{"id":376775,"date":"2025-08-27T05:02:34","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T05:02:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/376775\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T05:02:34","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T05:02:34","slug":"brexit-deal-to-bring-down-fruit-and-veg-prices-18-months-away-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/376775\/","title":{"rendered":"Brexit deal to bring down fruit and veg prices 18 months away"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Brexit reset minister will set the EU a 2027 deadline to strike a deal on food and drink trade to bring down supermarket prices, as the Government faces pressure on inflation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nick Thomas-Symonds will today use a speech to confirm the Government\u2019s ambition to finalise an agrifood deal within 18 months after Sir Keir Starmer and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen agreed headline terms<\/a> in May.<\/p>\n

He will set out the UK\u2019s position on how it will follow EU laws on food and drink as part of a necessary step to boost economic growth, protect business, secure jobs and bring down food prices, telling hardline Leavers that it is \u201csovereignty, exercised in the national interest\u201d.<\/p>\n

New research will also be published by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) revealing the cost British businesses face when trying to export food and drink to the EU under the current arrangements as the minister builds the case for following Brussels law.<\/p>\n

Food inflation rising fast<\/p>\n

Inflation is stubbornly high at 3.8 per cent \u2013 and predicted to rise as high as 4 per cent in September before coming down. Food inflation is a key factor behind the overall inflation figure \u2013 rising to 4.2 per cent in August and at the fastest pace for 18 months according to the British Retail Consortium.<\/p>\n

While extra costs \u2013 such as employers national insurance \u2013 from the Budget have been partly blamed on the rise, the boss of Morrisons said in May that the post-Brexit deal with the EU would help reduce prices.<\/p>\n

Sweeping away trade barriers with the EU will remove cost, complexity and delay in food imports from the continent,\u201d Rami Baiti\u00e9h, chief executive of Morrisons, told the BBC.<\/p>\n

Thomas-Symonds will say small and medium-sized firms in particular \u201clack the capacity\u201d to deal with the red tape necessitated by Brexit, putting them at a \u201ccompetitive disadvantage\u201d to bigger firms.<\/p>\n

The i Paper has previously reported that Thomas-Symonds wants to ensure that voters feel the benefits of the agrifood deal, the economic centrepiece of the Brexit reset, in time for the next election, expected in 2029, and will introduce new laws to align the UK with EU regulations in the coming months<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The UK has also axed planned incoming border checks on EU fruit and veg, and meat, in anticipation of the deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

UK moving at \u2018speed sloths would laugh at\u2019<\/p>\n

However, the minister faced accusations that the UK is \u201cmoving at a speed sloths would laugh at\u201d after the Prime Minister trumpeted the Brexit reset at a May summit in London with von der Leyen, but left major parts of the deal to future negotiations.<\/p>\n

But Liberal Democrat Europe spokesman James MacCleary said the UK should instead negotiate a customs union with the EU to \u201ctransform our economic relationship with Europe\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Conservatives\u2019 botched Brexit deal has held back our economy for too long, and to announce that in the next 18 months things will only get slightly better simply won\u2019t wash.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdding insult to injury, the Government sold its recent talks as a done deal only to now turn around and admit a finalised agreement could be years away. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur farmers and food producers simply cannot wait that long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas-Symonds will meanwhile argue that Nigel Farage\u2019s commitment to reverse the agrifood deal if Reform wins the next election means he would harm British consumers and businesses and bring about a return to lorries stuck in 16-hour queues carrying rotting food.<\/p>\n

The minister will say: \u201cNigel Farage\u2019s manifesto at the next election will say in writing he wants to take Britain backwards, cutting at least \u00a39bn from the economy, bringing with it a risk to jobs and a risk of food prices going up.<\/p>\n

\u201cNigel Farage wants Britain to fail. His model of politics feeds on it, offering the easy answers, dividing communities and stoking anger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Priti Patel MP, shadow foreign secretary, said: \u201cOnce again Labour are trying to justify their EU surrender \u2013 but the British public simply won\u2019t buy this betrayal.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeir Starmer is dragging us back into Brussels\u2019 arms, and looking to once again make this country a rule taker rather than a rule maker, having sold off our fishing communities in the process.<\/p>\n

Naomi Smith<\/a>, chief executive of Best for Britain, a campaign group that lobbies for closer ties with the EU, said: \u201cThe EU should move quickly to finalise an alignment deal with this Government to deliver for consumers on both sides of the channel, [and] to prove Farage wrong yet again in his Euroscepticism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reform has been asked to comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brexit reset minister will set the EU a 2027 deadline to strike a deal on food and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,786,4884,476,3027,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-376775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-food-and-drink","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-inflation","17":"tag-politics-news","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115098979140689964","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}