UKIP will Rip Off the UK Taxpayer Without any help from Brussels

Squaring the circle is hard, but according to Stuart Roger UKIP wants to achieve something even harder. They are determined to ditch Europe but equally determined to hang on to its biggest gravy train: the Common Agricultural Policy. Money from CAP goes to some of their most enthusiastic supporters: rural landowners and farmers.

Money from CAP goes overwhelmingly to large and wealthy landowners. It enhances their market power, inflates the value of agricultural land and makes life more difficult for small farmers. Chief beneficiary of Brussels hand-outs is the Duke of Westminster, one of the richest men in Britain, and recipient of an £820,000 annual subsidy. The Duke of Buccleuch has raked in some £405,000. You don't have to actually farm to get a pile of money from CAP: the contract services company Serco received £2 million.

At present the EU ladles out between £60 & £90 per acre to these and other lucky landowners. UKIP's agriculture spokesman Stuart Agnew is guaranteeing that rural landowners will still receive £80 per acre from the UK taxpayer if we quit Europe, and will have to comply with fewer irritating Brussels rules to get their mitts on our dosh. Courtesy of UKIP we will continue to subsidise the wealthy but will get even less for our money.

Ironically there will even be one extra piece of bureaucracy, specially dreamed up by UKIP. The thing is, Nigel Farage can't abide wind turbines. He absolutely loathes them, and everything they stand for. So he's dreamt up a new rule: there will be an exclusion zone of 25 yards around the base of each turbine for which no money will be payable. For UKIP, providing a non-means tested subsidy to the stupendously rich is perfectly acceptable, but spending money on green technology is a no-no.

Under UKIP's proposed regulations, landowners will be rushing back to school to brush up on geometry so they can claim as much loot as possible. Wind turbines tend to cluster together, so landowners will need to make a careful survey to calculate how much area the overlapping exclusion zones amount to.A geometry guru has pointed out that the best place to build wind turbines will be right at the edge of one's property, so as much as possible of the 25 yard exclusion zone lies on your neighbour's land.

The UKIP position is to ditch Brussels and enable their wealthiest supporters to gouge money direct from the UK taxpayer. UKIP's rich backers will grow richer, while UK jobs are destroyed. By contrast Liberal Democrats are opposing this self serving populism, and the party's MEPs are working constructively to reform the EU from within.

Nigel Farage is fond of lambasting the public school elite who run British politics. He was himself was educated at the exclusive Dulwich College (fees £34,000 a year) but it is unfair to judge him on his origins. He should be judged by his policies, and these show where his real loyalties lie: with the dukes, earls and landowners who drink at the well of taxpayer largesse.