New Farmers Alliance party policies include immigration crackdown and opposition to green measures

A new farmers’ political party, which wants an immediate crackdown on immigration and strongly opposes Green Party policies on agriculture, has said it expects to field scores of candidates in this summer’s local and European elections.

An application by the Farmers Alliance to be registered as a political party was approved on Friday by the Registrar of Political Parties, Art O’Leary, also chief executive of the Electoral Commission.

The registration will become effective after a 21-day appeal period concludes. The alliance will become the 29th registered political party in the State.

Party founder Liam McLaughlin said the alliance already has 40 potential candidates lined up and intends to run well in excess of 100 in June’s local elections. It also hopes to contest the European Parliament elections and the general election, when it is called.

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Mr McLaughlin, a sheep farmer from Inishowen, Co Donegal, began the alliance as a Facebook group, which grew to have 20,000 members. He signalled his intention to form a party last April. The co-founder is Helen O’Sullivan, a suckler farmer from east Co Cork.

He said the alliance had engaged with some politicians but ultimately decided to go it alone. He said he hoped to soon announce candidates who have walked away from other parties to join.

The most noticeable of the party’s policies is on immigration where it expresses hardline opposition to the current system for dealing international protection applicants and what it claims is “uncontrolled immigration”.

“We will invest heavily in border control and ensure enough resources are in place to screen and vet all people seeking asylum or suspected of doing so,” the party’s website states.

Mr McLaughlin denied that the party was anti-immigrant or right-wing, saying its views were similar to those of communities who have opposed locating centres for asylum seekers in their areas.

In terms of agriculture, the party’s website says successive governments “have followed orders from Brussels and put up no argument against destructive policies that have left our fishing industry on life support, destroyed our sugar beet industry and left our farming industry on the brink”.

“The recently enacted Nature Restoration Law and the reduction in our Nitrates Derogation will send a lot of farmers over the edge.”

Mr McLaughlin said housing and helping people, affected by Mica building defects, a big issue in his native Co Donegal, were other priorities.

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