- The Observer
4 11.08.19 News
Brexit enforcer
Cummings’ farm
took €250,
in EU handouts
Boris Johnson’s controversial
enforcer, Dominic Cummings , an
architect of Brexit and a fi erce critic
of Brussels, is co-owner of a farm that
has received €250,000 (£235,000) in
EU farming subsidies, the Observer
can reveal.
The revelation is a potential embar-
rassment for the mastermind behind
Johnson’s push to leave the EU by
31 October. Since being appointed as
Johnson’s chief adviser, Cummings
has presented the battle to leave the
EU as one between the people and
the politicians. He positions himself
as an outsider who wants to demol-
ish elites, end the “absurd subsidies”
paid out by the EU and liberate the UK
from its arcane rules and regulations.
But his critics say the revelation
that Cummings has benefi ted from
the system he intends to smash
underscores how many British farm-
ers are reliant on EU money that
would evaporate if the UK leaves.
An Observer analysis of Land
Registry documents and EU sub-
sidy databases reveals that a farm in
Durham, which Cummings jointly
owns with his parents and another
person, has received roughly €20,
a year for most of the last two decades.
The revelation opens Cummings
up to charges of hypocrisy, as he has
attacked the use of agricultural sub-
sidies “dreamed up in the 1950s and
1960s” because they “ raise prices for
the poor to subsidise rich farmers
while damaging agriculture in Africa ”
on his blog.
He notoriously came up with the
claim that leaving the EU would allow
the UK to spend an extra £350m a
week on the NHS. His blog clarifi ed
the claim, explaining “the Treasury
gross figure is slightly more than
£350m of which we get back roughly
half, though some of this is spent in
absurd ways like subsidies for very
rich landowners to do stupid things”.
The website Farmsubsidy.org,
which lists EU rural subsidies, revealsJamie Doward
& Josh Sandifordthat the Durham farm received almost
€208,000 between 2000 and 2009,
roughly €20,000 a year.
The money was paid out to
Cummings’s parents and another
family member for several reasons
including “set aside” – the now abol-
ished and controversial scheme that
paid farmers not to grow anything.
The programme has been blamed for
making it harder for food producers
in developing countries to compete
with their European counterparts.
A separate website, operated by the
Department of Environment, Food
and Rural Affairs, confi rms further
payments of roughly £6,500 each
were made to Cummings’s parents
“for practices benefi cial for climate
and environment” in 2017 and 2018.
And scrutiny of a third, offline
database, reveals that subsidies worth
nearly £19,000 were paid out in 2014.
The Liberal Democrat s’ spokes-
woman for young people, Layla
Moran , said: “It shows sheer hypoc-
risy from Cummings that his farm
has raked in hundreds of thousands
from the ‘absurd subsidies’ he so
often criticises.”
It is not clear when Cummings
became the co-owner of the farm
which his father reportedly bought
after retiring from the oil industry.
Land Registry searches show he was
a co-owner in 2013. Reports suggest
he moved to the farm in 2002, after
leaving his job as the Conservative
party’s director of strategy.
His return to frontline politics
has divided Tories. Some question
whether his desire for Brexit comes
at the expense of appreciating what
may happen in key industries if EU
structures and fi nancial support dis-
appear overnight.
Farmers have expressed their fears
about what would happen to their
sector. Last month, Helen Roberts
of the National Sheep Association in
Wales, said it would be “absolutely
catastrophic” to leave with no deal
and could lead to civil unrest among
sheep farmers.
According to the National Farmers
Union , today is the day the country
would notionally run out of food if it
had only eaten British food from the
start of the year.
A Downing St spokeswoman
declined to comment.Boris Johnson aide
accused of hypocrisy
over paymentsWaves batter the sea wall at
Newhaven, East Sussex as
high winds and rain brought
disruption to large parts of
the UK yesterday, the day after
widespread power cuts caused
travel chaos. Report, page 16.Photograph by Christopher IsonSnapshot
Sections of The Observer are carefully collated at our print site and by newsagents.
If any section of today’s UK edition of The Observer is missing, call freephone 0800- Back issues can be obtained from Historic Newspapers, 0844 770 7684 or
http://www.observer.backissuenewspapers.co.uk.
NEWSPAPERS SUPPORT
RECYCLINGThe recycled paper
content of UK newspapers in 2017 was 64.6%© 2019 Published by Guardian News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU (020-3353 2000)
and Centurion House, 129 Deansgate, Manchester M3 3WR. Printed at Reach Watford Limited, St Albans Road,
Watford, Herts WD24 7RG; Reach Oldham Limited, Hollinwood Avenue, Chadderton, Oldham OL9 8EP; Reach Saltire
Ltd, 110 Fifty Pitches Place, Glasgow G51 4EA; and Irish Times Print Facility, 4080 Kingswood Road, Citywest
Business Campus, Dublin 24. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office. ISSN 0029-
ПОДГОТОВИЛАГРУППА"What's News"
VK.COM/WSNWS