IT has been estimated that the cost to the taxpayer of eradicating this outbreak of foot-and-mouth is around £9bn.

On top of this, the Institute of Directors has announced that the outbreak "has cost £20bn in lost business".

Add to this the heartbreak and misery that has been caused to the farming community, and to those with rural businesses that may never recover.

Few country people have not had their lives disrupted in one way or another.

Many have had to endure the smoke, smell and possible health risks of funeral pyres going on for days or even weeks.

Dog-walkers, ramblers, and horse-riders have all suffered as the countryside has been effectively closed down.

Is all this happening to preserve an export trade of meat products and live animals of just £1.2bn a year? I think not - or somebody has got their sums radically wrong!

The argument is that, unless we're declared officially foot-and-mouth free, which can only be achieved by complete eradication, we will lose that export trade.

However, there is actually a much wider agenda. Meat from Britain exported to outside the European Union is not exported as British meat, but as EU meat.

Pressure

To preserve the EU export market, the EU must be able to declare itself foot-and-mouth free.

Therefore, pressure has been put on Britain by our EU masters to eradicate the disease at all costs.

And our feeble Government, which has shown no leadership during this crisis, has, of course, gone along with it. And that's why the EU would only permit us to use a measly 180,000 doses of vaccine and put conditions on its use so as to make the meat and milk produced from vaccinated herds more or less worthless.

Yet another industry, and many rural businesses, have their backs to the wall thanks to the European Union.

There's a good argument for national self-sufficiency in farming produce.

Believe it or not, we actually import more or less the same amount of meat as we export!

Britain must leave the EU and restore power to Westminster so that we can make our own decisions in the event of a national crisis.

RICHARD CHAMINGS,

Veterinary Surgeon & PPC

U K Independence Party, Worcester

Storridge, Malvern.