What sadness it brings to read your article 'Red tape killing our beef exports' (Malvern Gazette & Ledbury Reporter, August 4).

It must be clear to all that the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy has driven our farming industry to the wall; it has never helped British farmers and never will.

The red tape that has got a stranglehold on our agricultural industry, as well as on our farmer's livelihood, is the same red tape that has decimated our fishing industry and made a pound of sausages a thing of the past. It is destined to put our farmers out of business. Look out of your window and 90 per cent of what you see, in Worcestershire and Herefordshire, is agricultural land. Just think of it, 90 per cent of these two counties now controlled by the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels.

None of us ever voted for that and, more to the point, we were never asked if that is what we wanted.

For our agricultural industry to survive at all we must have a farming policy that is aimed at British farmers, using a process of deficiency payments and with incentives to buy British produce. The only possible way to achieve this is outside the Common Agricultural Policy and therefore outside the European Union. The sooner we leave the EU the better, and only then will we regain control of our own land.

Ian Morris, chairman, West Worcestershire Association, UK Independence Party, Newtown Road, Malvern.