Westministenders: The Beginning of Negotiations

[RedToothBrush]

Transition has a few hours left.

Then negotiations start and trade stops.

Far from being over, there are huge numbers of issues that lay unresolved.

And businesses both now in the UK and EU will cease to trade with each other just because the red tape is such a pain.

So whilst people will celebrate and think things are 'done' that just shows how much people are paying attention.

It will be interesting to see people gradually realising what has been lost...

Thanks @HesterThrale. I hadn't read that, but I don't read it as slating the whole policy, more as JR having reservations that the details haven't been worked out to his satisfaction yet. As a general rule, no agricultural policy ever in history has received wild applause from farmers, to the best of my knowledge. It sounds like we're moving toward a policy farmers, public and politicians may be able to live with for a while.

Extracts from the Rebanks article:

There is no real vision of progressive agriculture behind these changes, no talk of rebuilding the lost local food infrastructure and shifting our culinary culture away from corporate-made processed foods and unhealthy junk. There is no suggestion of the radical changes needed to rein in the power of supermarkets and other big corporations that drive down prices, and through that encourage destructive farming.
There is no mention of “food security”, or the very real risk that outsourcing our food supply places on pristine, natural and unprotected environments like the Amazon. There is little or nothing said about raising standards (an anathema to US trade negotiators) or shifting farming to be more “regenerative”.
...
The future they are creating is a perfect storm of crappiness — massive tariffs imposed on what we sell to our main markets, a slashing of the support payment system that we were part of in the EU, a lot of deregulation, and a whole heap of new competitors through new “free trade” deals which will allow imports produced in ways that are illegal here.
Even the green bit — the ELM — has yet to commit to paying a fair or decent price for things that will do a great deal of public good, like carbon sequestration or flood alleviation. It is not even clear that they have a methodology for paying for these natural outcomes.
...
Unfortunately, the idea that food and farming can manage without state support is a fantasy in a world in which every government is entangled in its domestic agriculture. Trying to disentangle this will drive down prices and lead to further intensification on farmland, potentially making much of farmed England worse for nature (yes, that’s possible) and exporting our food footprint to places where we don’t see the damage or costs.

unherd.com/2020/12/brexit-will-ruin-britains-farms/

A link to a Tory site on one of these threads was extolling the wonders of GM crops - it might have been this thread or the one just finished.

What exactly was the Deal with farming, do we know? All I know is the Brexit farmer that I mentioned earlier is not happy because he's been sold out.

@wherearemychickens

I think reforming the CAP is possibly one of the genuine benefits of Brexit, and have said that for years, and, from what I've read, James Rebanks is transitioning/has transitioned to farming in a way that we absolutely should support. My worry is that it's this shower of absolute incompetents in charge. I don't trust them to get anything right.

This is the issue isn’t it. As with everything in the U.K., related to Brexit - and not. Yes agricultural policy could be improved. Who believes that it really will? Who trusts the British government now to not do what British governments have been doing for the last 40 years, selling out the livelihoods of small and ordinary workers to benefit those who already have more than they need?

“How ELM will work and what it will pay for haven’t been worked out yet. Of course, it may develop in the next few months into a really brilliant and enlightened scheme that does great things for both agriculture and nature. But they better get a bloody move on, because it is four years since the referendum,” still no plan then??

@XingMing

Farming subsidies are going to be cut, but they will be replaced by subsidies for bio-diversity and landscape/environmental management, which will end up being more generous for upland/marginal farmers. It won't simply be £x per acre, which benefits mainly agri-businesses with thousands of acres, but will be paid for maintaining AND IMPROVING habitats.

About those environmental schemes: Wildlife Trusts CEO Craig Bennett commented: “We are deeply worried that the pilot schemes simply cannot deliver the promise that nature will be in a better state. Four years on from the EU referendum, we still lack the detail and clarity on how farm funding will benefit the public.”

@XingMing

My understanding is that the new rules/guidance would not have been permissible under the CAP. And I think we might have joined the EEC earlier had CdG not vetoed entry (twice). Your point about alliance with Brittany and Normandy is noted.

True, agriculture is a small part of the UK economy, but we all need to eat! Food, and food security should be an important consideration for any governing party. Sensible is not an adjective that has often been associated with any government of any political party in recent times.

And while I thank you for your kind words about my considered post, it's not my first.

As i said, Pillar 2 of the CAP allows for similar things you are arguing for.

Pillar 2 requires co-financing from member state governments.
The EU describes the purposes of this as:

fostering the competitiveness of agriculture
ensuring the sustainable management of natural resources
combating climate change
achieving a balanced territorial development of rural economies and communities including the creation and maintenance of employment.

I'd also like to know that if farm subsidies are going to continue at the same overall cost, what will be cut in the EA etc?

There appears to be quite a lot of crossover between the new planned farm subsidies and what other Govt's do.

Also ‘replaced’ is not the right word as that implies the ELM subsidies are somehow commensurate with the outgoing CAP. ELM simply cannot, will not plug the gap left by the loss of EU subsidy.

That was a PS to my previous post ^

I think we may live close by @jasjas1973. This is also formerly a market gardening area, that now isn't. But some of the blame for its decline needs to be placed on the UK over-enforcing rules. An acquaintance's family supplied mushrooms, grown on an industrial scale, to a major food company until limits were imposed on reclaiming the fuel costs of heating glass houses, which were not applied in Ireland. And within weeks, the contracts were torn up and the mushrooms were bought from Ireland, where the heating costs continued to be subsidised. Tomatoes, likewise.

I’m off to read Rebanks.

His books are very good Tatiana - would thoroughly recommend both.

I follow both him and George Monbiot on Twitter for balance :)

Rebanks is a wonderful read; both poetry and pragmatic. Highly recommended. And very moving.

But some of the blame for its decline needs to be placed on the UK over-enforcing rules.

There we go again - Westminster blaming the EU.

I heard a radio programme a couple of years back about the closure of small abattoirs. Not due to the EU, but yet again Westminster used the EU as an excuse. I can't remember what the prog was called or if it would still be available. Yet a Brexiter has already mentioned that we can now ban the export of live animals. Good, but not mentioning that driving animals long distances for slaughter within the UK is not good for them either.

And also very critical of the government’s plan for farming.

Very good article, I will order the book.

Ahhhh MN is a hive of unthinking comments and lack of joined up thinking tonight.

Adam Kucharski @AdamJKucharski - Oct 9, 2020
If hospitalisations are rising and you delay making decisions about COVID-19 control measures, eventually the virus will force you to make them. As @SRileyIDD has put it previously, either humans decide the rules or the virus will.

We are running out of decisions we can make freely.

Reply to XingMing ^

news.sky.com/story/british-expats-barred-from-boarding-flight-to-spain-as-id-documents-not-valid-post-brexit-12178554?dcmp=snt-sf-twitter
British expats 'barred from boarding flight to Spain as ID documents not valid post-Brexit'

Airlines reportedly claim their proof of residency documents were no longer valid after the end of the UK-EU transition period.

Is this a reverse windrush?

I think we should all be happy that we don't eat food produced in China . We do have the freedom to choose ethically produced food in the UK. We don't have to buy Dutch or Danish bacon, and no one is forcing foie gras down my throat. I would prefer to keep chlorinated chicken and grain-fed beef out of my food chain too.

I think it might have been the Food Programme or Farming Today talking about small abbattoirs being closed, @Peregrina. I think I heard it too.

XingMing you may find that you are not able to, if the US gets its way of banning country of origin on labels. A request which the Tories will almost certainly cave in to. You would have to source your meat or poultry from a local farm.

@XingMing

Now, that would funny!
Tamer Valley, Cornwall, i know the people who ran the mushroom farm, nr drakewalls.
We grew flowers and strawberries, couldn't compete with areas where flowers came earlier.
Neighbours had glass houses for toms,peppers and cucumber, lovely stuff but they had to burn oil and then wood but even that became uneconomical.
No one seemed to enforce rules, if there were any? the EEC back then was pretty benign.

Another issue was workers, why do backbreaking work in a market garden when you can earn treble on a building site as a labourer? now a days it would be as a delivery driver for DPD.

British expats 'barred from boarding flight to Spain as ID documents not valid post-Brexit'

Red, see my posts of 19:44. Not Spain but British Airways not knowing what the rules are, not having a clue about what various residence permits look like, and the system set up to block checking in unless manually over-ridden. Some of it was covid restrictions but the covid restriction is because the UK is a third country so it's directly related to Brexit.

The fact that the other countries haven't a clue doesn't help either. But why haven't they a clue? Because of the fat lazy arse Johnson and his negotiating team blustering until the last minute.

Good, but not mentioning that driving animals long distances for slaughter within the UK is not good for them either

Neither is killing them when they arrive....