Agra Europe’s editorial director Chris Horseman went out to bat over his ‘independent’ think tank’s EU funding on Radio 4 earlier. As Guido has previously revealed, Agra is in the pay of Brussels. Though you wouldn’t know that from Horseman’s answer.

“I’m glad you asked me that question. We are 100% independent. We are funded and financed by absolutely nobody. We sell our information services to a wide range of people in both public and private sectors. Some of the European institutions happen to be among our clients, but they have absolutely no influence over the analysis that we produce.”

To recap, Agra won a €36,000 contract from the European Commission, and their consultancy sister arm won another €200,000 contract from the EU’s agriculture programme just last year. The claim that “we are funded and financed by absolutely nobody” is risible…

The Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, usually sound on economics, has endorsed the apocalyptic claims of EU sockpuppets Agra, exposed last week by Guido as being in the pay of Brussels, having pocketed over €200,000 in 2014 alone. The organisation has released a hyperbolic report titled “Preparing For Brexit”, claiming that  90% of farmers wouldn’t survive the loss of subsidies occasioned by EU withdrawal. Evans-Pritchard seems to accept this absurd exercise in EU spin however, and  is at pains to state that the “Agra report is not a propaganda document. It is a detailed text, carefully researched, written for industry insiders. It is not to be dismissed lightly”. Really?

Readers will be pleased to hear that they can purchase Agra’s report for only £500 here. Despite having already paid for it via Euro-taxes…

UPDATE: Ambrose responds, sounds like he feels deceived:

https://twitter.com/AmbroseEP/status/661185355291435008

https://twitter.com/AmbroseEP/status/661186116964515842