Brexit: Threat of Empty Shelves in Hard Brexit

British retailers and farmers have swiftly dismissed a claim by Cabinet secretary Chris Grayling that British food supplies would not be disrupted by a “hard Brexit”.

Grayling, the Transport Secretary and one of the staunchest Cabinet advocates for leaving the EU, yesterday played down retailers’ warnings of food price rises and supply problems by insisting that retailers would simply buy more food from the UK and other countries, and that British farmers would increase their own food output.

“What it would mean would be that supermarkets bought more from home, that British farmers grew more and that they bought more from around the world,” Grayling said.

“What we will do is grow more here and buy more from around the world but that will mean bad news for continental farmers and that is why it will not happen – it is in their interests to reach a deal.”

The British Retail Consortium, whose members handle 70% of the turnover of UK retailers, was quick to disagree, suggesting that Grayling was ignoring a very real danger of empty supermarket shelves if Brexit negotiations break down without a new trade deal.

A spokeswoman said it would take the medium to long term for retailers to find new food suppliers and it was “very unrealistic to expect farmers to make up the surplus of produce straight away”.

The National Farmers Union warned that Britain had become less self-sufficient in food supplies in recent years and it would be unable to feed itself for the foreseeable future. If the UK had to rely entirely on home-grown produce it would run short after little more than six months, according to the NFU.

Grayling: “Don’t Worry”

The Labour Party said Grayling’s claims were outlandish as British farmers were not “under-producing”.

“British farmers already work incredibly hard and to suggest that they could simply grow more food is ridiculous, said Jenny Chapman, the Shadow Brexit Minister. “Rather than planning for ‘no deal’, ministers appear to be telling us to dig for ‘no deal’,” she said.

David Tyler, the chairman of the Sainsbury’s supermarket chain, told the Sunday Times that leaving the EU without an agreement on future trade access could mean trade tariffs averaging 22% on food supplies from the EU, which account for about 70% of all UK food imports. Industry representatives say that would mean a rise of at least 9% in the cost of tomatoes, 5% for cheddar and 5% for beef.

Meanwhile Carwyn Jones, the First Minister of Wales, said that even if a free trade deal was reached with food suppliers like Australia and New Zealand it would be a disaster as “our lamb farmers would vanish overnight.”

Jones told the Sunday Times that he would do everything in his power to veto such a deal because leaving the EU without attractive new trade arrangements could see a British Government that was desperate for new trade deals enter free-trade agreements with countries that have much more competitive farm sectors.

“I could not agree to free-trade deals with Australia and New Zealand that would decimate our agriculture industry,” he said. “Similarly a free-trade deal with China could be disastrous for our steel industry.”

Grayling insisted on the Andrew Marr Show on BBC One that he was confident the EU would not allow the Brexit negotiations to break down without a deal to cover exports and imports because of the importance of the UK market to European farmers.

“You may remember the brouhaha over the Walloon farmers when they objected to the Canadian trade deal. I had a look to see who their biggest customer was – it was us,” he said. “We are the biggest customers of the Walloonian farmers – they will be damaged if we don’t have a deal.”

If the UK did have to default to the standard tariffs set by the World Trade Organisation then Britain’s food distribution industry would simply find other sources of food supplies at home and abroad, he said.

EU officials and European industry groups have repeatedly warned that although their exports would be hurt by losing privileged access to the UK market their greatest priority is to protect the rules of the single market for the other 27 EU members, meaning they could not bend those rules for a former member such as the UK after it leaves the union in March 2019.

by Peter Wilson

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