UK’s Sunak tells farmers ‘I’ve got your back’ as Tories chase rural votes

BIRMINGHAM, England — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Tuesday told farmers “I’ve got your back,” as he announced a £220 million pre-election sweetener for rural voters disillusioned by his governing Tories.

Sunak was speaking at the National Farmers’ Union annual conference in Birmingham, where he sought to stress his rural credentials ahead of a general election later this year. His speech also comes amid unrest from farmers across Europe, angered by rising prices and policy choices.

“While the importance of farmers will never change, farming is going through its biggest change in a generation — and as it does so, this government will be by your side,” Sunak told an audience of hundreds of farmers attending the conference.

To prove his point, Sunak announced a new £220 million funding package for agricultural technology and productivity schemes, which he described as “the biggest ever package of grants this year.”

The prime minister meanwhile insisted the government is taking food security seriously following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, telling the conference: “We’ll never take our food security for granted.”

“Food security is a vital part of our national security, and recent years have brought home the truth of that,” he added, as he unveiled a new Food Security Index which will monitor how the U.K. is maintaining current levels of food security.

Farmers have been grappling with soaring fuel and fertilizer prices since the Ukraine invasion, along with a heavily criticized post-Brexit regime of farming payments focusing on sustainable agriculture.

In a sign of the importance No.10 Downing Street attaches to rural votes, Sunak is the first British prime minister to address the NFU conference in more than 15 years.

Sunak’s pledge came after outgoing NFU president Minette Batters urged political parties to “treat food security as importantly as they do energy security” in her opening speech.

Rural voters take centerstage

In her address, Batters also praised the prime minister for his “courage” to walk away from an enhanced trading relationship with Canada, after the U.K. government refused to back down on Canadian farmers’ efforts to get hormone-treated beef into the U.K. market.

Sunak said: “You asked for fair treatment in our trade deals; so we’re standing up for our farmers in those negotiations — whether it’s with Canada or anybody else.”

The NFU wants future trade deals to include strict production standards for any agri-food imports in order to “retain full sovereignty over our food and farming standards.”

But speaking to POLITICO ahead of the conference, Batters expressed concern that the U.K. had “very little in our armory” to address any negative consequences on farmers from recent trade deals with Australia and New Zealand, and also said border frictions caused by Brexit had had a negative impact on the sector.

Sunak’s address at the event comes against a shaky backdrop for his Tory party. The Conservatives — trailing in the national polls — have lost a series of rural by-elections to Labour and the Lib Dems since 2019.

Last week’s Country Land and Business Association survey of the 100 most rural constituencies failed to calm Conservative nerves, forecasting that 51 of those seats will go to Labour at the next election. Surging costs, post-Brexit labor shortages and rural crime are among the reasons for the mutiny in the countryside.

As the Conservative and Labour parties gear up for the general election, Batters said they were both “talking the talk” but now it was “time to walk the walk.”

Speaking before politicians from both parties took the stage in Birmingham, her challenge was clear: “Which political party will have the right plan for British food?”