I don’t like Brussels. I’m sure the city would be fine for a grubby weekend, but it’s the EU parliament that I dislike. We’re been governed by a bunch of overpaid bureaucrats with unpronounceable names from faraway places.

I can handle familiar MEP names, like those of Flanagan and McGuinness, but there’s a whole host of other unelected personnel who spend their days dreaming up regulations to torment us. Most of them wouldn’t be able to place Ireland, let alone Leitrim, on a map.

You see, I’m convinced Brussels is overrun by loony green bureaucrats who are on a mission to turn Europe’s countryside into a giant Disneyland with nothing smoky or smelly like heavy industry or intensive agriculture.

These guys want dairy cows to have jingly bells and be milked in wild flower meadows by pretty girls in floaty summer dresses – nice, but crazy. They want tillage farmers like me to be perched up on a two-cylinder Fendt in a straw hat and sandals and growing organic crops according to Turnip Townshend’s 1710 guidelines.

Anyhow, the EU is dominated by the Germans, which is not a great thing. They are very domineering, as borne out by two very major events in the last century. German individuals are fine (one of my best friends is from Wolfenbuttel), but as a nation you can get enough of them. Frau Merkel, as the face of the EU, should be given more of a back seat.

She’s far too dictatorial for the whole European project. Anyhow, it’s time that Mairead McGuinness gave her a bit of a nudge off her pedestal. We’d all prefer the Drumconrath lilt to the harsh Germanic tones.

However if Ming Flanagan was running the show, we’d be allowed to cut turf and burn the bondholders and smoke dope all day long. That’s OK, but I see he’s in the EU’s anti-glyphosate camp, with which I fundamentally disagree. But at least with Ming, you’d know he wasn’t trying to rule Europe with a new Schlieffen plan. Carrick-on-Shannon town council maybe, but not Europe.

With all this in mind, I’d love to be given a vote on Europe, like the British people.

But this issue is more serious than an opinionated ramble. In the interest of balance, we should look at what Brussels has done for us.

Europe has enjoyed peace and prosperity for far longer than ever before, on which principles the EU was founded.

We have free and unfettered movement of people and goods to a single market on our doorstep of 550 million people. European agriculture produces the highest-quality food in the world and we farmers are spared from the real pain of low commodity prices by income support.

New Zealand was the poster boy for unsubsidised agriculture. But right now, with many of their farmers facing bankruptcy, I suspect they’d swap for our under-pinned agriculture. It’s unfortunate that commodity prices are so low as the UK’s farmers go to vote.

Clearly, many will be guided by their hearts and vote to leave, but I firmly believe that’s a decision we would deeply regret. But if the UK does leave, unfortunately we may have no choice but to follow suit. They could pull us under as well. But I’d prefer to go under with Mairead rather than Angela.