A willingness to confront difficult policy issues head-on is one way Labour can distinguish itself from an ascendant Reform, says Nick Hughes.
As MPs returned to Westminster on Monday following a red-hot summer there was no doubting who had set the political weather in August.
Nigel Farage has delighted in Labour’s baffling decision to vacate the airwaves, as well as SW1, by dominating the news agenda, delivering a wide range of proclamations and policies on pet subjects ranging from immigration to law and order.
The Reform UK leader will remain in the limelight for another week at least as the party holds its annual conference in Birmingham, before the other main parties gather within their tribes to figure out a way to halt Farage’s momentum.
For Labour, part of the answer may lie in an unlikely source. The party under Sir Keir Starmer, and previously Jeremy Corbyn, had seemingly taken a vow of collective silence over all things Brexit-related since the UK severed political ties with the EU in 2020. Yet of late there have been signs of a carefully choreographed effort to restate the value to the UK economy of closer EU alignment.
In May, the UK and EU agreed the basis for a new agreement that will see barriers to trade reduced and agri-food standards “dynamically aligned”. Labour is now starting to talk-up the benefits of this new relationship, with food a key foundation for the argument. Last week, food security minister Daniel Zeichner visited a meat processing plant operated by Dunbia to press the (human) flesh and rehearse his sales pitch for the yet-to-be rubber-stamped sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement.
Labour claims that, once formalised, the agreement will make trading food and drink with the UK’s biggest export and import market cheaper and easier, adding up to £5.1bn a year to the UK economy (or returning that same sum to the post-Brexit economy if you prefer). This will be achieved by scrapping documentary and physical checks on foods like dairy and meat, and removing the need for export health certificates that cost businesses up to £200 per consignment of goods.
So far, the blowback against the deal from opponents has been muted. Reform, like Labour, has little interest in reprosecuting the arguments over Brexit now that it thinks it has cemented immigration as this era’s defining political dividing line.
Friction burns
Despite their frustration at having to spend time and money learning and adapting to a complex, but now soon-to-be obsolete new trading system, most food businesses will be breathing a sigh of relief at the news. Following Brexit, the EU moved quickly to impose extra checks and costs on UK businesses resulting in food and drink exports dropping by a third since 2019. The UK took several more years, and attempts, to create its own regime but since the border trade operating model was implemented in April last year businesses have reported considerable friction in bringing food across the Channel, often resulting in unnecessary wastage or a reduction in shelf life. Some smaller EU suppliers of speciality products like continental meats and cheeses have stopped supplying the UK market altogether.
Rising input costs remain a millstone around the necks of businesses, along with tax rises that came into effect in April. Although the rate of inflation has cooled since the highs experienced in 2022, July’s 4.2% increase in the consumer price index was the highest recorded in the past year. Food inflation is running at 4.9%, up from 4.5% in June.
A relaxation in trade barriers will ease some of those cost pressures – albeit discussions about the details of the agreement will only begin once the EU has confirmed its negotiating mandate and so are expected to run into next year.
As more businesses start to speak the language of resilience in an era of conflict and climate crisis, the ability to access a more reliable supply of affordable ingredients from our closest trading partner is a small, positive step towards greater food security. Lest we forget that part of the argument for Brexit made by cheerleaders such as Farage was that the cost of food would come down significantly once the UK was set free from the EU’s protectionist grasp. Those arguments have long ceased to be aired.
A new, ambitious food strategy for England has also been broadly welcomed by businesses and civil society, despite a lack of detailed plans for implementation.
Telling a good story about food won’t win Labour the next election, but it might help show the strategists, and an inert leadership, that confronting complex, politically difficult issues head-on is one way to make political inroads when you’re outgunned in the war of words.
