Food prices are too high. We need the Brexit reset, Starmer

It was the latest bit of heavy rain in Labour’s feelbad summer, another worrying figure to set alongside the poll ratings (21%, nine below Reform), the job vacancy numbers (down 5%) and the small boat crossings (28,000 so far this year and heading for a record). It was also a sharp reminder of the toxic legacy of Brexit, Britain’s botched attempt to detach itself from Europe.

UK inflation hit 3.8% in July, up 0.2% on June, and two bits of analysis stood out. One, that rising food inflation – a key driver of the overall figure – is partly down to drought in Spain, Italy and Portugal, where we continue to buy much of our fresh fruit and veg because sovereignty does not beat geography. For now, produce shortages have pushed prices up at a time when they would usually fall.

And two, that food prices in the UK are rising at a higher rate than experienced by our European neighbours – much higher, in some cases. Though some of the recent hikes here can be explained by supermarkets seeking to cover increased costs following the employer national insurance rise, the cost of Brexit red tape seems to have made its mark, too.

Before Britain left the EU, food inflation seemed like a problem for others. Between 2015-2020, prices rose by 6% in Italy, 9% in France and 11% in Germany but by just 4% in the UK.

But things have changed since the glorious “get Brexit done” summer of 2020. Between then and 2025, food prices have risen 23% in France, in Italy 26% and in troubled Germany 34%. Yet world-beating Britain has managed a 36% rise.

Things are likely to get worse here before they get better. The Bank of England thinks UK food inflation, now 4.9%, will rise to 5.5% by the end of the year before falling to between 2% and 3% in 2026. Others think it may go as high as 6% and fall back at a slower rate. That is grim news for consumers, and for a government looking for some light in the pouring rain.

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Migrant hotel protests, welfare cut humiliations, the new Corbyn party, pointless arrests of Palestinian Action supporters, guerrilla union flag installations – a combination of all these feels crushing for Keir Starmer at the moment. Yet even though voters seem to have already made their minds up about Starmer and Rachel Reeves, a tangible improvement in the cost of living could cause a mass outbreak of amnesia and see Labour’s ratings start to rise again.

Food inflation is pushing that hoped-for uplift further out of reach. No wonder, then, that the prime minister is reported to have decided to cancel planned extra border checks on live animal imports from the EU, which would have pushed meat prices even higher. No wonder, too, that he is trying to speed up the Brexit reset’s promised dynamic alignment with the bloc’s sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) laws for agrifood, getting rid of most of the costly checks on cross-border food and thus lowering prices.