Member's statement: UFU: DAERA Vote of No Confidence
Member's statement by Miss Michelle McIlveen on .
- MLA
- Miss Michelle McIlveen
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 3 November 2025
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- UFU: DAERA Vote of No Confidence
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5212805
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Last week, the Ulster Farmers' Union, which is one of DAERA's largest stakeholders and a body that represents over 12,500 farmers and their families, took the extraordinary step of passing a motion of no confidence in DAERA. That extraordinary step was passed unanimously by the executive committee, which comprises around 150 people. It was not only an extraordinary step but an extraordinary vote, given the breadth of diverse views and interests in farming. The farming sector is worth £6 billion to the Northern Ireland economy and is recognised as providing 25% of the UK's food supply. This is no small matter. The vote was a damning indictment of the Department and the course that the Minister has set for it. The buck stops with Minister Muir on that. The Alliance Party may blame everyone else for its woes and drop as many dead cat arguments as it can, but the vote cannot have come as a surprise to anyone. We have repeatedly warned the Minister. We raised those issues time and again in the Chamber. The Minister has been told that he has been placing too much of the blame for and burden of climate change on farming and that he needed to be proportionate and even-handed in his approach. He has been told that a wildlife intervention was needed to tackle bovine tuberculosis. He said that that was in hand, but there has since been nothing. He pressed ahead with the nutrients action programme (NAP) consultation, which did not engage the sectors and was based on scientific assumptions that had not even been peer-reviewed. He was told that he needed sincere partnership working when developing his NAP proposals. He has been told repeatedly about action being needed on ammonia controls and how they are stifling betterment proposals and planning, but nothing has happened. He was told about the issues with generational renewal during the debate on the Farm Sustainability (Transitional Provisions) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2025. He and his Department were warned. The Minister has not been the critical friend that farmers have needed. He has set himself against the sector rather than working with it. The Minister and the Department need to change course, whether that is on TB, NAP, ammonia controls, betterment proposals or climate change targets. His agenda of environmental purism is hugely damaging to our most important industry and threatens to undermine the very fabric of our rural economy and community. He has lost the trust of his biggest stakeholder. It is time that he listened.
420 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.04 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.87).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.04 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.03 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.02 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.06 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.04 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.87 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.04 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.98 |
| Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty | 0.01 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:46 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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