Farmer fumes at being used as 'sacrificial lambs' in Labour's trade deal: 'Another blow!'

The trade deal opens up new market access for American products including ethanol, beef and machinery.

According to US officials, the agreement is expected to add five billion dollars of opportunity to American exporters while maintaining a 10 per cent tariff on certain goods.

The substantial financial benefits for American businesses contrast sharply with the concerns raised by UK farmers about losing domestic markets.

The deal's structure appears to favour increased imports of American agricultural products and biofuels into the British market.

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Farmer Clive Bailey told GB News: "I mean, I literally saw this as soon as I saw that disastrous kind of trade deal for farmers announced, really, that we'd been used as sacrificial lambs yet again.

"I don't think, and I've heard from people since, that the government actually knew what they were negotiating away there.

"I think the level of lack of understanding runs so deep that they didn't really realise until they saw it on the news or read it in the papers the next day that bioethanol was made from wheat. And that was a really important market for UK farmers.

"Everybody else benefits. It's bioeconomics, up to 10% of our petrol. It's a sustainable fuel, introduced in 2021.

"About two million tonnes of UK wheat is used in bioethanol manufacture, two factories in the North East, as you say.

"One of those factories has announced that they are likely to close imminently, losing hundreds of jobs if there's not some support given. That market has disappeared for UK farmers.

"We're now looking at importing a sustainable fuel. You spot the irony in that, really. It's not quite so sustainable once it's been imported. And American biofuels are massively subsidised.

"There's no way that we can compete as UK growers, or that the production facilities in the UK can compete with that.

"So, yet again, another blow to UK farmers, another nail in the coffin.

"And, as you say, it just seems like this last 12 months, this first 12 months of Labour government, they are just clearly out to destroy UK agriculture, and they're doing a damn good job of that, if not a good job of anything else."

The National Farmers' Union and other rural groups have given varied reactions to the agreement.

"The thought of our farmers having access, our beef farmers particularly having access to a massive market in the United States, it's great," one industry representative told GB News.

They added: "I personally don't think there's a huge amount of appetite for US beef in this country, but I do think that there's a massive amount of appetite for our beef in the United States."