Leaving the CAP, how and why? The (re)construction of British agricultural policies at the heart of the Brexit turbulences

This article investigates the impact of Brexit – conceptualized as a series of environmental, organizational and scalar turbulences – on agricultural policies in the UK. It considers how the four UK administrations responded to Brexit challenges and opportunities through two case studies (subsidies and minimum standards), and analyses the consequences of these choices for UK political legitimacy, a blind spot in turbulence studies. Leaving the EU offered a key opportunity to rethink farming – which remains unfulfilled. Not only are the new policies quite similar to the CAP (output legitimacy failure), but the policy-making process has intensified tensions between the four nations and left both farming unions and environmental groups dissatisfied, undermining both input and throughput legitimacy.