Ulster Unionist Party Agriculture spokesperson Robbie Butler MLA has called on Agriculture Minister Andrew Muir to stand down, following the Ulster Farmers' Union's vote of no confidence and its rejection of the independence of the Fivemiletown review.

Robbie Butler said:

“On Monday of this week, some people in the agri sector were hoping the Minister would take a direction that would show real independence with an inquiry. Today the Ulster Farmers' Union has named the Minister and called for him to go. Nothing has changed in between except the Minister's own handling of it. That is the measure of how badly this has been managed.

“His response has been to attack the Union itself. He said today that the UFU 'led us to a lot of problems'. He said its leadership was 'a bit amiss'. He demanded it apologise to him. That is a disgraceful slur on the organisation that has spoken for this industry for over a century, and on the farm families it represents. A Minister who has lost the confidence of the sector does not win it back by blaming the farmers' own union for the state of agriculture. He should withdraw those remarks and apologise.

“On officials, let me be clear. The abuse and threats directed at departmental staff, and at the Minister himself, are criminal, I condemn them without reservation, and they are a matter for the PSNI. But the Minister is conflating two entirely different things. Threatening someone is a crime. Naming them in a no confidence motion is not. Using one to deflect scrutiny of the other does his own staff no favours.

“My party leader warned him. He wrote to the Minister and told him not to write his own Terms of Reference. He told him the appointment, and the terms, should be agreed with an independent chair, not handed down by the Department under examination. We proposed a route that would have carried confidence. He chose instead to write the terms himself, appoint one person himself, and consult nobody.

“That decision is what has brought us here. A single reviewer, with no panel, no legal or forensic expertise alongside him, and no power to compel a single witness outside the Department. Farmers were told this would be independent. They have looked at it, and they do not believe it. When the body representing the entire sector says the process cannot command confidence, the process is finished, whatever the Minister says about it.

“This did not begin at Fivemiletown. A culture of enforcement has taken hold in DAERA. Farm families across Northern Ireland experience a department that inspects them, polices them and prosecutes them, but no longer appears to understand or support them. Fivemiletown is what that culture looks like when it plays out in a field in full public view.

“At the very least he should abandon this review and establish a proper independent inquiry, chaired independently, with a panel of the right expertise, with the power to compel evidence, and with its report published in full.

“But the Minister should do the right thing and stand down. This Department needs fresh leadership, and the farming community needs a Minister it can trust. He is no longer that person. Standing down would allow a successor to begin the work of rebuilding a relationship that has been broken on his watch.”