and Alan Johnson, the head of Labour’s Keep the UK in the EU campaign, were given a platform to advance detailed arguments on why the UK should remain in the EU.

But only one supporter of the ‘leave’ camp – Wolfgang Ott, a member the German AFD party – was given the time to explain why he thought the British vote was essential in the interests of democracy. Ritulah Shah, the presenter of the programme, introduced him by saying he was from an “anti-immigrant party” that was “criticised for its links with the far right”.

World Tonight carried a dozen features focusing on the upcoming EU referendum, including an entire programme based on a range of contrasting views in the twinned cities of Freiburg and Guildford, as well as special features in other editions that included surveys of attitudes towards the referendum among ex-pats in Berlin and on the Costa del Sol.

Of the named guests (some were in vox pop items and therefore not named) who offered views about the EU, nineteen expressed pro-EU or pro-remain ideas, seven wanted exit or were clearly anti-EU, and eleven were neutral. This imbalance was made worse as seven of the pro-EU figures were given the opportunity to outline detailed arguments, whereas only three of the leave figures were allowed more than one or two sentences.

There were three editions in which the programme went out of its way to elicit comment from strongly pro-EU figures without balancing on the leave side in any of the 20 editions.

The three editions were:

  • On February 22, former Irish PM Dick Roche, former French PM Edith Cresson and former Polish finance minister Jack Rostowski discussed their reaction to the announcement of the referendum date. Both were strongly in support of remain and advanced detailed arguments why. The only criticism was that the referendum was taking place at all and of the concessions granted to the UK. Dick Roche warned that an EU exit by the UK would damage European security, and would trigger the emergence of “disruptive (Front National-type) forces from Holland to Hungary”.
  • On March 11, leader of the Labour Keep the UK in the EU campaign, was asked about his lecture to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Harold Wilson in which he had argued that the former prime minister would be a strong supporter of the EU now, and even more so than in the past because of its role in globalisation.  The interview was more than 1,000 words and ran for around eight minutes. It gave Mr Johnson the framework to attack Gaitskell’s dismissal of the EU as ‘hyperbole’, to claim that voters had known they were voting for more than an economic union in the 1975 referendum, that the EU stood for democracy, freedom of speech and the rule of law and was the reason it had won a Nobel peace prize in 2012.
  • On March 14, P.J. Crowley, a former advisor on foreign relations to the Obama White House, was interviewed about his reactions to claims by Boris Johnson and others on the ‘leave’ side that Barrack Obama should not overtly support either side in the referendum debate during an expected visit to the UK in April. He advanced detailed reasons he believed the US should support the ‘remain’ side, and why the EU was important to the US.

None of these exchanges were adversarial to the extent that the presenters’ approach was sufficient to cancel out the heavily pro-EU points put across by the respective guests. Neither did material in other features balance these elements. In all other features, the presence of remain views was countered or balanced by further remain figures.

David Keighley, Managing Director of News-Watch said:

“This analysis shows that yet another BBC flagship programme is not being impartial in its referendum coverage. Far too much prominence on World Tonight has been given to ’remain’ figures. Their guests, such as Alan Johnson,  have taken the opportunity to expound their case with both hands. By contrast, ‘leave’ supporters have been far less prominent and the details of the arguments for ‘out’ have not been explored to anywhere near the same depth.”

 

Peter Bone MP said:

“This is yet another example of BBC bias in the EU referendum. The broadcaster has been warned time and again but they continue to fly the flag for the EU. I urge them, to refrain from bias on this issue of vital importance. This is a once in a generation opportunity for the British people to have their say on whether we remain or leave the EU and the BBC has an important duty to the public to provide balanced, impartial coverage and it is fundamentally failing to do this. It appears to many people that the BBC is institutionally bias towards the EU. I will be writing to the Secretary of State urging an investigation into the BBC’s coverage of the EU referendum.”

 

Other News-watch observations about EU referendum coverage on World Tonight:

  • On February 29, in a report from ex-pats living on the Cosa Del Sol in Spain, several ‘remain’ reasons were advanced by pro-EU contributors, including the likelihood increased medical bills and restrictions in freedom of movement. Christine Rowlands, chair of Conservatives Abroad declared that “you would be hard pushed’ to find anyone in the Costa Del Sol who wanted to leave the EU.” Against that, a radio show host said that ex-pats were put off by the EU because it had wasted money in Spain and had diluted Spanish culture. More time, approximately 48%, was given to the Pro-EU contributors, against 36% for those who wanted out.
  • A report by Simon Jack (2/3) about a warning from BMW that exit from the EU would hit badly the prospects of British subsidiary Rolls-Royce carried comment that Vote Leave had dismissed the claims. In that sense it was even-handed, but the choice of a ‘scaremongering’ story as the subject of a correspondent interview elevated the story in importance, and there was no balancing interview about fears of the impact of remaining. It thus added to the overall skewing against the ‘leave’ case.
  • On 7/3, there was a survey of opinion about EU fisheries policy from Peterhead. The commentary emphasised that there was much discontent over quotas, and reporter Paul Moss found two fishermen who outlined the reasons for their discontent. He also included opinion from Business for Britain (their local spokesman Mev Brown) who explained that he would use the plight of fishermen to illustrate the Brexit case.  Moss found two local political figures who favoured staying in the EU to improve the fisheries policy, and also felt the EU was a vital market for the fish. On balance, slightly more time was given to the Brexit/anti-EU side.  It was the only feature that did favour marginally the ‘leave’
  • The next special survey of ex-pat attitudes to the referendum was in Berlin on 16/3. It was clear from the overall tone and comments that the four selected and named interviewees – who it was said had got together because of concern about their status in the event of a ‘leave’ vote – that they were both pro-EU and considered themselves ‘Europeans’. The questioning was about what they had done to ensure that they could stay living in Germany if the UK decided to leave the EU. Two of the figures were classed as ‘neutral’, because they were speaking purely about their own experiences, but it is likely from the context that they were pro-remain.

 

  • Finally, on 17/3 came the special feature from the twinned towns of Freiburg and Guildford. Three of the named figures selected for comment – Wolfgang Ott, from the AFD, Gordon Bridger, a former mayor of Guildford, and Michael Gorman from the Guildford branch of the Town Twinning Association made clearly anti-EU points. Mr Ott said there should be a referendum on leaving in all the EU countries, Mr Bridger that UK exports to the EU would not be affected by exit, and Mr Gorman that he thought the deal secured by David Cameron was very poor to the point where the UK should reconsider membership. In the final sequence, Hans-Olaf Henkel, of the German Eurosceptic party Alliance for Renewal, attacked the euro, and increasing Brussels centralisation, but he was not asked specifically what alternatives they could be. He contended that the rise of populist movements in Europe was because the EU had not handled the immigration issue properly. It was impossible to discern the extent which Her Henkel was actually anti-EU (if at all – in the same way that David Cameron now strongly supports the EU but regards himself as eurosceptic) but for the purposes of this analysis he has been classed as such.  So in total, there were four voices who clearly had reservations about the EU. Against that were a sprinkling of voices in the Anglo German club in Freiburg who were clearly pro EU and thought that the UK leaving would be a negative step; Marcus Adler who ran the Freiburg refugee camp, who put across that the German approach to immigration was working and had the full support of the local community;  Malcolm Parry, manager of the Surrey Research Park, who said that not one of the 1,800 local businesses in his orbit wanted to leave the EU; two named members of Guildford choirs, who between them claimed that it was vital to belong to ‘Europe’ and that the EU had scored important successes in human and working rights; Ian Stewart from the Twinning Association who said Britain should concentrate in staying in; and finally Ralph Brinkhuas from the ruling Christian Democrats in Germany and Almut Moller the pro-EU Council on Foreign Relations, who argued against Herr Henkel that the EU was doing a very important job in terms of security, the economy, foreign relations and immigration, and that it would be damaging if the UK left.

There was thus a very significant imbalance in this very lengthy (40 minute) item. The pro-EU, anti-UK- exit said was given greater prominence. In basic terms, there were only four significant clearly ‘exit’ contributors against eight who were strongly pro-EU and wanted to remain. The ‘remain side’, as exemplified by the triple-hander at the end, had significantly more space to put their case.  The choice of such strikingly affluent towns could have had a role in that.

It can easily be seen that the ‘remain’ side supporters heavily outnumbered Brexit supporters in many features, the only exceptions being those from Peterhead and Spain

The full list of guests was:

Pro-EU/remain: Dick Roche, Edith Cresson, Jack Rostowski (all 22/2);  Rheinhold Lopatka  (25/2); Christine Rowlands (29/2), Christian Allard(7/3), Charles Buchan (7/3), Alan Johnson (11/3), P.J. Crowley (former Obama advisor) (14/3); Jane Gordon (lawyer) (16/3); Amanda Deal (16/3), Vatrod Fleismann (17/3), Marcus Adler (17/3), Malcolm Parry (17/3); James Garrow (17/3); Leslie Scordelis (17/3); Ian Stewart  (17/3); Ralph Brinkhaus, a Christian Democrat MP  (17/3); Almut Moller of the European Council on Foreign Relations

Against: Richard Tilsley (29/2), Mev Brown (7/3), Jimmy Buchan (7/3); Wolfgang Ott (17/3), Gordon Bridger (17/3); Michael Gorman (17/3); Hans-Olaf Henkel (17/3)

A handful of very short vox pops from Freiburg and Germany (17/3) on both sides of the debate were not included in the analysis because they were too short to include reasons.

Neutral: Damian Lyons Lowe, of Survation (25/2), John Curtice of Strathclyde university (25/2); Paul May (16/3), Martin Gordon (16/3); Ronald Ash 917Gillian Cameron (17/3); Mark Edwards (17/3); Harry Schindler (18/3).  Jacob Rees Mogg (18/3) argued that Ian Duncan Smith’s resignation was nothing to do with the EU; his contribution was therefore also neutral.

Andrew Gimson and Isabel Oakeshott (26/2) have also been classed neutral commentators. Both, however, were strongly critical of the tactics of the ‘leave’ side.  They agreed that the ‘leave’ side was also all over the place and Isabel Oakshott suggested that Number 10 believed the economic arguments were on its side. Andrew Gimson noted that eurosceptics could not agree where the last ditch was over sovereignty so had disagreements among themselves.

 

 

 

 

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Referendum Blog: April 3

Referendum Blog: April 3

MARR BIAS? Today’s edition of the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1 leaned firmly towards the ‘remain’ side. Three guests – former BBC economics editor Stephanie Flanders, business secretary Sajid David and actor Jeremy Irons – all were given the opportunity to declare they favoured ‘remain’ and advanced without challenge from Marr their detailed reasons for doing so. Alison Pearson was the only Brexit supporter. Andrew Marr suggested she was in ‘hot water’ over her suggestion that the UK should leave.

SEESAW PROBLEMS? Now being trailed is Nick Robinson’s two-part show about the history of the UK’s relationship with the EU: Europe: Them or Us: an island apart, due to be shown on BBC2 from April 12.  Alarm bells are already ringing.  First, it is produced by John Bridcut, who was also responsible for the report on BBC impartiality commissioned in 2007 by the BBC Trustees. With the bizarre title From Seesaw to Wagon  Wheel, this set in stone the idea of ‘due impartiality’ which means that the Corporation can interpret impartiality any way they want, and overwhelmingly in its favour. Second the programme blurb shows a clear imbalance in the list of named speakers against the ‘eurosceptic’ side because the only definite ‘outers’ are Tony Benn, Nigel Farage and Iain Duncan Smith. The fear here is that the BBC has never explored properly the arguments for ‘out’ – this looks like more of the same.  A third issue is the title. Most ‘outers’ don’t dispute they are Europeans – their beef is being in the EU. Using the ‘EU’ and ‘Europe’ loosely in the political context creates further bias against the ‘out’ camp, as Brendan O’Neill eloquently pointed out on Spiked! in this blog. Robinson’s programme title itself is therefore biased.  The proof of the pudding in terms of the quality of the series will be in the eating, of course – but these preliminary signs do not look good.

IRISH TROUBLES? The BBC website here gives strong prominence to a report from the Davy Group, an Irish wealth management company known to strongly favour the EU – but that’s not spelled out in the report. Davy speculate that in the event of UK exit from the EU, the border between The Republic and Northern Ireland will become a major problem and inconvenience because the UK will not be able to negotiate a deal which allows the continuation of the current open arrangements for considerable time, if at all. The spectre of strenuous customs checks is clearly raised. The BBC website has carried earlier stories with DUP politicians stating that Northern Ireland has nothing to fear from exit – along with pro-EU ones based on negative claims from Enda Kelly, the Irish Prime Minister – but the issue here is that the importance and credibility of the Davy report is especially emphasised.   Similar selectivity can be seenin this report on the BBC website by Justin Rowlatt about the Indian Prime Minister’s visit to Brussels. He mentions that some Indian businesses favour exit – but puts by far the most weight on ‘remain’ opinion.

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News-watch Launches EU Referendum Blog

News-watch Launches EU Referendum Blog

This new service will track on a regular basis programme items that seem to be biased towards the pro-EU side. The observations are not the result of detailed analysis. Rather, they are pointers based on News-watch’s experience in tracking the BBC over many years, and on past BBC performance.

If you spot BBC bias, do let us know.  You can register instances at www.bbccomplaints.com 

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BBC Environment programme flouts BBC impartiality rules

BBC Environment programme flouts BBC impartiality rules

Costing the Earth; The Environment after Exit (BBC Radio 4 March 15 and 16)

h/t Craig Byers of Is the BBC Biased?

The programme, presented by Tom Heap, investigated the current impact on the UK of EU-related policies affecting conservation, fisheries, farming and renewable energy, and explored what might happen in the event of Brexit. The main fulcrum was whether, in the light of the evidence presented, the United Kingdom was likely to start afresh policy debates in each area, or whether it would be safer and more effective to stay in the EU.

Detailed analysis of the programme transcript shows it was heavily biased to the ‘remain side’ and was not impartial in the handling of the people and topics it covered. The impression conveyed was that Brexit would risk undermining the current conservation regime, would lead to a severe reduction in farming subsidies, would put small farms at risk, that the fast-expanding renewable energy business on farms would be threatened, and that the UK’s efforts to combat climate change and atmospheric pollution would be diminished. The programme did acknowledge that at least one farmer believed the Common Agricultural Policy did not work and that the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy was very unpopular. Three figures who opposed it were included – but the main sign-off, contribution on that topic was from a senior industry figure who favoured remaining in the EU.

In summary, the programme presented significantly more evidence that it was better to remain in the European Union. Speakers supporting ‘remain’ were given more time and space, largely uninterrupted, to advance their arguments, and their credentials were prominently mentioned. All of the eight were acknowledged experts working for national organisations or involved in campaigning for the UK to remain in the EU at a national level. Their expertise covered the entire terrain of the programme.

By contrast, none of the speakers supporting Brexit was a national ‘expert’ – they were a farmer, a fisherman, a harbourmaster, a snack bar owner and the press officer of a small charity/pressure group fighting windfarms in Scotland. It was thus a programme with contributions of unequal weight.

The handling of the two sides of the debate was also uneven in that more adversarial questions were asked by the BBC figures in the programme (Tom Heap plus two other correspondents) to those who supported Brexit. The ‘remain’ contributors had more uninterrupted time to explain their respective positions. for example, one of almost two minutes from Stanley Johnson, the main ‘remain contributor. By contrast, the contributions from advocates of Brexit were generally much shorter and fragmented by challenges from the presenters. None was able to present a long-form, detailed response.

This imbalance was not offset by the contributions of the presenters. They put only a couple of adversarial questions to the ‘remain’ contributors. More were posed to the Brexit side and they were more challenging, especially in the sequences covering fishing and windfarms.

A further problem was that the exact status and allegiances relevant to the programme of some of the remain guests was not explained to the audience. Matt Shardlow, who spoke about conservation, was correctly introduced as chief executive of Buglife.  It was not mentioned – directly relevant to his likely outlook to the EU – was that his charity receives significant project funding from the EU. Andrew Blenkiron was introduced only as the estate manager of the Euston Estate. But he is also a prominent regional official on the NFU, and has written strongly pro-EU articles in that capacity for Farmers’ Weekly. Tom Clothier was introduced as the ‘renewable energy manager at Wyke farms’.  The farm’s owner, Richard Clothier, was a signatory to a recent pro-remain letter to the national press by ‘leading figures from the farming industry’ – as was Andrew Blenkiron.  Finally, Andrew Whitehead was said only to be an ‘energy analyst’ from the lawyers Shakespeare Martineau. The clear impression was that he was thus independent. But he is also a leading official of a pan-EU energy organisation and has written articles for the Birmingham Post warning about the downsides of Brexit as regards Britain’s energy needs.  These connections all illustrate that figures introduced as ‘experts’ were not likely to be independent in their outlook, and, indeed, were each strongly pro-EU. This was seriously misleading to listeners.

The problems in imbalance are further illustrated by word count analysis. The total contribution of spokesmen on the ‘remain’ side was 1,847 words, whereas the combined figure for supporters of ‘leave’ was 1,040, a ratio of roughly two thirds to one third. The longest single contribution on the pro-EU side was 290 words (Stanley Johnson), compared with only 117 words for Linda Holt. Length of contribution as a measure on its own is not a definite indicator of bias, but in this programme, where the ‘remain’ side was in other respects heavily favoured, it underlines and confirms the problem.

In more detail, the key issues relating to the failure to achieve impartiality were as follows.

 

Guest inequality

The programme featured several figures who were introduced as ‘authorities’ on EU legislation. All their contributions, with only minor reservations, supported ‘remain’ and that the EU had a strongly positive influence in

  • supporting wildlife habitats:
  • in ensuring that farming was highly prioritised in the national agenda and highly subsidised for the benefit of both farmers and food production;
  • and in the transition to renewable energy.

In this category were  eight contributors: Stanley Johnson, who had worked at both the European Commission and in the European Parliament in framing the EU Habitats Directive; Matt Shardlow, the chief executive of Buglife, Andrew Blenkiron, from the Euston Estate in Suffolk; Bertie Armstong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (speaking in a personal capacity); Brian Gardner, a policy adviser for Agro-Europe, which provides intelligence to farmers about EU legislation; Richard Clothier, a farm owner who was using an anaerobic digester to provide energy; Andrew Whitehouse, an energy analyst with the lawyers Shakespeare Martineau; and Juliet Davenport, chief executive of ‘green’ power company Good Energy.  Some of these, as is noted in the introduction, had declared in writing that they were strong supporters of the ‘remain’ side.

Ranged against them on the anti-EU side were five figures:  fisherman Andy Giles; harbourmaster Keith Bromley, Pam of Pam’s snacks (all in the fisheries section and opposed to the CFP); farmer Colin Tyler; and Linda Holt of the Scotland Against Spin anti-windfarm group.

This was a significant and unfair imbalance. All the arguments made by the pro-EU side were articulated by authority figures and experts who were identified and projected as such. By contrast, the anti-EU side was expressed by individuals, who, though clearly articulate and able, did not have the same ranking in their respective areas of activity as the pro-EU figures. The only minor exception was Linda Holt, who is press officer for the pressure group Scotland Against Spin. But it is a small charity surviving entirely on charitable donations – unlike Buglife (the nearest comparison on the Pro-EU side), which is an international organisation and receives significant grant aid from the European Union – a factor which was not mentioned on the programme.

Analysis of the contributions by the pro-EU experts also shows that all were allowed significant time to put and explain their respective cases, a total of 1,847 words; all their contributions were edited so that they included supportive facts and figures; and also so that their pro-EU points were the longest in the programme.

Tom Heap/ BBC presenter roles:

Examination of the role of the presenters, Tom Heap, assisted by Robin Marks (who interviewed the guests in the fishing section), and Nancy Nicholson (who interviewed anti-windfarm campaigner Linda Holt) raises further issues of concern.

In a 30-minute programme, they asked relatively few questions and presented very little analysis – their main role was to provide a framework for the contributors to express their views. In this process, they were not sufficiently rigorous, and not even-handed.

Only one mildly adversarial question about EU policies was put to any of the ‘remain’ contributors. Andrew Blenkiron was asked the cost of saving each great-crested newt in a conservation scheme he had manged; he replied that it had been £6,500.

By contrast, the Brexit contributors, Cornish fisherman Andrew Giles, farmer Colin Tyler, and windfarm opponent Linda Holt, were each directly challenged about their views. It was suggested to Mr Giles by Robin Marks that his opposition to the CFP would result in the environment not being protected and was based on self-interest; to Mr Tyler by Tom Heap that he could advocate less EU (or government) subsidy because he was closer to the markets of the south-east; and to Linda Holt by Nancy Nicholson that her resistance against more windfarms would cause more global warming and pollution.

The questioning of the respective sides of the debate was thus biased against the Brexit side.

As was established in the previous section, the ‘remain’ figures had most time to advocate their case. To rectify that, it would be expected that there would be balancing material and comment from the presenters. There was some, but it was very limited.  Tom Heap said that the Common Fisheries Policy was unpopular and thought by scientists to be a failure, and that elements of energy policy did not sufficiently encourage insulation.

Mr Heap, however, also made pro-EU comments in his linking material. On fisheries, he noted that the Marine Conservation Society credited EU legislation for the clean-up of beaches and the creation of marine protected areas. He then noted that the CAP, in contrast to the CFP, ‘really matters’ because farming spent 40% of the EU budget’.

At the end, Mr Heap, in his conclusion, suggested that leaving the EU would involve starting each debate afresh, with issues such as ‘where should we get our low-carbon energy’ at the centre of the debate.

 

Programme summary:

Costing the Earth set out to investigate how ‘Europe’ has its fingers and ‘tendrils’ in ‘an awful lot of issues in our countryside’, and chose farming, fisheries, energy and wildlife conservation as examples to investigate.

Tom Heap pointed initially to that the ‘bedrock of European conservation law’ was the Habitats Directive

Within its framework, several experts spoke positively about this involvement.

Wildlife conservation

Stanley Johnson, introduced as the ‘father of Boris’ with the explanation that ‘they don’t agree on the European Union’, said that the Directive was now a ‘huge oak tree’ that protected 18 per cent of the land area of the 28 countries in the EU.   He said it was ‘an extra layer of protection’ to this precious landscape ‘provided by Brussels’. It meant that even if the British government wanted to frack in the national parks, there would be ‘a lot more hoops to go through’. He suggested that people wanted this, ‘they do care’.

Matt Shardlow was introduced as ‘chief executive of the organisation Buglife. Tom Heap asked him what has ‘Europe’ done for the Roman snail., a species which Mr Shardlow said had been in the UK for hundreds of years. He said the creature had been brought here by the Romans and was thus part of our heritage. He explained when the European Union Habitats Directive was introduced  in 1992, it was a protected species, and it meant  that the member states had to keep it in good condition. He was asked ‘how confident are you that ‘Europe’ was needed to deliver that’. And ‘it couldn’t be delivered by national governments?’

Mr Shardlow replied that it could have been done by national government but was not, and for the past 20 years conservationists had relied upon the European Court of Justice – ‘the bigger scope of the Habitats Directive…to make sure that wildlife here is ultimately protected’. He added he did not have enough faith in the government (UK) ‘in suddenly stepping up and gaining…this moral sense of responsibility, this great urge and vitality about looking after wildlife…’

Tom Heap observed that the Habitats Directive had proved itself as ‘powerful tool’ in influencing development in this country.  He spoke to Andrew Blenkiron (introduced as the manager of the Euston Estates in Suffolk – it was not mentioned that he was also regional chairman of the strongly pro-EU NFU and signatory of a recent anti- Brexit letter in the Financial Times) He said that as a  result of the Habitats Directive, it had cost £65,000 to establish great crested newt habitats as part of a reservoir development.    Tom Heap observed that he and other land owners were ‘irritated’ by such cost and delays for protecting a creature that was ‘actually quite common in England and Wales’ but rare in most of the rest of Europe.  He said that Mr Shardlow of Buglife sympathised but ‘blames national government interpretation of the of the law rather than the EU’.  He blamed the UK government for not monitoring the status (degree of threat) to species…if they did that properly ‘you don’t have to introduce Draconian laws’.

Fisheries

Tom Heap opened by saying that the Marine Conservation Society credits EU legislation with cleaning our beaches and creating marine protected areas.  He added that said there was no avoiding the link between the EU and the pictures of fishermen throwing perfectly good fish, dead, back into the sea. He said British fishermen were no fans of the Common Fisheries Policy, and main scientists thought they had done a poor job of conserving stocks.  A report followed containing fishermen’s reaction to the CFP. One said it prevented haddock fishing when there was plenty of stocks, the monthly quota was ‘ludicrous’. He asserted that ‘if we came out of Europe, maybe it would change’.  The fisherman also noted that the haddock quota did not apply to the French – but if he went into their waters, they would be ‘blown up.’   Pete Bromley, the harbourmaster at Sutton in Plymouth, said the CFP rules were flawed ‘even after four attempts at reform’ and put a lot of pressure on British fishermen.  Pam, of Pam’s Snacks, also said the UK should pull out of Europe because the rules and regulations were ‘killing the fishing industry’. The BBC reporter put it to the first fisherman that the CFP rules were there to protect the environment and ensure there was enough fish to go round.   The first fisherman disagreed and said discards were still happening. The reporter said that was being phased out. The fisherman replied that instead, fishermen were being forced to stop fishing. The BBC reporter (Robin Markwell) said there weren’t many people who would defend the CFP. But he said that Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation had a personal view that exit from the EU would make matters worse. He asserted:

‘Common sense suggests that collective action is better than a load of individuals competing, and in the fishing industry that’s largely true.  Collaborative action so that no one individually over-fishes, or you don’t have what could be referred to as the tragedy of the commons of everybody trying to fish a little more than their neighbour.  The negotiations, to have a sensible place outside the tent would be very complicated and full of hazard, particularly full of hazard for us, and this is highly significant, in that fishing – it’s very important to me, you would expect that, it’s very important in the areas where it happens, but, overall it’s less than half a percent of GDP.  And so when a state is negotiating they will have pressure points, and fishing is unlikely to be a pressure point for the negotiating people who are trying to look after the UK’s relationship with Europe.’

Farming

Tom Heap said the feeling among farmers to the Common Agricultural Policy was ambivalent. He asserted that it had been at the heart of the ‘European project’ for 50 years and ‘in environmental and financial terms, it really matters. Farming spends 40% of the EU budget.’ Brian Gardner, a policy adviser with Agra Europe, a provider of intelligence about the EU to farmers, explained that farmers received a subsidy worth £100 an acre, and there was not guarantee that would be maintained post-exit. In addition, they received stewardship and other subsidies designed to encourage environmentally-friendly farming.  That would be cut from £3bn to £1bn a year.  Colin Tyler, a farmer from near Heathrow, said it was time for farming to kick away its subsidy crutch and leave the EU. Tom Heap asked him how many farmers shared his view at the recent NFU conference. Mr Tyler said he was the only one. Mr Heap suggested it was easier for him to support exit because he was in the South-east and relatively close to markets. He agreed, but warned that if the UK stayed in the EU, the amount of subsidy would get lower over the next 10 years and the amount of regulation would increase, and hill farmers might not be allowed to graze sheep on mountains because it threatened the environment. Brian Gardner said that if subsidies reduced, it would force out smaller farmers, especially dairy farmers, and larger farms without government intervention would be bad for the environment. Heap said that Brian Gardener believed that out of the EU, the UK might be more free to plant genetically modified crops, but did not expect changes in the chemicals that farmers would be allowed to use. He expected that the UK government would continue subsidising hill farms ‘so don’t expect sheep to disappear from the Welsh hills, the Yorkshire dales or the Scottish Highlands’.

Heap then said that one recent money-spinner for farmers had been renewable energy: solar panels, wind turbines and bio-energy plants.  There was a actuality from Wyke Farms. Tom Clothier, in charge of the farms’ renewable energy business (and a signatory of the same FT letter as Andrew Blenkiron, mentioned above) explained they had an anaerobic digester unit which converted waste from dairy production into gas, one third of which went into electrical production and a third to the grid.  Tom Heap said this anaerobic digester was ‘part of an extraordinarily swift energy revolution led from Brussels’. Andrew Whitehead, introduced as an ‘energy analyst’ with lawyers Shakespeare Martineau (and a strong opponent of Brexit) as well as being a member of the Association of European Energy Consultants), said the UK’s target under the climate change act was an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. He said the UK had to meet the ‘binding European target’ for renewables. Mr Whitehead claimed that the UK had been quite influential in making sure the EU’s 2030 target for renewables was not so prescriptive.  Juliet Davenport, introduced as CEO of Good Energy, said that anaerobic digester technology had improved and that meant it could produce economically gas and electricity. She said the legislation part had been ‘really strong’. The European Renewables Directive set an outlying target for renewable energy in each country, and that was supplemented by the UK Renewables Electricity Act, which brought in a 15% target across transport, electricity and heat in the UK.

The next section was based on an interchange between Nancy Nicholson, a BBC reporter, and Linda Holt, who said she was opposed to windfarms.  Tom Heap said that in Fife, Linda Holt agreed that the EU had encouraged renewable energy ‘such as the windfarms that provide Good Energy with half its electricity’ but was not keen on the consequences and was a member of the campaign group Scotland Against Spin. Ms Holt explained that the EU Renewable Energy Directive of 2009 stipulated that Europe as a whole should produce 20% of its energy needs from renewables by 2020, with the UK target set at 15%. She said that Alex Salmond had ‘gold-plated’ this for Scotland and set a target of 100%. Nancy Nicholson put it to her that they were looking at a very industrial landscape in a hill near Mossmorran (a power station) ’we can see big chimneys, and I don’t know whether it’s steam or smoke that’s coming up from there. The point is really that if we did not have renewables, we would have more of these – coal fired power stations- and that would mean more climate change and worse air quality’.  Ms Holt disagreed about the coal-fired power stations and suggested alternatives could be gas or nuclear power, as well as more research into other renewables ‘that are better than wind’.   Ms Nicholson asked if she would like to see Britain out of the EU…do you think Britain would not support windfarms?’ Ms Holt replied that the UK had stopped supporting onshore windfarms, and the days of those offshore were perhaps also numbered.

Mr Heap concluded:

‘That, perhaps, is the nub of the debate over Britain’s exit from the European Union. The future of the environment would depend upon the UK governments that follow exit. Each of these enormous issues will need to be reassessed and weighed in the list of national priorities. Exit would just be the start of a debate on what’s best for our environment. Should landowners be subsidised to manage the landscape? How do we protect our fish stocks? Where should we get our low-carbon energy? They are all question we have, to some degree, allowed politicians and officials in Brussels to take the lead on. Are we happy to start each debate afresh?’

 

 

Programme transcript:

Transcript of BBC Radio 4 ‘Costing the Earth’ 15th March 2016, 3.30pm

TOM HEAP:          I’m standing in front of a small pond, probably 10 metres across, there’s a willow part-tumbled into it on one side, a bank of brambles and some open ploughed feels around the rest.  It doesn’t, in many ways feel particularly, if the locals will forgive me, beautiful, and yet, within it is something that’s become iconic within European environment circles, lauded by some, a bit of a pain in the neck to others – I’m talking about the great crested newt.  Protected by the Habitats Directive. Today on Costing the Earth, we’re going to be looking at how Europe has its fingers, its tendrils, in an awful lot of issues in our countryside.  Farming, fishing, energy and through wildlife conservation.  And that’s particularly why I’m here.  And I’m with Andrew Blenkiron, of Euston Estates, who look after the land in this area.  Andrew, tell me what issues you have with the inhabitants of this pond.

ANDREW BLENKIRON:       Well, Tom . . . actually, when we came down to it there were no great crested newts in this pond, there may have been, and that’s why we were refused our permission to apply for planning application to put our solar panels on the two fields adjacent to this site.

STANLEY JOHNSON:           So what we’re doing now it’s driving . . . following the river really towards Exford, and Exford, you know, is the heart of Exmoor, and this farm has been in our family since 1951.

TH:         The bedrock of European conservation law, responsible for protection given to great crested newts and a wide range of rare threatened and unique species is known as the Habitats Directive.  One of its architects, when he was a European Commission official, was Stanley Johnson, father of Boris.  They don’t agree on the European Union.

SJ:          The funny thing for me is that so many aspects of my life seem to be coming together at the moment.  I spent 20 years in the EU, you know, first in the Commission doing environmental policy, then in the European Parliament.  And now these two items, Europe on the one hand and environment on the other are coming together for me in a quite remarkable way in the context of this referendum.  And the third element of course is Exmoor, a huge chunk of Exmoor is a protected area under the Habitats, directive, and for me it’s completely wonderful, because little did I know, that way back in Brussels in the late 80s that this tiny acorn . . . the Habitats Directive would grow into such a huge oak tree.  Taking the 28 countries of the EU as a whole, something like 18% of the land area of those 28 countries is now protected under the Habitats Directive Why is that important?  In practical terms, it means there is an extra layer of protection to this precious landscape, provided by Brussels.  Yes, I’m afraid to say, it is provided by Brussels, it means that even if the government said, ‘Yes you can frack in national parks’ – if that’s part of the national park was also protected under the Habitats Directive there would be a lot more hoops to go through.  Now, there may be people who shout ‘boo, boo, that’s not what we want’, but my view is that taking the population as a whole, they do care.

TH:         I’m with Matt Shardlow who’s chief executive of Buglife, and, Matt, we’re on our hands and knees here, (laughs) very close to the ground, looking at a certain lifeform, what is that?

MATT SHARDLOW:            Well, this is a fantastic beast, this is our biggest terrestrial snail, it’s called the Roman Snail, it’s about the size of a golf ball, pale, almost white, but with a sort of pale, fawny brown patterning on the shell.  This one’s actually hibernating, and it’s got a huge great big door over the front, that protecting the snail and keeping it moist and safe inside its shell.

TH:         So this little thing, about the size of a big thumbnail over the opening is actually what’s keeping it alive at this time of year is it?

SH:         Yeah, I mean, it’s amazing that they’re actually out here, even in the winter, they’re out, actually exposed on the surface, they haven’t burrowed down, and by sealing themselves in with this, you know, it looks very calcified and white shell over the front of the snail, they’ve sealed themselves in and it’s a, it’s a very successful hibernation strategy.  They’ve been here for hundreds of years.

TH:         Now what has Europe done for the Roman Snail?

MS:        Well, I mean if you go back far enough to Roman Snail is called the Roman Snail because it was brought here by the Romans.  So this is part of our cultural heritage, as well as our natural heritage.  It’s a European species, brought here for people to eat.  So, in 1992 the Habitats Directive came in, and this is one of the species that was put down as . . . the member states need to keep it in good condition, they need to make sure it’s not disappearing from those member states, and if it is, they need to take whatever action they need to to make sure that it survives and it’s looked after. In the UK that meant, in the early 2000’s, when cases came about of people collecting bag loads of these things and selling them to the restaurant trade, er, that meant that we stepped in and asked the government to bring in some protection and they did, they put it on the Wildlife and Countryside Act, and since then there have been reduced number of incidents.

TH:         And how confident are you that needed kind of Europe to deliver that? It couldn’t be delivered by national governments?

MS:        Well, it potentially could have been done by national governments but it hadn’t been done by the national governments.  We’ve spent the last 20 years relying on the bigger scope of the European Court of Justice, and the bigger scope of the Habitats Directive and other pieces of legislation to make sure that the wildlife here is ultimately protected. You don’t then have much face (sic, means ‘faith’?) in, in the government, in suddenly stepping up and gaining, you know, this moral sense of responsibility, this great urge and vitality about looking after wildlife when the last 20 years has been like trying to force a limpet off a rock frankly. (laughs)

TH:         The Habitats Directive has certainly proved itself to be a powerful tool in influencing development in this country.  Often you hear about it in terms of where do houses go all roads go, but I’m back on the Euston estate with Andrew Blenkiron and we are standing in front of a reservoir.

AB:         75 million gallons of water capacity here which gives us the ability to irrigate approximately 700 acres of root crops on an annual basis.  And it’s a significant part of our business.

TH:         So take me through the process, you wanted to build this reservoir, and what hurdles did you come across?

AB:         There’s about eight ponds within 300 metres of this development site.  So what we had to do, at the right time of the year, which is sort of end of February through to May, we had to establish the great crested newt population at all of those locations.  The next thing that we had to do once we done that is wait till the following year after gaining a licence from Natural England to catch and relocate the newts that would be on the development site.

TH:         And so that took a couple of years, and added how much did you say to the cost?

AB:         £65,000.

TH:         And how many newts did you find?

AB:         We found ten great, great crested newts.

TH:         so that £6500 per newt.

AB:         Yeah, and I actually think that’s er, we, we got off quite light, because I hear people have spent £20,000 per newt.

TH:         Andrew Blenkiron is absolutely nothing against the great crested, or any other kind of newt.  In fact, he’s rather proud of the newt habitat he’s constructed in recompense for the damage caused by building the reservoir.  But he’s one of many land owners and developers irritated by delays caused by an animal that actually quite common in in England and Wales.  It’s protected because it’s rare in most of the rest of Europe.  Matt Shardlow of BugLife sympathises, but blames national government interpretation of the law rather than the EU.

MS:        As long as that species is in favourable conservation status, then it’s possible for governments to be more flexible about how it’s conserved.  What happened at the moment is we don’t know what its statuses.  If you can set your monitoring up so that you know how well it’s doing, so that you can address the problems it’s facing, then you don’t have to introduce Draconian laws that protect every single newt wherever every newt is.

TH:         European Union rules don’t just affect the land, the EU also rules the waves, or at least the natural life beneath. The Marine Conservation Society credits EU legislation with cleaning our beaches and creating marine protected areas. However, there’s no avoiding the association between the EU and those pictures we’ve seen so often of fishermen throwing perfectly good fish, dead, back in the sea from which they’ve just been caught.  British fishermen are no fans of the laws that strictly control their business – the Common Fisheries Policy.  Many scientists think it’s done a pretty poor job of conserving stocks. Robin Markwell has been to one of England’s biggest fish markets in Plymouth to gather opinion.

ROBIN MARKWELL:            Well, it may be five in the morning, pitch dark and raining, most of Plymouth is still asleep, but here in the harbour the fishing boats are preparing for a day’s fishing.

ANDY GILES:        I’m Andy Giles, I’m a fisherman from Looe, but the boat is in Plymouth, so we fish from here every day on a . . . 15 metre Twin rigged trawler.

RM:        How long have you been fishing for?

AG:        Been fishing since I was 16 and I’m now 44 so, what’s . . . 28 years.  Fishing mainly for erm, lemon soles, whiting, squid.

RM:        Tell me about the Common Fisheries Policy, what does it mean for you as a fisherman?

AG:        I’m not sure the Common Fisheries Policy is working, there’s lots of plentiful stocks of haddock which . . . they’re saying that there isn’t any, which we are seeing on the ground is different, it’s full up with haddock.  We can catch our monthly allocation of quota in . . . probably one haul – 250 kilos.  To us, it’s not fair as we’ve got Frenchmen on our doorstep which are catching 2000 kilo a day, which to us is just ludicrous, they’re 6 mile from our coast so it’s not really much good for us at the moment, but . . . who knows, if we came out of Europe, maybe it would change.

RM:        The French have a higher quota than you then?

AG:        Yes, and they’re fishing into our 6 mile limit.  They have some sort of historic rights of some description.

RM:        Can you get that close to French waters then, more than six miles?

AG:        No we can’t.  If you went in six mile in France, I think you’d probably be blown out the water.

PETE BROMLEY:   I’m Pete Bromley, and the harbourmaster at Sutton Harbour in Plymouth, and I’m also the fisheries manager responsible for the infrastructure of the fish market.

RM:        And there are crates upon crates upon crates upon crates of glorious fresh fish stacked up, going out to merchants at the moment, conger eels, lemon sole, you name it, you’ve got it here, Pete.

PB:         Yes, this is the through the night and early morning sort of business, and the fish is being sold now to be transported away, in all parts of the country and eventually a lot of it will go on to Europe. Anything that a fisherman does is governed by the Common Fisheries Policy – the amount of fish they can catch, the sort of gear they can use, their entire lives are ruled by the Common Fisheries Policy.  And quite rightly so, because it’s a pretty flawed policy, even after four attempts of reforming it, it’s still not really doing what it was set out to do.  And it’s certainly putting a lot of pressure on the British fishermen.

RM:        Well, this is Pam’s Snacks, which is where I think fishermen who’ve had a night on the trawler can come to get some breakfast.  Pam, we’re looking at the issue of Europe and how it affects fishing, what are you hearing?

PAM:      Well, to be honest, I think we should pull out of Europe, there’s a lot of rules and regulations that are coming in now, that Europe are, are doing, that’s killing the fishing industry. And there’s a lad that came in last week, and he said, ‘I had to throw about three boxes of haddock, beautiful haddock, and chuck it back in the sea.’ – Why, why, it’s crazy, it’s ludicrous.

UNKNOWN MALE:             I’m voting for Pam when she goes in to the next election.  Very well put Pam, very eloquent (laughter)

RM:        You’ve been in the business 40 years, and is in the truth of the matter things are much better now, it’s been through this series of reforms, that it was when, when the Common Fisheries Policy first came in.

AG:        No, not really.  The fishermen have made huge efforts in gear technology, reducing the amount of undersized fish they catch, and the sacrifices that have been made that have led to the improvements of the fish stocks, we’ve had no payback for it.

RM:        But the quotas are there for a reason, and they, they’re there to protect the environment, to make sure there’s enough fish to go round for everyone.

AG:        That’s the theory behind it, but (exhales) if a fisherman is only allowed to catch a certain amount of fish – his quota – and he catches any more, then it gets thrown back, dead into the sea.  So you tell me how that conserving?

RM:        But the discards policy that you mentioned there, that is being phased out, isn’t it, under the latest reform?

AG:        Yeah, okay, so now instead of the fish being thrown back into the sea, the fishermen has to stop fishing.

RM:        You won’t find many people willing to defend the Common Fisheries Policy.  It’s largely failed to protect the fishermen and the fish.  But Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation says that in his personal opinion, and he stresses this isn’t the view of his organisation, exit from the EU could actually make things worse.

BERTIE ARMSTRONG:        Common sense suggests that collective action is better than a load of individuals competing, and in the fishing industry that’s largely true.  Collaborative action so that no one individually over-fishes, or you don’t have what could be referred to as the tragedy of the commons of everybody trying to fish a little more than their neighbour.  The negotiations, to have a sensible place outside the tent would be very complicated and full of hazard, particularly full of hazard for us, and this is highly significant, in that fishing – it’s very important to me, you would expect that, it’s very important in the areas where it happens, but, overall it’s less than half a percent of GDP.  And so when a state is negotiating they will have pressure points, and fishing is unlikely to be a pressure point for the negotiating people who are trying to look after the UK’s relationship with Europe.

TH:         This is Costing the Earth  on BBC Radio 4.  Today we’re examining the potential impact of exit from the European Union beyond the city walls.  We’re looking at wildlife, fishing, farming and energy.  If many fishermen actively dislike the Common Fisheries Policy, the feeling amongst farmers about the Common Agricultural Policy is ambivalent.  It’s been at the heart of the European project for 50 years and in environmental and financial terms it really matters.  Farming spends 40% of the EU budget.  Brian Gardner is a policy analyst who’s just written a report for Agro-Europe, on the impact of Brexit on UK farmers.

BRIAN GARDNER:              It’s quite complicated, but essentially they get a direct income subsidy which is worth something in the region of about £100 an acre, whether or not they grow any crop on it or not.  In addition, they get stewardship and other subsidies which are designed to encourage an environmentally kindly approach to farming.  And there’s no guarantee, of course, that a Brexit government, and ex— EU membership government would maintain support at that sort of level.  In fact, I’m quite sure they would not.  At the moment, the total expenditure on subsidies for the British farmer is about £3 billion a year – it’s quite clear that they would cut that to about £1 billion a year, in that order, I mean it’s a rough estimate.

COLIN TYLER:       Their family came here in the 17th century, we’re looking over some parkland, we’re only a mile from Heathrow South runway, we’re looking over some old parkland where the Milton the poet’s family lived, and we’ve got some sheep who are grazing our parkland, and we have some highland cattle.  And they’ve all just done a runner.

TH:         Colin Tyler farms dozens of fields scattered to the west of Heathrow airport.  He doesn’t deny the British farmer’s dependency on money from Europe, but he thinks it’s time for his industry to kick away its own subsidy crutch.  So you would favour voting to leave the European Union.

CT:         Yes.

TH:         You went to the National Farmers Union conference recently.  How many people shared your view?

CT:         Erm, I arrived on the Monday night and our hotel was with my friends from the Welsh contingency and the Berkshire contingency and after about midnight, when all of us had one or two drinks we decided to talk about Euro (sic) and the exit.  And I was shocked to find that, of a hundred people, farmers in that bar, I was the only one for exit. And . . .

TH:         And what did that tell you?

CT:         That either I’m wrong and they’re right . . . but my view is, is that they’re still saying they can’t farm without subsidies, they won’t have access to the markets, their business will end.  I don’t think it’s that black and white.  We have this one opportunity in our life to say, ‘We’ve had enough, it’s time for us to leave, time for UK farmers to stand on their own two feet.’  We produce the best milk in the world, the best beef, the best sheep.  And thousands of other products, I think we can export to elsewhere.

TH:         Have confidence in that ability?

CT:         Have confidence in that ability and be brave enough.

TH:         Maybe that’s easier for you to say here in the South East, relatively close to markets, a few opportunities for making money outside conventional farming. If you were a hill farmer a long way away you really need those subsidies. They make up a big proportion of your income.

CT:         I would have to agree with that. It’s easier for me to make the decision, but let’s look . . .  We’re in Europe, ten years time. Have we made any changes? The subsidy will be lower, the regulations will be higher. Would they allow us still to graze sheep on mountains, because they say we are destroying the environment?

TH:         Of course, what’s bad for farmer’s income isn’t necessarily bad for the environment. Would lower subsides affect the landscape?

BG:         Well, the problem is, from a social, from an environmental point of view, is that it would tend to push out the small family farm, which is essential really to the maintenance of the current structure of the rural areas, particularly the dairy farmers, of course, because they are suffering most at the moment, and if they lost that 30 to 40% of their income, if that subsidy was scaled down, then of course they would be forced to give up or become much larger, so there would be a tendency towards larger farms, fewer farmers – a move towards the countryside being dominated by large farms would tend, without government intervention, would tend to be not good for the environment in my view.

TH:         Agricultural analyst, Brian Gardener sees an increase in intensification of agriculture in the lowlands.  Out of the European Union we might be more free to plant genetically modified crops, but he doesn’t foresee any major in the chemicals that farmers are allowed to use.  He also expects any UK government to continue subsidising upland farms, so don’t expect sheep to disappear from the Welsh Hills, the Yorkshire Dales or the Scottish Highlands.

TOM CLOTHIER:   I’m Tom Clothier, I’m in charge of our renewable energy business here at Wyke Farms, and we’re on our anaerobic digestions site, where we generate most of our energy for our cheesemaking operation.

TH:         One recent money-spinner for farmers has been renewable energy.  Solar panels, wind turbines and bio-energy plants have popped up across the country.

UNKNOWN MALE:             So we’ve got a tank here for holding strong waste, which is pumped down from our cheese dairy.

UNKNOWN FEMALE:         So is it producing gas constantly, 24 hours . . .

UM: 24 hours  day, yes, we’re, we’re producing gas.  Erm . . . a third of the gas goes into electrical generation, and then the rest of the gas gets upgraded and goes into the grid.

UF:         Yeah.

TH:         This anaerobic digester here at the Wyke Farms cheese factory is part of an extraordinarily swift energy revolution led from Brussels.

ANDREW WHITEHEAD:     Renewables’ share of the power generation mix in the UK rose from around 7% in 2010 to 22-23% at the moment.

TH:         Andrew Whitehead is an energy analyst with the lawyers Shakespeare Martineau in Birmingham.

AW:       We’ve got, in the Climate Change Act 2008, our own self-imposed carbon reduction target, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, so that’s a really ambitious target.  At the same time, in Europe, there is a binding renewable energy target which says that all member states must contribute towards helping the EU increase its share of renewables across the energy sector, and the UK is a share of that is 15%.  And that’s binding.  And that applies not just to power generation, but also to heat and transport.

TH:         And how powerful has that target been up until now in delivering?

AW:       Well, it’s been very influential, we’ve seen the problem has been that it’s quite prescriptive.  So, in trying to meet carbon reduction targets the UK government is, to some extent, constrained, because it has to meet that binding European target for renewables while there are obviously other ways in which carbon reduction targets can be met, for example, energy efficiency, nuclear and more gas for example.

TH:         Some people think it actually rather handcuffed policy, this renewable energy target and, for instance, made, you know, building a biomass boiler on a school more attractive than insulating it properly which some people think is a bit mad?

AW:       I think that’s probably a fair comment, but I think the UK government has been quite influential in making sure that the EU’s new 2030 targets for renewables are not so prescriptive.

TH:         Those European Union targets have been great for those subsidised to produce renewables and for an electricity company like Good Energy that buys that power and sells it on to consumers.

JULIET DAVENPORT:          My name’s Juliet Davenport, I’m the founder and CEO of Good Energy, a green energy company.  So we are here at Wyke farm in Somerset, which is a cheese manufacturers, but actually we are on their 100% renewable energy site, which is an anaerobic digester which generates electricity from gas, that is anaerobically digested from the waste of the cheese plant, and we are involved in buying some of the power from that site.  There’s been a lot of technological development, not just in the UK, but worldwide, we’ve seen the Chinese come very strongly into the solar market, we’ve seen the Germans and the Danish move very strongly on the wind market, and then we’ve seen things like technologically, anaerobic digestion reduce in size so we can actually produce, economically gas and electricity from sites like this.  So, I think you’ve seen the technological part, through, but obviously legislation part has been really strong so we saw a lot of the renewables directive, the European Renewables Directive that then set an outlying target for renewable energy in each country and we have the Renewables Electricity Act in the UK which brought in the 15% target across transport, electricity and heat in the UK.  So it’s very much been driven by legislation, as well as by technological change.

LINDA HOLT:          Looking at (placename unclear) we can see nine 125 metre turbines, but behind as there’s another four or five.  If you were to sort of look up and jump in that direction, you’d see another windfarm with 125 metre turbines, I don’t know, there’s 12 or 13, so there’s quite, this is quite heavily saturated in terms of development, and quite a lot more have been consented that haven’t been built yet.

NANCY NICHOLSON: And they’re quite visible, actually, from the main road that leads down to the Forth Bridge and into Edinburgh.

UF:         That’s the right, the A92, yes.  Nobody can fail to see the turbines in Fife when they drive into Fife from Edinburgh.

TH:         In Fife, Linda Holt agrees that the EU has encouraged renewable energy, such as the wind turbines that provide Good Energy with half its electricity, but she’s not keen on the consequences.  Linda belongs to the campaign group Scotland Against Spin.  She met our reporter, Nancy Nicolson, on a snowy hillside overlooking the Firth of Forth.

LINDA HOLT:        It all comes back to the EU energy, Renewable Energy Directive of 2009 which stipulated that Europe should produce 20% of its total energy needs from renewables by 2020, and then the EU gave each country a percentage that they had to produce from renewables by 2020 and the UK was given 15%.  Alex Salmond decided to gold plate this and declared the most ambitious renewable energy targets in the world by saying that Scotland should have 100% renewable, or the equivalent of renewables by 2020.

NANCY NICHOLSON:          But this is a very industrial landscape. Yes, we’re looking at windmills, but we’re also looking just over the hill at Mossmorran. We can see the big chimneys, and I don’t know if it’s steam or smoke that’s coming up from there. The point is really that if we didn’t have renewables we would have more of these – more coal-fired power stations – and that would mean more climate change and worse air quality.

LH:         Well, I don’t think we would have more coal-fired power stations, actually, what we would have is combined gas, and we’d have more nuclear.  And perhaps we have had more research and development in other forms of renewables that are better than than wind.

NN:        So, you would like to see Britain out of the EU?  Do you think that Britain wouldn’t continue to support windfarms?

LH:         Well, it’s not continuing to support wind— . . . certainly, onshore wind farms, the UK government has stopped all new subsidy for onshore wind, it’s still supporting offshore wind, but I think the days for offshore wind for new offshore wind farms are numbered.

TH:         That, perhaps, is the nub of the debate over Britain’s exit from the European Union. The future of the environment would depend upon the UK governments that follow exit. Each of these enormous issues will need to be reassessed and weighed in the list of national priorities. Exit would just be the start of a debate on what’s best for our environment. Should landowners be subsidised to manage the landscape? How do we protect our fish stocks? Where should we get our low-carbon energy? They are all question we have, to some degree, allowed politicians and officials in Brussels to take the lead on. Are we happy to start each debate afresh?

Photo by vauvau