No-deal Brexit ‘would bring cliff-edge change’
A ‘No Deal’ Brexit would be the worst case scenario for Scotland’s farming industry - and tantamount to the kind of chaotic cliffedge change that farming organisations have been desperately trying to avoid.
That was how NFU Scotland reacted to the revelation earlier this week that, despite working to reach a settlement, the UK government was actively drawing up plans for a “no Deal” Brexit as well.
Director of policy with NFU Scotland, Jonnie Hall said that such a move ran contrary to all the union’s priorities on trade, labour and support,
“A ‘No Deal’, with time running short, would mean no agreement on the terms of the UK’S withdrawal. It would mean no transition period between March 2019 and December 2020, and that would be hugely destabilising for the farming industry.”
Hall said that such an eventuality would also see the UK becoming a “Third Country” overnight – bringing hard borders and seeing the World Trade Organisation (WTO) default position on tariffs and trade imposed:
“That runs completely contrary to our desire for trade to be as friction free as possible. In addition, there would be no specific arrangements for the movement of people and no CAP continuity to allow a managed transition to new domestic agricultural policy arrangements,” said Hall.
He said that, in contrast, a deal on the UK’S withdrawal would give the industry a clear opportunity to manage change and establish a clear operating and trading environment:
“That offers a degree of certainty that businesses need. With confidence increasingly fragile, we need clear positive signals about a post-brexit future, not rhetoric that would see an industry being pushed into the abyss.”
Scotland’s rural economy secretary, Fergus Ewing, will today call on farmers to respond to the rural funding transition period consultation paper which he released on the eve of this year’s Highland show.
Terming the consultation document the most comprehensive farming Brexit paper to be found anywhere in the UK, he will ask producers just how radical a policy they want to see – and how fast they want change to be:
“The proposals aim to provide stability, certainty and simplicity for rural businesses in the period immediately after Scotland might have to leave the EU in 2019, with the central measure being a transition period of between three and five years – as suggested by the Agricultural Champions.”