“The state is saying only those who are clever enough… will survive,” she said. Liz Webster is the founder of Save British Farming, and according to her X bio, is campaigning to rejoin the single market in order to “Save British Food and food security”. The UK’s food supply is under threat and populist, isolationist politics do not have the answers the UK needs, she outlined while speaking to me for The Beacon Podcast. Food security is why I was interested in speaking to Ms Webster, with the UK’s resilience to external threats coming under increased scrutiny. US President Donald Trump’s war with Iran, and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz, highlighted how reliant the UK, along with the rest of the world, was on a global supply network for food - alongside other essential goods such as fuel and fertiliser. But, according to Ms Webster, the UK’s food security has slowly been eroded since 1980’s, starting with former Conservative Prime Minsiter Margaret Thatcher dismantling the cooperatives and milk marketing boards. She argues that where the UK had supplies from the EU as a backstop before, the don’t now, leaving the UK’s food security in a “dire” state. Ms Webster said it began in 1964, with the erasure of resale price maintenance, which led to supermarkets taking over and pay less than the price of food production. In turn, this focused the money into a few hands. “Cheap food policy basically stripped our high streets and independent stores” she explained. “The issue is a lot of the people that thought Brexit was going to stop this didn’t understand that the decisions for it came from Westminster because it’s been scapegoated, it’s been projected onto Europe. “They blamed Europe.” Now, Ms Webster argues, the UK needs “to accept the reality that we’re part of Europe”. “The only way we can stay resilient as a nation of nearly 70 million people is by working with Europe,” she said. One of the chief architects of Brexit, Nigel Farage, is once again threatening to wreak havoc with the British political system. But Ms Webster said the Reform leader only exists to divide and in order to solve the issue of food security and counter populist politics, unity is the answer. “The reason that we still have… Reform and Restore and all of this populism is to keep us fighting each other instead of uniting and fighting the force that is intent on disrupting everything,” she said. “So the first thing we need to do is to unite around our values and our beliefs and stop scapegoating, stop blaming, stop othering. “And then we demand that food is a public good again.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.readthebeacon.org/subscribe
