On 8 February 2006, Sovereignty was interviewed by Green Futures, the magazine of Forum for the Future, on the concept of Fair Trade for UK Farmers. The following is the notes prepared by Alistair McConnachie which appeared as an article in the February 2006 issue of Sovereignty. Pictures: Contractor rowing and baling the silage at the McConnachie family farm, South West Scotland, July 2005.

The essence of the concept, however, is the payment of a "fair price" which ensures economic sustainability for both the producers and retailers, working together within a long-term mutually beneficial relationship, enabling both to plan ahead in economic security.

LOCATING THE CONCEPT IN A BRITISH CONTEXT
How can that concept be translated into a UK context?

Clearly there are considerable economic, social and cultural differences between the context of struggling farmers and poverty in the developing world, compared with struggling farmers and levels of rural poverty as they exist in the UK.

Therefore, it would be inaccurate to make a direct comparison.

However, if we locate the plight of British agriculture within the context of economic globalisation worldwide, then we can understand that many of the same economic dynamics are operating in this country, as operate in the rest of the world, even though the surrounding circumstances and consequences may be different.

The dominating economic concept underlying globalisation is one of "international competitiveness and efficiency" regardless of how socially or environmentally damaging this may be.

For example, as a result of economic globalisation, we have the worldwide phenomena of more and more farmers being driven off the land. We have the dominance of large corporations in the food chain, who are able to dictate terms. We have ownership of land passing into fewer and fewer hands. We have more and more unnecessary trade, where we import goods we could produce ourselves, or export to countries who could do the same.

This is the inevitable result of the economic model of globalisation, and in response to that we advocate economic localisation -- which means discriminating in favour of, and orientating the economic system towards, local and national needs and markets.

Fair Trade for UK Farmers would be part of that localising process.

Sovereignty encourages the NFU to explore and promote Fair Trade for UK Farmers -- and we suggest that if they did so then they would tap into a considerable amount of latent support among the public.

There are three things which the NFU must do if it is to make maximum gains from this idea.

THREE THINGS THE NFU MUST DO

1 -- The NFU must see Fair Trade as part of a wider programme of localising policies
It would be a mistake for the NFU to see Fair Trade as just a temporary, fashionable bandwagon upon which they could jump, and which might offer a quick, short-term way of helping a few members to make some money.

Rather Fair Trade as a policy should be embraced within a much wider programme of localising policies.

2 -- The NFU must change its fundamental economic concepts and its globalising rhetoric
A lot of what the NFU says, economically, is responsible for the demise of British farming. It emphasises "international competitiveness and efficiency" and seems to suggest that if its members don't become "efficient" then they should go to the wall. The results of that globalising mentality are all around us.

So the NFU will have to learn that it will not be able to talk "Fair Trade localisation" out of one side of its mouth and out of the other talk about British farmers "becoming more efficient in order to survive in the global market place" and other mantras which will inevitably mean that British farming goes under.

The reality is that British farmers cannot compete with the international market. For example, how can a Scottish sheep farmer in the midst of a bitter winter compete with a New Zealand farmer who can ranch his sheep in mild weather all year?

If it embraces the concept of Fair Trade then it will have to change its fundamental ideas from globalisation, to localisation and national food sovereignty.

3 -- The NFU must frame Fair Trade as Economic Justice
It would be wrong if it framed Fair Trade as some kind of appeal to charity. British farming is not a charity, it is an essential part of our country.

The Fair Trade movement taps into people's sense of economic justice. People buy Fair Trade because they want to do what is right for the developing world and they want to support a fair and just economic system.

The same dynamic could easily apply towards British produce. It would reflect an attitude to living, to politics even, which locates British farming and growing within a wider national and global context, where the consumer is keen to do what is economically just, and where the consumer is able to use ethical purchasing as a direct means of challenging economic globalisation.

Fair Trade in the UK needs to be framed in that positive, visionary, revolutionary sense, located within the wider struggle against globalisation and for economic and food sovereignty.

Ethical purchasing is part of a revolutionary attitude towards life which is seeking to create, to build, to bring forth, to give life to a positive vision of a localised economic world which stands as an alternative to the faceless and economic imperialistic globalisation of today.

This is an attitude to life which is about growing and building, not about dying and collapsing.

This is a struggle which is not about compassion, but about solidarity, not about charity but about justice. Imagine an NFU which made a stand for economic localisation and for food sovereignty nationally and globally, and based all its philosophy and policies upon those two legs.

It would be very attractive across the political and social spectrum and it could be a leader in social, economic and cultural change for the better. It could have huge appeal. It is uniquely suited to lead debate in this area.

It needs to embrace the concept of Fair Trade for UK Farmers.
Fairtrade Fortnight was on 6-19 March 2006 http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/

SUPPORTING PRINCE CHARLES is a necessary tactic for those who oppose the establishment of the corporate dominated, anti-democratic EU-Empire, says Mike Stagman This article appeared originally in the August 2005 issue of Sovereignty. Picture: Prince Charles is carried through the streets of Ashbourne, Derbyshire on 5 March 2003 before starting the annual Shrovetide football match between the "up'ards" and the "down'ards". The 8 hour game has been played annually since the 15th century.

If you were one of the pioneering and foremost environmentalists in the UK and if you had condemned "the horrifying effects of pollution in all its cancerous forms"

If you, over a period of 20 years, criticised the most powerful corporate interests in Britain, and criticised the Governments and, implicitly, major political parties which tolerate and promote environmental pollution, and receive financial support from corporate interests...

If you had, in a royal capacity, created a flourishing organic farming estate while condemning chemical pollution of agriculture and if you repeatedly censured GM food and crops...

If you denounced air pollution, thus censuring the almighty oil and chemical industries...

If you had outraged the pharmaceutical industry -- which is part of the enormously powerful chemical-drug-biotechnology industrial syndicate -- and organised medicine by criticising the toxic-drug-side-effects culture and speaking out in favour of holistic and complementary approaches to health care…

If you, as Prince of Wales, instead of acquiescing in the evils perpetrated by economic and political powers by placing a gloss of glamour over pernicious proceedings -- if you instead had shown a strong moral conscience and acted forthrightly to condemn powers-that-be and fight for social and environmental justice, supporting in different ways the poor, the disadvantaged, and Nature, which is helpless against corporate onslaught...

If you, unlike a string of treacherous Prime Ministers, opposed British subjugation in the corporate-dominated, dictatorial European Union empire…

If you were the Prince of Wales, with the above track record, and were receiving enthusiastic popular approval for many of these stands, would you not be certain to receive the unwelcome attentions of the vested corporate interests that you have criticised and continue to threaten?

And if you were to become King!

Remember how Claudius feared the popular Prince Hamlet!

What, therefore, should one expect from vested interests?
Answer: a smear campaign against the Prince to poison the minds of the Public, best executed by a scurrilous tabloid press.

And that's what we've seen.

Charles has been mocked and misrepresented and slandered in a campaign that has lasted two decades. His private life has been maliciously gossiped, smeared with falsehoods and sensationalised to get at him for ulterior reasons.

Backed by corporate and political powers, and exploiting the Prince's own sense of dignity, the tabloids have libelled Charles repeatedly, secure from the lawsuits which are their due.

In short, libellous gossip in tabloid smear has been the deliberate, cynical policy of vested economic and political interests. They fear a populist prince. Every slight, mock and defamation testifies to that fact.

And now, the New Labour Government has openly and persistently attacked Prince Charles and the Monarchy by pouring over their finances to find every missing penny -- see for example the article in Sovereignty, July 2005.

Why?

Because the New Labour Government wants to eliminate the ability of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles to defend British democracy and age-old liberties.

The Government views the Monarchy -- especially Charles but potentially Elizabeth also -- as an enemy to its ambitions of surrendering the United Kingdom to the corrupt, dictatorial, corporation-dominated EU empire.

And it is not just me that is saying that: See for example, Simon Heffer's article, "Welcome to the Republic of Tonyland", where he says, "Blair wants to destroy the Monarch's role as one of the checks on his power in order that he can do whatever he likes" (The Daily Mail, 6 March 2004).

The New Labour Government has thus:

= Launched an "inquiry" into so-called possible waste on royal estates, an obvious attempt to smear and intimidate the Monarchy, and my own Swansea MP, the New Labour henchman Alun Williams, has foghorned so-called "grotesque" spending by the Prince.

= In an outright police-state action, plans for a British "FBI" include obedience only to Government ministers, not the Crown, which represents the People and Democracy. This breaks a 175-year-old tradition (see Daily Mail, 18-12-04).

= Shown disrespect to the Queen by having the Lord Chancellor turn his back on her when returning to his seat at the State Opening of Parliament.

There are ways in which we can show our support for the Monarchy and protect the Nation from being treacherously lost to the corrupt, dictatorial EU-empire.

If we want to demonstrate our support for Prince Charles against the New Labour anti-Monarchists, I suggest the following when Prince Charles makes a public statement with which one is in agreement:

1. Write Prince Charles at Clarence House, St James's, London, SW1A 1BA or Queen Elizabeth.

2. Spread the word. Communicate with others about this -- family, friends, associates. Copy this article and other useful material and circulate it. Distribute good articles via email.

3. Write to the Media -- local, regional, national. For those with email access, it's never been easier and it need not be more than a couple of paragraphs -- include your address and phone number.

4. Call/write your MP -- whatever the political topic may be.
A good way is to form small delegations of 2, 3, or 4 persons, make an appointment with the MP's assistant, and go visit him or her. If you find that he or she is not obliging and part of the problem, publicise it and let them know it!

If more British citizens participated in public affairs we could rescue our political system -- which is rightly ours -- from being the playground of Monied Interests and their political puppets.

"The Prince of Wales has suggested that he would not be concerned if Britain withdrew from the European Union. The Prince revealed his views when he met Lord Haskins, a businessman admired by Tony Blair who is the Government's Rural Recovery Co-ordinator, to discuss the future of farming. When Lord Haskins argued that EU trade regulations meant that the logical conclusion of the Prince's pro-organic views would be the withdrawal of Britain from the European Union, the Prince said: 'So?'"