Sheep industry leaders are calling for an all-out attack by Defra Secretary Hilary Benn on the "madness" of new EU regulations on ID.

They want him to go into a crucial Council of Ministers meeting next week with the aim of achieving nothing less than the total scrapping of the hugely controversial EU proposals.

Hopes are rising that an identification scheme which would result in millions of pounds extra costs for sheep farmers can now be overturned. Until now, Britain has been virtually a lone voice opposing the regime which will require the individual identification of sheep from January – with an electronic system the only manageable method of doing so.

But now it is being supported by the Hungarian Government, which has tabled a paper for the meeting which is calling for the abandonment of the mandatory scheme.

And leaders of Britain's four main farming unions say as a result of more intensive lobbying they are also expecting opposition to be voiced by the German and Irish Governments.

Now the National Sheep Association has written to Mr Benn urging him and his officials to focus their arguments on the fact that the regulation will not deliver the improvements to animal disease control that the EU hoped.

Chief executive Peter Morris said: "This is the single biggest regulatory issue solely aimed at the sheep industry that we have faced in a generation, and we are not prepared to just sit back and watch disproportionate and ill-informed regulation that was thought up years ago foisted upon our sheep farmers.

"The sheep world was a very different place then and changes have been made already to combat the problems that existed. This regulation adds very little to that other than to threaten the livelihoods and businesses of decent hard-working sheep farming families."

NSA chairman Jonathan Barber has also written to Mr Benn urging him to work as hard as he can to gain support from his counterparts to put a stop to "this madness".

A nd he has called on him to concentrate on the funda- mentals of the argument. Mr Morris said: "There have been too many public sideshows and distractions.

"The Government, and many others, have spent too much time skirmishing around the edges on side issues such as the use of electronics, the slaughter derogation and the ability of sheep farmers to cope with computers."