UK: Farmers stage mass protests as post-Brexit rules, trade deals hamper their livelihoods

Farmers in the United Kingdom protested against the Brexit rules and trade deals on March 22, 2024, claiming that they are threatening their livelihoods and food security. To the sound of the car horns, Save British Farming and Fairness for farmers drove tractors in slow motion through south London towards Parliament Square where supporters awaited.

Displaying signs that read no farmers, no food, no future, the protestors called on the government to end trade deals they say allows imports of food produced and to standards that would be illegal in the UK and undercut local farmers.

“They are not telling the truth said the founder of British Farming Liz Webster when asked by an international media agency reporter what she would say to claims by the government it backs farmers. They negotiated trade deals which literally see us slaughtered,” she continued, “They are the worst trade deals in the world.”

“We have been totally and utterly left let down by this government, Webster added. “We are demanding change.” The UK’s exit from the European Union (EU) has significantly affected its agriculture. Taking outside the bloc’s free trade zone and web of rules, has left farmers grappling with their bureaucratic headaches exporting difficulties and labour shortages.

A European media agency report in 2021 found that the sparkling wine producers in the UK had resorted to using voluntary labour to pick grapes, owing to a sizeable reduction in migrant labourers coming to England due to Brexit. The COVID pandemic also played a critical role. British farmers largely supported Brexit opposing the EU’s much criticised Common Agriculture Policy.

 

Many now say post Brexit trade deals between the UK and countries like Australia and New Zealand have opened the door to cheap imports they cannot compete with. Organisers of the protest have also slammed labelling that allows products to bear a Union flag when they have not been grown and reared in the country.

Mass farmer protests have grippled countries across the EU. Farmers in Poland, France and Germany have demonstrated against what claim is cumbersome bureaucracy, Brussels environmental policies and unfair foreign competition. They have claimed that they have been driven to bankruptcy something echoed by the British.

The public opinion in the UK on Brexit has soured over time according to several polls. A recent survey by an international media agency found a clear majority of Brits now believe withdrawing from the European Union in 2020 was bad for the country’s economy. The poll of more than 2000 UK voters also revealed strikingly low number of people thinking Brexit has benefitted them or the country.