In the 1970s, Mansholt stated that it would be better to take small, uneconomic farmers off the land and pay them to live in towns, rather than subsidise them in a productive way. All this is a contradiction of what we embraced when we first joined the EU – more production, more income and better lifestyles. Suddenly the entire project has gone wrong. It is for that reason I advocate an early warning system to tell us what is out there. The Government must show its determination to win back the electorate.