UK: Farmers Stage Tractor Protest in Central London

Facts

• A go-slow farmer protest took place in London on Monday evening. More than a hundred tractors gathered outside Parliament, demanding support for food production amid claims that cheap imports and the British farm payments scheme have placed food security at risk.¹
• Farmers allege that trade deals with New Zealand and Australia, the Asia-Pacific Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), and a lack of import checks had undermined UK food quality and placed British farmers at risk.²
• The organizations that staged the protest — Save British Farming and Kent Fairness for Farmers — also argued that British producers are now worse off than their EU counterparts, who remain able to export EU-subsidized goods to the UK.³
• This rally is the largest to have taken place in recent UK history, following a trend of similar protests in Europe including France and Germany. According to official data, at least three-fifths of food consumed in Britain was grown in the country.⁴
• The UK government has recently announced that, in order to maintain rates of food production, applications for post-Brexit farming subsidies will no longer be accepted if over 25% of farmland is used for environmental purposes.⁵

Sources: ¹BBC News, ²Independent, ³Sky News, ⁴Evening Standard and ⁵Financial Times.

Narratives

• Left narrative, as provided by The Guardian. Brexiteers had pledged that the farming sector would be better off if the UK, which imports nearly half of its food and has traditionally neglected domestic production, left the EU. Unsurprisingly, the country is now on the brink of major food shortages due to a combination of border checks that brought confusion, ill-planned subsidies, and price pressure from retailers.
• Right narrative, as provided by The Telegraph. Though post-Brexit agricultural policies do play a role in the current farming crisis, these are only minor factors within a much wider problem. Following farming protests in France and Germany, it was only a matter of time before British farmers escalated their demonstrations. Unsustainable high productions costs, crop losses, and slow economic growth throughout Europe cannot be blamed solely on Brexit.

Predictions