The EU is far from perfect and the CFP is one of its worst attributes, failing to achieve almost all of its stated aspirations, failing to prevent illegal fishing on a huge scale and demanding the absurdity of throwing perfectly good fish back into the sea, dead. Bloody awful policy! The Common Agricultural Policy is almost as bad. It sucks up a huge amount from the EU budget (41%!) yet agriculture comprises just one and a half percent of EU GDP. In the UK, agriculture represents less than one percent of GDP. The elephantine subsidy structure has been highly protectionist, it encourages fraud, it has encouraged farmers to grow inappropriate crops such as maize on sloping land (highly polluting) and encouraged bad practice such as hedgerow removal, it has promoted indiscriminate use of chemicals which are wiping out birds and pollinating insects, it has resulted in massive overproduction at various times and it has paid farmers to do nothing. The millionaire barley barons have received massive subsidies whereas small farmers have got next to nothing. A single cow gets a hundred times more in subsidy than we give in per capita aid to the poorest African nations. These absurdities keep popping up and the EU is always several years behind the pace in trying to correct them. If ever there was evidence that a policy needs a root and branch rethink, it's that. I'm an ardent remainder as I've said, but there are some matters, such as agriculture and fisheries, which can't be controlled by gigantism and which are best left to individual nations, which should have to adhere to a basic framework of standards for animal welfare and environmental protection but which should have the bureaucratic fetters (and subsidies) removed.

So there! No sycophancy from ME!   :-)