Getting Brexit done will invite more impossible deadlines – and more chaos

If Boris Johnson gets his way, “get Brexit done” will be heard even more frequently over the next fortnight than his predecessor’s “strong and stable” slogan the last time voters prepared to go to the polls.

The PM will be hoping for greater success than Theresa May. And it seems that repeating the Brexit message, in the hope voters wreak revenge on remain-minded MPs, is plan A, B and C of the Conservative campaign.

But for the food and drink industry, which has been marched to the hill and back three times already with the threat of a no-deal, the Conservative manifesto appears to guarantee more cliff-edge drama to welcome in Christmas and New Year – rather than the clean break the Prime Minister likes to imagine.

The manifesto promises the Conservatives will get to work putting Johnson’s withdrawal deal through parliament before the end of December, so the UK can leave the EU by the end of January – but the reality is likely to be a series of deadlines with huge repercussions for industry.

The Tories promise there will be no extension for the transition agreement beyond December 2020, for example, which effectively sets the next seismic countdown to July 2020 – the date at which the UK has to request any such extension.

What would Labour’s manifesto pledges mean for food and drink?

The FDF said recently it regarded the original 18-month transition period negotiated by May as “ambitious”, while Johnson’s 12 months was “impossible”.

Can the UK really negotiate a trade deal with 27 EU countries in what effectively will be seven months?

And can it, as the manifesto promises, within three years negotiate free trade deals with the USA, Australia and Japan, in talks which will, we are told, run in parallel with the Brexit negotiations? 

Considering the issues at stake around regulatory alignment on things like food safety and labelling, the reality of what is to come on Brexit is far removed from the simplicity of the “get Brexit done” mantra.

As for the rest of the Tory manifesto, most food and drink policies were already on the cards, including a new tax on single-use plastic, bringing in an “all-in” deposit return scheme, and extending producer responsibilities to help tackle the environment.

The manifesto also pledges a “fundamental” review of business rates – although so did David Cameron in 2014 – while the Tories have also promised to– review alcohol taxes, in a bid to stem the threat to pubs.

Public health policies get only the most cursory of mentions in the document, suggesting Johnson may not have been all talk when he expressed his dislike of “stealth sin taxes”.

Yet in reality, as the steadfastly pro-Johnson Daily Telegraph itself remarks, there are only three words that matter in this manifesto – and they may well be enough to get it done. 

With food front and centre, who deserves industry’s votes?