The overseas trade minister, Liz Truss, keeps officials busy penning articles in her name. She took on opposition to a trade deal with the United States, arguing against concerns about the standards in its food industry and whether these were acceptable in a trade deal with the UK. With an early US trade deal off the agenda, she is now targeting the Australia deal.

The Biden administration has made no secret that now is not the time for a deal with the UK. They are more interested in rebuilding the trade bridges with the EU, smashed during the Trump years in office. This is a pragmatic decision that reflects a simple numbers game. The so-called special relationship between the UK and US is much talked about, but when it comes to dollars and cents, the EU offers 500 million consumers against just 60 million in the UK. The US strategic view is also that a number of countries in Europe are more important than the UK.

The EU is also negotiating with Australia and New Zealand, but it is not prepared to roll over on food to get a deal. The government wants to be able to boast of trade deal success when the G7 group meets in England later this month. It wants to present itself as a free trade advocate and it sees the Australia deal as a way to buy into the trans-Pacific trade partnership. This is a decision the UK government has taken as a key post-Brexit policy plank.

Writing about how good this deal would be and how it would not reduce standards in the UK, the author of the Truss article reached for the history books. It was likened to the repeal of the Corn Laws by the Peel Conservative government in the 1840s. This was about taking on landowners who had enjoyed the protection of the Corn Laws to keep out imported grain, mainly from Europe. This had a dramatic impact on English agriculture, but it did reduce food prices.

However Truss might do well to remember that taking on the landowners was not a great political success. It split the Conservative party, which had to rely on other parties to get the repeal legislation through. It was then more than 30 years before the Conservatives were able to again form a majority government.

The repeal of the Corn Laws cannot be compared to Brexit. It was solely about taking on the land owning classes in England, and about cheap food accelerating the Industrial Revolution and the rapid development of towns and cities around vast industries. What the government wants to do with Australia is all about politics and not about driving a new economic model, which was the case in the 1840s. What is happening is the thin end of a dangerous wedge for agriculture. A new long term policy is being forged in which zero tariffs will be the starting point for trade negotiations. That is certain to draw in cheap food and that can only be at a disadvantage to farmers.

Likening this to a fight on behalf of the general public against vested interests, as was the case with the Corn Laws, is not only wrong but offensive to farmers and others living in rural areas. It is raw political philosophy hiding behind an economic fig leaf and it deserves to be called out as such.

This is not solely the responsibility of farmers. That pressure must come from politicians outside the government and from the devolved regions. Being seen to be denying people access to cheap Australian beef and lamb might not seem the popular thing to do, but it is the right thing to do. This is an issue where the new reality of the weakness of the farming voice becomes apparent, now that we have left the EU.

The might of the European farming lobby and the need for all UK governments to abide by EU decisions was always a trump card for farmers here. With Brexit, that card has been played for the last time and our hand going forward certainly looks a lot weaker. It would be interesting to know what the EU is saying to Australia in its negotiations on a trade deal. One thing its negotiators know for sure is that there is no prospect of politicians in Europe accepting tariff free imports of beef, lamb or dairy products from the southern hemisphere.