Frost and farming

Lord Frost appeared before the so-called EU scrutiny committee yesterday. The committee is headed by Bill Cash and has some of the most dedicated Brexit zealots you can think of sitting on it. It has Richard Drax, Andrea Jenkins, David Jones, Marcus Fysh for example and far from scrutinising, they stroked his ego and asked him a lot of easy, vague questions. It was like Ronnie Biggs being scrutinised by the Kray twins.

One of the more surprising things he said was the government is considering hiring someone from the private sector to identify the 'opportunities' (they love that word) of Brexit. David Gauke tweeted:

Nearly five years after the referendum and the search continues. https://t.co/KAK6gEV9Fy

— David Gauke (@DavidGauke) May 17, 2021

This should have alarm bells ringing. They have had five (5) years to come up with some tangible benefit and clearly can't.  Frost also alluded to Ian Duncan Smith's regulatory task force - Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform (TIGRR) - which was supposed to report back to the prime minister in April. I can only assume the opportunities are not as "huge" as Frost thinks - in fact there aren't any and the government is becoming a bit anxious..

This must be the fourth or fifth attempt the Tories have had to cut red tape starting with Oliver Letwin's efforts from 2012.  As far as I can see, with Brexit, this has only resulted in a massive increase in red tape.  I think IDS is probably having his eyes opened.

One of the results of Brexit is that the government is being forced to take responsibility and it appears there is a split in the cabinet over the Australian trade deal which Liz Truss is negotiating at speed in order to show we are better at it than Brussels.

The Mail had a piece the other day saying New Zealand and Australia were sticking by their hard line position of wanting all tariffs on agricultural products to be dropped. Eustice at DEFRA is against it because of the damage it would do to British farming.  The FT have the story:

"The British government is locked in a “ferocious” internal battle over whether to sign off a trade deal with Australia after a split between the department of agriculture and the department of international trade over the terms of the agreement.

"Two people with knowledge of internal discussions said ministers were divided over whether to grant tariff-free access to Australian farmers, which would risk a backlash from the UK farming industry — and potentially spark domestic political fallout."

In the end the decision will have to be made by Johnson, a man famously indecisive who wants to be liked. Nobody knows which way he will jump. Some say the impact on our farmers of importing cheap food from 12,000 miles away is overstated but others point to how it would set a precedent for deals with the USA and South America.

It is being seen as a test case, with some ministers saying if we can't do a trade deal with Australia we can't do one with anybody. But at what cost?  The FT quote one of Truss's opponents:

"The government estimates that a free trade agreement with Australia would be worth an additional 0.01-0.02 per cent of GDP over 15 years — or £200m-£500m more than 2018 levels. 'Basically we’re talking about signing off the slow death of British farming so Liz Truss can score a quick political point,' said one insider opposed to the deal."

Johnson's decision is likely to have repercussions for the United Kingdom, too:

"But such a deal risks inflaming arguments over Scottish and Welsh independence because the likely impact of zero-tariff imports of Australian lamb and beef will land hardest in rural areas such as Scottish and Welsh hill farms."

The article doesn't mention food security once, but for me this is the single biggest argument against these deals. We already import a huge percentage of the food we eat and this is only going to increase. A few days ago John Redwood was tweeting about how we should grow more of our own food.

The new plans to subsidise farmers for land management will mean we are importing food from around the world while our own farmers tend wild flower meadows and create flood alleviation schemes. It makes no sense to me, but it is the kind of dilemma that was always going to result from Brexit. 

Frost told MPs yesterday Brexit would allow the UK to set its own agricultural rules to suit its own situation but we will now be asking our farmers to compete on very unequal terms with farmers in very different situations. Our climate and farming methods are near identical to those in Northern Europe compared to those in Australia, I would have thought.

The whole thing is senseless.