Ireland warned

Press, 18 February 1978, Page 4

Ireland warned

Anti-Irish feeling in Britain, stemming from the troubles in Northern Ireland, could be aggravated if the Irish Dairy Board persists in calling tor an end to New Zealand food imports, according to a newsletter published in London this week, NZPA reports. The anti-Common Market “European Briefing” run by the New Zealandborn British Labour member of Parliament, Bryan Gould, said the board continues to ignore the political dangers of its antiNew Zealand policy. The board is one of the most vigorous campalgn-

ers against the continuing New Zealand butter exports to Britain and Mr Brian Joyce, its managing director, said recently there was a “definite need” to phase out New Zealand imports by 1892.

(New Zealand has guaranteed quotas until 1980 and negotiations for sendings beyond then are expected to begin later this year.) “Mr Joyce continues to clothe Irish interests in bogus Europeanism by claiming that such a policy is unnecessary to reduce the Common Agricultural Policy dairy surplus,” the newsletter said. Ireland, as a neutralist country, could not be ex-

pected to hold the German view that New Zealand must have continued access to the British market in order to help maintain its allegiance to the Western bloc, “but there is the more immediate danger of what would happen if the question of continued New Zealand access were to become a high-profile political issue in this country,” said the newsletter. Dislike of the E.E.C. agricultural policy in Britain has previously been directed mainly at Brussels or at France, “but it could equally well be directed at Ireland and could exacerbate anti-Irish feeling stemming from the Northern Ireland troubles.”