British farmers are not pleased with the UK no-deal tariffs
Food tariffs announced by the British government in case of no-deal Brexit is going to damage the farming sector in the country and to increase the risk of "opening up the UK to imported food which would be illegal to be produced here, produced at a lower cost because it may fail to meet the environmental and animal welfare standards which are legally required of our own farmers", claims Minette Batters, president of the National Farmers' Union.
In her opinion, there are concerns about the damage this policy would cause to farmers across the country due to increased competition with products coming from the EU or third countries.
Also, the Irish border is a delicate issue as the Republic of Ireland gets all the benefits from trading with Northern Ireland. "We respect the government’s decision to avoid a customs border between Northern Ireland and the Republic in the event of leaving the EU without a deal. However, treating Northern Ireland in effect as a separate customs territory from Great Britain is not appropriate and the government’s failure to secure reciprocal commitments from the Republic of Ireland is unacceptable. It is imperative that the government does not allow the Northern Irish border to become a loophole that only works to the benefit of Irish businesses to the detriment of UK producers", she added.
The union also published a graphic representation of the tariffs that are going to be applied after 29 March in a no-deal scenario. However, the British Meat Industry has now a bigger problem consisting in the lack of adopting the post-Brexit Health and Identification Marks, which may lead to a temporary deadlock in exports after 29 March, according to British Meat Processors Association.
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