Little quantum of solace in Duncan’s shock revelation

ho ordered that?” was the response of leading quantum physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi when a previously unheard of particle was discovered, blowing the standing theory of sub-atomic physics out of the water.

And this quote rose to the surface of my bottomless pit of useless information last Friday as I grasped around, trying to sum up the general reaction to the atomic-sized bombshell dropped by Scottish Office minister Lord Ian Duncan that Defra Secretary Michael Gove wanted farming and fishing to be excluded from any Brexit transition arrangements with the EU. The announcement certainly took the audience, industry leaders and experts and political opponents who were attending NFU Scotland’s autumn conference – focusing on the only thing more complicated than quantum physics, the Brexit negotiations – entirely by surprise.

For such a move would see current thinking, which revolves around an extended transition period, blown out of the water – and see the farming industry operating outside both the European single market and the common agricultural policy by March 2019 – meaning the industry would face the hardest of hard Brexits in a mere 17 months.

Now, this was no small announcement – and if this alleged negotiating position is held it would effectively give us the dubious honour of getting a two year head-start on other sectors of industry in charging over the Brexit cliff-edge – but the way in

0 The cat may be alive or dead but we still don’t know which the announcement was made was almost as surprising as its content.

For one would have imagined that such a surprise announcement would have come from the mouth of Gove himself or perhaps from his fellow Brexiteer, the farm minister George Eustice.

If borne out, the announcement will have huge repercussions for the farming industry – and, with the current complete lack of any forward policy planning or security on future trading arrangements, the announcement can only throw agriculture deeper into disarray.

For, given the current rate of progress, there is virtually no chance of any trading agreement being drawn up with Brussels in the few months remaining as agricultural products remain a major plank of EU policy and will undoubtedly be one of the most difficult areas on which to reach agreement.

However, trying to pin down some possible rationale behind such an approach proved to be as difficult as it was to believe.

Scottish Brexit minister Mike Russell, who also spoke at the meeting, suggested that it was either another example of the colossal muddle in the UK’S approach to Brexit which made it impossible to get a handle on their actual position – or a sly political gambit.

Duncan did impress on the conference that the move was a “negotiating position” and as such could change as discussions went on. But negotiating positions are taken to give an edge – and while it was sold at the conference as offering UK farmers faster freedom from bureaucratic burdens such as the three-crop rule and sheep tagging regulations, that simply didn’t add up.

With a family history in the business in Aberdeen, Gove might be a fisherman’s friend – but would playing the fisheries interests card strengthen the UK’S hand enough to disrupt the smooth flow of negotiations?

Excluding farming and fishing from the transition also seemed to make little sense as an undertaking has already been given by the UK to pay its dues until the end of the transition period – but if, as Duncan promised, Westminster will finance UK domestic farm policy at current levels through to the end of the current government in 2022, this would appear to mean that the UK would still be paying a share of the CAP budget –but drawing nothing out.

A cynic might think that with the UK’S €20 billion transition bill already etched in the public’s mind, this might just be a sneaky way of upping the bill without increasing the headline figure.

But, like Schrodinger’s cat, the announcement means that no-one now knows if the hope for an extended transition for farming is dead or alive.