UK FARMERS are ‘struggling to cope’ after Brexit according to a leading campaigner and expert.
Liz Webster, the chair of Save British Farming, told Alastair Stewart on GB News: “The magic formula is getting back in the single market. That’s really what we need.
“We need to free Britain and we need to free our trade, free our people, and that would help an awful lot. It’s not going to be a magical cure overnight.
“Increasing food production takes some time. Dismantling it is quite quick, but ramping it up takes years. And so we are in a very fragile situation with food.
“Christmas is one hot topic. But I think going in and going beyond that is a huge worry.
“The avian flu is just the straw that broke the camel’s back. I think it’s a convenient scapegoat for the Government, it’s not really the problem. The problem is labour shortages, input prices, removing our support and our subsidies, and then also we’ve also got less imports coming in from Europe because of Brexit.
“So I keep asking the government who’s going to feed Britain, because at the moment we are exposed, and when there’s food shortages, people don’t tend to just sit on their bums and moan about it. We’re looking at a lot of problems going forward.
“There is a denial at the heart of the government, that there’s going to be a problem and they assume the markets will sort it out. But the other issue that the government has been negligent about – in my view – is that they failed to help our fertiliser plants stay open. All they wanted was a subsidy of £10 million, they put £100 million into the Brexit festival and a sculpture, yet they didn’t help our fertiliser plants to stay open.
“So now we’re having to rely on fertiliser from America and that’s ramping up the costs even more for us, but also the world shortage of it. So we couldn’t be more exposed than we are now.
“It’s like deciding to go out with no clothes on when you know there’s a terrible storm coming and it’s going to be freezing cold. That’s where we are at the moment.
“To put our clothes back on, we need to get back in the single market and ideally the Customs Union, to make our trade free again, free up the labour source that we need, and then everybody will be able to have their food back.
“And that will be nice because when it runs out, I think people will start to get quite angry.”
