Farming is Labour’s latest case of double standards

Britain has developed a peculiar habit: setting ourselves rules and regulations with ferocious zeal while waving through imports we wouldn’t tolerate at home. The result is anything but a cleaner world or a fairer economy.

The pattern is depressingly familiar. We’ve seen it first with energy, as British oil and gas domestic production has been closed down in the name of climate virtue, while happily becoming more reliant on dirtier foreign imports. British jobs and British expertise go, including to countries like Norway (who drill from the very same seabed as us). Emissions do not – they are simply exported.

Now farming is being treated in the same way.

In Labour’s latest animal welfare announcements, which included banning trail hunting – as they aren’t happy enough with just hitting farming communities as they are decimating all of life in rural Britain – there was a policy to ban cages for chickens and pigs. If this were part of a serious, joined-up strategy – one that applied equally to imports – then at least the logic would be clearer.

But that is not what is being offered, and the problem lies in the small print. Caged farming remains legal in several countries exporting meat to Britain, including Poland, Spain and Ireland. The European Union has promised to phase out caged systems by 2027, but progress has been glacial. If it gets to a point where British farming is forced under these rules while imported meat is not then you’re just stacking the market and killing British farming.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this government has a problem with farmers. One wonders what Sir Keir Starmer or Rachel Reeves did in a previous life to harbour such hostility towards rural Britain, perhaps they were scarecrows (one could see the similarities).

Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers’ Union, put it bluntly. If ministers want to raise welfare standards further, they must ensure consumers are protected from imports produced to lower standards – and British farmers are not forced to compete against practices they are legally barred from using.

“We have long called for a set of core standards for food imported into the UK; it must meet the same production standards as asked of our farmers.”

The government, however, continues to hide behind vague assurances. The Prime Minister’s spokesman said this week that the government would consider whether overseas products have an unfair advantage and “any ­impact that may have”, adding they would keep tariffs “under review”. Farmers have heard this before. But by the time assessments are completed, the damage may already be done.

Baroness Minette Batters’ recent review into farming profitability warned that a new deal is needed for the “bewildered and frightened” sector. It should have been enough of a wake-up call for the government to have thought twice about this policy – this won’t help.

If farmers are being expected to trust in the government for a future ‘review’ if all goes wrong, why would they? There is little evidence that trust will be repaid. Shadow environment secretary Victoria Atkins is right to claim Labour is “favouring foreign farmers” over Brits by allowing imports to undercut them.

But this is not just about farming. It is about a wider instinct within Labour: if something is difficult, controversial or politically unfashionable to deal with at home, shift it abroad and pretend the problem has been solved.

Harriet Cross, the Conservative MP for Gordon and Buchan, wrote for ConHome yesterday about the government’s determination to drive Britain’s domestic oil and gas sector out of business, only to import the same products back at greater cost and lower standards. The same mindset is at work: why produce at home, when we can simply import and absolve ourselves of responsibility?

The danger is not only economic. It is strategic. By continuing to ship out double standards with energy and food, we risk our long-term security. Labour insists it is creating a “productive, profitable and sustainable future for farming”. Yet sustainability does not mean hollowing out domestic production and replacing it with imports that travel further and pollute more.

If Britain wants higher standards – and plenty do – then those standards must apply at the border as well as the farm gate.