A nascent agricultural movement is challenging the British government over its trade and Net Zero policies, echoing recent developments in France, Poland, and Spain as well as the international protest in Brussels that gathered farmers from several European countries.
On Sunday, more than 200 tractors caused traffic gridlock in the Kentish cathedral city of Canterbury. The convoy, organised by the Fairness for Farmers campaign group, was primarily protesting against the post-Brexit trade deals, secured by Conservative Party governments, that will ultimately remove tariffs on exports from other countries of goods such as lamb and beef, placing undue pressure on national producers. UK farmers are also critical of poor subsidy rollouts and damaging net zero schemes.
The Guardian, citing “human rights experts,” has compared demonstrations like this one to the action carried out by Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, but it failed to mention that while climate protesters are now routinely dragged away from the roads that they block by their fellow citizens, drivers “honked their horns in support” of farmers over the weekend. The same publication also presented Welsh farmers as “duped” by ‘far-right’ “outrage farmers.”
Last month, another Kentish demonstration involving just 30 tractors prompted a national discussion on the possibility of a much wider movement germinating. The size of this latest protest certainly suggests that more and more farmers are unwilling to let their grievances go unheard.
In Wales, too, upwards of 3,000 farmers gathered outside the Welsh parliament last week in protest against the Sustainable Farming Scheme, which instructs them to run their land in a more ‘environmentally-friendly’ way. One farmer held up a sign outside the Senedd building reading:
FARMS CAN’T BE GREEN IF WE ARE IN THE RED.
Another sign attached to the front of a tractor that moved slowly through Canterbury on Sunday added:
NO FARMERS
NO FOOD
NO FUTURE
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak joined protesters in Wales towards the end of last month, in a clear sign that the farmers’ messages are being heard—though not necessarily understood—in all the right places. The appearance came despite his involvement in the tariff-free trade deals which are at the centre of the latest round of protests.
Adam Day, the managing director of the apolitical Farmer Network charity, told The Daily Telegraph that there has been growing resentment surrounding the treatment of farmers post-Brexit, saying:
Farmers were promised they would be looked after, but we have seen them left to work at prices lower than the cost of production.
