Keir Starmer has been warned a trade deal with Donald Trump risks selling out farmers already infuriated by his ‘tractor tax’.
When he was last in office the new president enthusiastically embraced the idea of a post-Brexit free trade deal with the UK, but US sources have always made clear it would have to include agriculture – a key sticking point given controversial US farming methods including washing chicken in chlorine.
Former Labour shadow chancellor Ed Balls said that to clinch the deal, Sir Keir would have to be willing to say to British farmers “you’re gonna have to pay a price” at a time when they are already furious with the government.
On Wednesday Rachel Reeves rejected an alternative proposal to her inheritance tax raid on family farms, which farmers have dubbed “cruel” and warned will spell the end of their industry.
Mr Balls said free trade deal negotiations “comes down to: are we willing to make concessions in the areas where the US will absolutely want us to do so for a meaningful trade deal? … Two fundamental things you have to be willing to concede on: One is on agriculture, on American beef, on hormone-injected beef.
“You have to be willing to say to British farmers: ‘We’re really sorry, but in order to deliver lower American beef imports, you’re gonna have to pay a price.’”
He added: “I would be very surprised indeed if, especially with the row the government’s currently in with farmers in the NFU (National Farmers Union), that you’re going to see a British government wanting to get into that space.”
The second issue would be healthcare, he said. He predicted the Labour government would have to be willing to say that US healthcare giants can have much greater access to the UK healthcare market and “be able to provide services which NHS providers provide”.
Last year the then prime minister Rishi Sunak vowed that chlorinated chicken and hormone-fed beef would never be part of future trade deals.
Both practices are associated with factory farms in the US.