The workings, if you can call it that, of the European Union continue to astound. No sooner has the EU decided to abandon the immoral practice of fishing quotas, whereby millions of tons of fish are discarded each year because they are the wrong type of fish, than they commit themselves and therefore all of us taxpayers to another piece of lunacy.

It is, of course, the official policy of the EU, and all its member states including the UK, to discourage smoking and to ban it wherever possible. Indeed, the Union has spent millions of euros on advertising campaigns all over the continent describing to us in great detail the damage we cause to ourselves and those around us by smoking tobacco. That’s fine in itself and surely, only a fool would argue that smoking is good for your health.

However, it now transpires that the European Parliament Agricultural Committee (see the latest Open Europe bulletin) recently voted in favour of directly subsidising tobacco farmers, in effect encouraging them to grow tobacco! It really is almost beyond belief and  I say almost because nobody can be surprised any longer by EU policy making. At best, these policy makers are grossly  incompetent and at worst corrupt. with most probably falling somewhere between the two.

Politicians speak of reforming the EU but I suspect it’s going to take a lot of effort to reform and transform this asylum and remove the lunatics who control it. Maybe it’s too late and it’s beyond repair. If so, a referendum on our continued membership cannot come soon enough.