IT SEEMS strange at the start of September not to be looking ahead to what policies are likely to emerge from the European Commission and farm ministers. This is one of those times where it is clear that while the UK is still a member of the EU – and will be until at least 2019 – it has already detached itself from the debate on where the CAP and other policies are headed.

That this would happen became clear soon after the Brexit vote, when the UK told the Commission that it would not be taking up its presidency of the EU in July 2017. More recently, the president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, claimed that if the trade negotiations with the Mercosur countries of South America are concluded before the UK leaves it will be excluded from that deal.

This is no bad news for farmers in Britain. Mercosur is a big threat to the beef industry, because it would give Brazil and Uruguay better access to the EU. However it underlines how some in Europe are seemingly making up policy as they go, since while trade agreements are negotiated by the European Commission, they have to be ratified by every member state. As things stand, if the UK is still an EU member, it is hard to see how it can be excluded without altering trade legislation.

This confirms the reality that there is no road map to guide either the UK or the EU, since a member state leaving really does represent uncharted waters. On agriculture, there are many things happening that will have an impact on UK farmers.

Portugal and France want to re-nationalise their dairy markets through compulsory national labelling; the discussion is continuing over the slim science being used to restrict the use of glyphosate, and there is an ongoing debate on how to simplify parts of the CAP, including greening.

Since farmers here will be part of the CAP probably for three more years, these decisions have implications for them. The Commission has made clear that until the day the UK leaves the EU, its farmers will have exactly the same rights and responsibilities as others when it comes to the CAP. It is hard to see how that can be the case when the UK government is effectively distancing itself from decision-making in Brussels.

If this is bad now it can only get worse as we move into the 2017 mid term review of the CAP. Thoughts will then turn to what will replace it after 2020, and that will be the key issue for farm ministers and indeed COPA, as the umbrella body of EU farm unions. That is an organisation the UK unions will have to leave when Britain is no longer a member state – but even now their contribution to a body they have guided for years has become less relevant.

As we move into what is in effect the new season in Brussels politics that will become more clear. Our interests will be in what will replace the CAP in the UK, while others will be focussed on the future of the CAP, and how to make sure it continues to deliver for farmers. It is becoming increasingly clear that at ministerial – or on the ground – level, the UK's involvement is becoming not only less relevant, but almost an embarrassment.

Since the referendum vote in June there has been a sense of unreality. We are told that so far as agriculture is concerned it is business as usual, but as life comes back to normal with the arrival of autumn in Brussels, this will be harder and harder to deliver.

There are big things to be agreed, including the dairy aid package, but it is hard to see officials or politicians being greatly concerned about what UK ministers or farm lobby organisations think about this and other issues. From now on the reality of Brexit will become clear, and that is not going to be comfortable.

That makes it all the more important that ministers, not least the Defra minister, Angela Leadsom, who was such a Brexit advocate, bring some reality to the process by setting out a vision of UK agriculture in the post-CAP era. That will become all the more important as reality and indeed anger about Brexit bites harder in Brussels, and farmers here are left feeling second class citizens in the policy that still accounts for 80% of their income.