Uncomfortable to read as it may be, the well-known membership and advocacy organisations that supposedly enjoy ‘real’ influence on government and the other layers of ‘The Food Chain Onion’, and purportedly represent their members interests before anything else, are actually just players in an establishment game.
The officers and leaders amongst them value the access or relationships that they have with government departments, politicians and representatives above everything and to a level where they will not do anything that will risk those relationships.
When the wishes of the advocacy and membership organisations are aligned with what the government of the time is doing, we can be sure that industry representatives will walk away with what appear to be some great wins.
Just as they will appear to do so when the aims aren’t aligned and the politicians will make some sort of concession so that they can misrepresent and link to other issues that they will not rescind on.
This may regrettably yet prove to be the case with Inheritance Tax and linking it to UK Food Security. Just so that a narrative can be created that the UK Food Security issue has been solved with the intent that it heaps together all the issues Politicians and Government Departments don’t want to deal with, and builds the spurious narrative that ‘The Food Security problem is now solved’.
Although we can all be sure that representatives of these Organisations make very reasoned representations to those they meet and communicate with, they also take any reassurances and promises they obtain at face value.
They regrettably fall back on the way of thinking that ‘It’s just the way it is’ and that it is better and more beneficial to be ‘in the tent’ than to do anything that would risk their position, and might stop them from being allowed back in. As many smaller less well known organisations will have tried to their cost.
Advocacy isn’t working and isn’t going to work, because you cannot reason with those who are unreasonable
In many cases without even understanding why they are being unreasonable, our politicians and the officers and public sector representatives that surround them only see reason in doing and pursuing the public policies and actions that they believe to be best for everyone, whilst actually only doing what’s best for them.
Populist ‘activism’ and their current approaches
In the case of activist ‘organisation’ No Farmers No Food, whose yellow branding with the black silhouette tractor is capturing support, they are certainly well-meaning and led by good intention.
However, like the advocacy and membership organisations that are in The Food Chain mix, they are also missing the point that the best people to solve the problem aren’t the same ones that caused it.
And the problem we are all facing is much bigger than lots of talking and protesting about whatever gets traction in the media and appears to stick.
The priority of UK Politics today simply isn’t UK Farming and Food Security
In respect of Government and the Politicians we are dealing with, the faces and the branding might have changed in July. But the motives and the direction that drives them is very much the same as those who were in Power before.
As I write and publish in November 2024, there is nobody and no political movement or party out there in the Public realm that has the ability, system-wide understanding or the properly reasoned intent to tackle and change any of the problems we face, when the next General Election in the UK comes. Whether its within months OR in 5 years’ time.
This is a very serious problem for us all.
Adam Tugwell 