Ed's Brexit round-up - it's silly season
9th Aug 2019 / By Ed Barker
It is silly season. MPs are on their holidays and all the while our new PM and Ministers are out and about doing tours of the country and making promises of expenditure.
Needless to say, analysts are reading the tea leaves and feel that the Government is going into electioneering mode (money targeted at marginal constituencies) – with the possibility of a General Election on the horizon in 2019. A
nother aspect to all of this is that we are looking at the early signs of an anti ‘no deal’ alliance forming in the House of Commons, which could well result in votes of no confidence against the Government. A no confidence vote is in fact far from straight forward – even if the Government loses one (which it could but would need the DUP or some disgruntled tories to side with it) then it is by no means certain they actually no longer govern!
There has to be a clear alternative Government available, if there is not then you have another no confidence vote – if that is lost again then we head to a general election. Our friends at the BBC have put together a better infographic that can be found here https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-
This inevitably means that September and October are going to be pretty hectic months for all of us. We do know that on the second week of Parliament returning (Monday September 9th), there is going to be a debate on CIWF’s Europe wide campaign to ‘end the cage age’.
\We will be working with the NFU jointly on this to explain the shortcomings of this unilateral approach and explaining the reality of the situation and the need in particular for farrowing crates. It will be interesting to see which new Defra Minister responds on the Government’s behalf and if the (sensible) line they stated in March will have changed.
The rest of September and October will inevitably be all out no deal discussions – a more turbo charged re-run of what we had in March, with a Government and Cabinet (and adviser behind the scenes) intent on forcing a confrontation with the EU. This means that we at NPA will be going full assault on no deal warnings; we have seen a number of stories already about food and farming in a no deal – but given that MPs will be back in Parliament and their attention will be on nothing else, these two months will be vital for us all in getting the message out there and keeping the pressure on.
As ever, any NPA member is urged to help us on both fronts; speaking to your MP directly is by far the most effective way of ensuring our sector is heard in this crucial time. We will be making more materials available over the coming weeks, so do keep an eye on Piggy Points and the website.