Brexit lobbying by farming and fishing interests

Part of the Powerbase Brexit Portal.

Few industries will be affected by Brexit as much as the farming and fishing sectors.

The UK is expected to withdraw from the Common Agricultural Policy, but what will replace the payments going to farmers? Likewise, what will it mean to quit the Common Fisheries Policy? Will Brexit lead to EU regulations being ditched in the UK, such as on pesticides use? If the UK opens its borders to low-cost food producers, what will that do to farming incomes? Will new trade deals lead to lower standards for food and farming? Will a post-Brexit UK embrace genetically-modified crops?

The person with the power to answer some of these questions, Michael Gove, secretary of state at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is one of the government's strongest Brexit supporters. He is backed in the department by farming minister and fellow Brexiteer, George Eustice. Both are the target of fierce lobbying by the food, farming and fisheries industries.

Here we start to look at some of these organisations petitioning government, their hired lobbyists, political connections and positioning.

If you have any information on lobbying by food, farming, or fishing interests that you think should be shared on this page, please contact spininfo[at]spinwatch.org.

Farming lobby

UK farming lobby groups

National Farmers Union. The (NFU), the largest farmers' organisation in England and Wales, backed the UK staying in the EU. However, post-referendum it sees Brexit as providing a 'unique opportunity to assess the regulatory environment' for farmers. This includes tweaking EU laws as they are transferred to UK law through the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, and a more significant post-Brexit review of regulations. The NFU has routine meetings with government, including farming minister George Eustice. Its hired lobbying agency is Portland Communications, which used to employ not only Eustice, but both special advisers of environment secretary Michael Gove.

Overseas farming lobby groups

Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA), which represents Australian beef, sheep (and goat) farmers, launched a campaign in May 2017 to get restrictions and tariffs lifted on Australian meat and see increased exports to the UK post-Brexit. Part of its campaign aims to draw in third parties to 'help get [their] message through' to UK policymakers, such as UK-based companies, or individuals with an interest in the Australian meat industry. This includes UK investors in livestock-producing land in Australia, which would benefit from an increase in exports. UK-based individuals and investment funds are by far the largest foreign investors in Australian agricultural land and include Conservative donor and Brexit supporter, Michael Hintze. In early 2017, MLA hired UK lobbying agency Hume Brophy, which has run third-party advocacy campaigns for the tobacco industry.

Think tanks for market reforms

A number of think tanks are advocating reform of the farming sector post-Brexit, including how to fund British farming after leaving the EU.

• Open Europe. The Eurosceptic think tank has long called for the dismantling of the Common Agricultural Policy, the EU system through which farmers receive subsidies. However, believing this to be too politically challenging, on 27 February 2012 it published a report – More for Less – proposing reform of the CAP. Its proposals centred on replacing subsidies with a system of 'agri-environmental allowances', which would be allocated to farmers that were providing environmental benefits. Farmers who wanted to opt out, could.
• Institute of Economic Affairs. The free market think tank has also long advocated the scrapping of farm subsidies. It published a report, Liberating farming from the CAP by Sean Rickard, the day after Open Europe's report, on 28 February 2012, which unapologetically called for direct EU subsidies to be scrapped. IEA presented its report to the then newly-created APPG on European Reform, which was run by Open Europe.
• Adam Smith Institute's 2016 Rebooting Britain report by its president, Dr Madsen Pirie, echoed calls for a 'New Zealand style abolition of agricultural subsidies' once Britain leaves the EU and is out of the Common Agricultural Policy.
• Bright Blue, the right-leaning think tank, released a report on 20 November 2017 calling for subsidy payments to be replaced with means-tested support and a market-system for farmers to bid for 'green' contracts.
• Chatham House produced a report earlier in November 2017 similarly calling for 'a market-oriented model... with a more effective commitment to the environment and climate change mitigation'.

Fishing lobby

Fishing for Leave