The Impact of Brexit on UK Food Standards and Food Security: Perspectives on the Repositioning of Neoliberal Food Policy

Lingham, Sophia, Kowalska, Aleksandra, Kowalski, Jaroslaw, Maye, Damian ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4459-6630 and Manning, Louise (2025) The Impact of Brexit on UK Food Standards and Food Security: Perspectives on the Repositioning of Neoliberal Food Policy. Foods, 14 (9). doi:10.3390/foods14091474

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Abstract

Brexit, the exiting of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU), has impacted socio-political relationships, both internally, and externally with other countries and economic groups. This has been especially true regarding international trade, and legal and market standards for food and food security. This paper examines how the enacting of Brexit has framed and underlined contemporary perceptions of the UK neoliberal food system, the relative importance of food standards, and the impact of policy transition on food security. Using a positional approach, perspectives and narratives within the literature are critiqued and synthesized, including academic sources, parliamentary debates, economic reports, and media analysis. The politico-economic effects of Brexit have altered food-related relationships, recalibrating trade interactions and changing the public funding that UK farmers receive. Through realigning extractive economic models, the pre-Brexit UK food system has been reset, and new perspectives about neoliberalism have emerged. Government intervention has steered away from traditional neoliberal framings towards neo-developmentalism. A dichotomy thus exists between recognizing the intrinsic right to adequate and nutritious food and maintaining existing cultural dynamics of food supply, and the use of agri-food policy as a politico-economic tool to drive higher economic growth. The implications of this policy change are stark for UK agri-food actors within food system transition post-Brexit.

Item Type:	Article
Article Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Food; Brexit; Neoliberal; Food trade; Regulatory environment; Food standards; Food security; Neo-developmentalism
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) J Political Science > JA Political science (General) J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) > JN101 Great Britain S Agriculture > S Agriculture (General) S Agriculture > S Agriculture (General) > S560 Farm Economics S Agriculture > SB Plant culture > SB175 Food crops
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > Countryside and Community Research Institute
Depositing User:	Caitlin Mackenzie
Date Deposited:	29 Apr 2025 13:32
Last Modified:	09 May 2025 09:15
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/15009

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