Cheaper at the border, but at what cost on the farm?

This week, the UK and EU agreed a draft sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) deal, ahead of the summit in Brussels on Friday 20 November.

Some burdens on those trading food with the EU will clearly be lifted. £200 Export Health Certificates, plant health certificates and a raft of inspection and port fees are likely to go or be reduced. Fresh sausages, burgers, shellfish and seed potatoes could be sold to Europe again. That is welcome.

What is not clear is what the UK has given away to get it.

I recently asked a Whitehall trade negotiator whether the UK would become a rule taker, with no say in how new rules are made. The answer was disarmingly frank: “that’s the whole point.” The government claims a £5.1bn annual benefit, yet insiders have told me privately that the growth will be modest at best.

Many who trade with Europe will understandably celebrate. But their joy may be short-lived if a day comes when a new rule harms their business and there is no meaningful democratic recourse: no MP or minister able to change it, and no election that could either. Ministers will likely say Parliament still gets a vote. Yet if the penalty for saying no is severe, it is not a real vote. There has been too little debate about this new way of being governed.

Nor does alignment stop at the exporter’s farm gate. As the CLA said this week, British farmers could find themselves bound by EU rules on everything from pesticides to animal health, even if they never export a single product. Removing red tape at the border is little consolation if it means more restrictions on the farm. Ministers must explain what protections they have secured and guarantee a realistic transition period for any new regulation.

There is a wider point. The deal reopens old Brexit wounds. Rightly or wrongly, large swathes of the country hold a view that the political class never quite forgave voters for choosing to leave, nor tried to understand why. Some readers will welcome a return to the EU; others will not. Either way, Andy Burnham won a leave-voting seat promising not to take the UK back into the EU. As Prime Minister, he has since said he would consider the single market, a customs union or rejoining outright.

I take no professional position on where our relationship with Europe should end up. But at a political level, and at a time of deep division, this is an extraordinary gamble. And a Prime Minister determined to push power away from Westminster seems equally content to hand it to Brussels.

If we are not careful, people may soon ask what Parliament is for.

“Anything that makes it easier for British farmers to trade with Europe is welcome,” said CLA President Gavin Lane in response to the draft SPS deal. “But removing red tape at the border is little consolation if it means more restrictions on the farm.”

“Ministers need to explain what protections they have secured and guarantee a realistic transition period for any new regulations, giving farmers time to make the necessary changes. Farmers cannot afford a deal that saves money on exports only to saddle them with higher costs and fewer options for growing food.”