Leader of the National Party, James Reynolds, has announced his candidacy for the European Parliamentary elections in the Midlands-North-West constituency.
As a full-time suckler and sheep farmer and long-standing campaigner in farming politics, Reynolds is recognised throughout Ireland as an unbending champion of the interests of farm families.
“Rural Ireland is currently under attack by the EU Green Deal and its backers from all of the main political parties including all 13 outgoing Irish MEPs who disgracefully voted in favour of the EU Nature Restoration Law, which insists on the re-wetting of approximately 300,000 hectares of drained agricultural land and the designating of huge swathes of farmland as ‘protected’ from human usage for food production,” Reynolds stated this week.
Reynolds further demands that the unreasonable decision to re-wet bogs must be reversed and the crucial peat burning power stations of Lanesborough and Shannonbridge should be brought back into operation.
“I am totally opposed to the EU ban on family turf cutting for the heating of homes and also oppose SAC designations by the EU that criminalises traditional rural practices and as an MEP, I would act to fully restore turf cutting rights,” Reynolds added.
Reynolds also demands the immediate end to Government plans in the name of the so called ‘National Climate Strategy’, to slash the national suckler herd by the withdrawal of supports for the suckler sector and to directly cull 200,000 dairy cows over three years.
“I am proud to stand for a new kind of politics which puts national democracy and identity first. With recent opinion polls showing that immigration is the top issue for Irish voters, I believe that the time to make a real change is now,” Reynolds commented.
Reynolds has a long history in farming politics, representing the farming community. He was elected as the youngest ever chairman of the Longford county executive of the Irish Farmers Association in 1999.
Inside the IFA, Reynolds was a staunch critic of its close relationship with the meat processing cartel and the political establishment with its slavishly un-skeptical acquiescence to EU policies which were damaging rural Ireland and undermining the family farm model of agriculture.
He headed the ‘Farmers for No’ campaigns against the Lisbon Treaty and against the Fiscal Compact Treaty. Reynolds was elected as honorary secretary of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association in 2014 and then served as national treasurer of the ICSA from 2016 to 2017, before co-founding the National Party, of which he has been the leader since July 2023.
He is contesting the June 7 EU Parliament elections because he wants to make sure that the best interests of rural and urban communities alike are represented and their demands for action manifested, during a time of great change and upheaval in Ireland and in Europe.
You can contact James at [email protected] or at 086 8585640.
