UK Government aims for permanent food and drink deal with EU as it attacks Farage

The UK Government said it wants to get a permanent deal with the EU on food and drink agreed in the next 18 months, as it sets out its stall ahead of talks later this year.

The current temporary agreement, which was put in place in June, stopped checks on some fruit and vegetables imported from the EU which meant no border checks or fees would be paid.

It will expire in January 2027.

It came as Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds is to accuse Reform UK leader Nigel Farage of wanting to see British businesses fail, as Mr Farage called for the agreement between the UK and EU to be torn up.

Mr Thomas-Symonds will accuse Farage of “siding with the promise of more red tape, mountains of paperwork, and a bureaucratic burden”.

He will address an event hosted by the Spectator in central London on the UK Government’s priorities for the UK-EU relationship, and progress that has been made in recent talks with the EU.

Border checks

It came after Mr Farage criticised the SPS (sanitary and phytosanitary) provisions agreed in May, writing in the Telegraph that it would push the UK “back into the orbit of Brussels, giving away vast amounts of our sovereignty for very little in return”.

He also wrote in the Telegraph: “A Reform government would undo all of this with legislation.”

The agreement in May covered multiple areas, including fishing, defence, a youth experience scheme, and passport e-gates.

The Government said it would halt border checks on “medium-risk” fruit and vegetables, including tomatoes, grapes and peppers while a permanent SPS deal was negotiated.

The checks were due to be brought into force this summer.

This was followed in August by ministers cancelling border checks on live animal imports from the EU, and on animal and plant goods from Ireland.

The UK Government said an agreement was “forthcoming”.

Labour has launched frequent broadsides towards Mr Farage’s party as it leads numerous opinion polls.

Prices

In May Sir Keir Starmer said Reform would “crash the economy” as he compared its leader to former prime minister Liz Truss.

Mr Thomas-Symonds will say: “Nigel Farage‘s manifesto at the next election will say in writing he wants to take Britain backwards, cutting at least £9 billion from the economy, bringing with it a risk to jobs and a risk of food prices going up.

“(Mr) Farage wants Britain to fail. His model of politics feeds on it, offering the easy answers, dividing communities and stoking anger.”

Labour says the current deal, which it is hoping to improve and secure a long-term confirmation of, lowers costs for supermarkets and shoppers.

They said that if Mr Farage was to reverse the deal, it would make exporting more difficult for farming and the fishing industry.

Mr Thomas-Symonds will pledge that the Labour Government will take “decisions rooted in the national interest, not party interest. Putting in the hard yards, not resting on empty slogans”.

He will say that aligning on standards with the EU will boost growth, and lower food prices.

He will say it is “sovereignty, exercised in the national interest”.