{"id":12056,"date":"2026-04-12T05:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T05:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/12056\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T05:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T05:12:08","slug":"labour-warned-not-to-leave-britain-without-food-in-wartime-politics-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/12056\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour warned not to leave Britain without food in wartime | Politics | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Labour<\/a> has ignited anger in the countryside<\/a> after failing to include farming<\/a> and food production on a list of industries critical to national security. Farming is missing from the selection of sectors the Cabinet Office says \u201cmatter most to national security \u2013 steel, shipbuilding, energy infrastructure and AI<\/a>\u201d. Efforts are underway to support these industries through the \u00a3400million of taxpayers\u2019 money spent each year on Government contracts.<\/p>\n

Gareth Wyn Jones, a hill farmer from North Wales, said: \u201cIf the country can\u2019t feed itself, it won\u2019t matter how many AI bots we have to play with. Farming is always the first to suffer when there\u2019s conflict abroad, and we need a Government that protects our livelihoods so we can keep putting food on the nation\u2019s tables.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Countryside Alliance\u2019s David Bean warned that you \u201ccan\u2019t eat\u201d steel, crucial though it is.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cThe Government is constantly telling us it recognises that food security is national security. When it consulted last year on changes to procurement rules to support businesses, [we] argued that this was the perfect time to put its words into action. It\u2019s deeply disappointing to find it has missed that opportunity. Steel, ships, energy and AI are vital too \u2013 but we can\u2019t eat them. In troubled times, that is what matters most.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Labour manifesto contained a pledge to \u201cset a target for half of all food purchased across the public sector to be locally produced or certified to higher environmental standards\u201d. But the Countryside Alliance warned last year that \u201conly 12% of local authorities and two central Government departments even monitored the origins of their procured food\u201d.<\/p>\n

It described the absence of food and farming from the list of vital industries as \u201cglaring\u201d.<\/p>\n

Shadow environment minister Robbie Moore hiked up the pressure on Labour, saying: \u201cIt is obvious that the Government does not value our farmers, food producers or rural communities. At a time of growing global uncertainty, our ability to be self-sufficient should be a central pillar of national resilience.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead, Labour continues to make it much more financially challenging for our farmers through dramatically reducing delinked payments, creating huge uncertainty with the Sustainable Farming Incentive, introducing the fertiliser tax, a double cab pickup tax, and the family farm and business tax – failing to back British producers where it matters most.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Government spokesperson said: \u201cWe\u2019re investing a record \u00a311.8billion in sustainable farming and food production over this parliament, helping British farmers scale technology, increase yields, and develop climate-resilient crops. Our new social value goals will benefit British businesses, including food producers, by encouraging bidders to deliver social, economic, and environmental benefits across the country.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Labour has ignited anger in the countryside after failing to include farming and food production on a list…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,5680,1692,5679,5678,5681,31,2364],"class_list":{"0":"post-12056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-countryside-alliance","10":"tag-farming","11":"tag-farming-and-food-production","12":"tag-food-security","13":"tag-labour-government-policies","14":"tag-labour-party","15":"tag-national-security"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116390025233933352","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}