When the UK voted to leave the EU on 23 June 2016, the winds of change in the British countryside shifted from strong to gale force. The majority of UK farmers voted to leave, citing the EU’s monolithic Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as the leading factor in their decision-making. While no firm details were given of what would replace it during the campaign period, Vote Leave’s narrative was British agriculture would be greener, more prosperous and freer to operate out of the aegis of an overly bureaucratic Brussels.
Farming and shooting are inextricably linked; the countryside over which we enjoy our sport is overwhelmingly farmland. The new Environmental Land Management schemes (ELMs) purport
