Rishi Sunak's ''Buy British'' Post Ahead Of UK Elections Triggers Debate On X

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has often emphasised reliance on homegrown food, urged people in the country to ''buy British.'' In a tweet, Mr Sunak emphasised how British nationals should reduce their reliance on overseas fruit and vegetables and back local produce instead. Notably, his comments come ahead of the July 4 general elections in the UK. 

"We shouldn't be reliant on foreign food. Buy British,'' he wrote on his official X account.

See the tweet here:

We shouldn't be reliant on foreign food. Buy British.

— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) June 18, 2024

The tweet has now triggered a heated debate on X. While some agreed with his stance, many said that it's not possible to follow his advice because of the impact of Brexit on farming and trade. Some explained how it's a struggle to buy locally in Britain owing to the crisis in the agriculture sector. 

One user agreed with him and wrote, ''Absolutely. Been saying it for years!''Another criticised him and said, ''Your govt has ensured British farming is in crisis! You've allowed imports to crush British food, removed our Labour supply and subsidies, put trade barriers in the way and paid us to plant flowers!''

A third stated, ''Why is it so often the supermarket shelves are empty of fresh fruit and veg? We don't grow enough to feed ourselves so we have to import. There are additional checks now on imports that hold up imports for 2 extra days. We were told #Brexit would make things better, it seems to have made things worse.''

A report last year by the London School of Economics (LSE) revealed that British households have paid a staggering 7 billion pounds since Brexit to cover the extra cost of trade barriers on food imports from the EU. Several farmers in the country said that they are going out of business and there are food shortages in stores because of Brexit policies and extreme weather events. 

Last month, a record two-thirds of farmers either forecasted a decline in their profits or bankruptcy in the next 12 months due to an unprecedented ''perfect storm'', according to the National Farmers Union's (NFU) annual survey of the industry. 

Farming protest groups earlier said more needs to be done to protect UK farmers from competition posed by cheaper imports.