Moreover, if US chickens are sold here and are properly labelled, no one has to buy them. But price is important for many consumers. Free-range chickens can cost four or five times as much as a broiler sold in a cut-price supermarket. The American birds may be cheaper still. In any case, a deal with the US also opens a huge market for UK farmers whose higher quality and ethical standards will be a marketing advantage in pitching for the custom of better-off Americans.

Under the Agriculture Bill, farmers will continue to receive most of the support they were paid under the CAP until 2022 through a series of transition arrangements that will also protect the environment and ensure high production standards. But, they ask, what will be the point of these if they are then left to the mercies of cheap imports from the US and elsewhere? In addition, if there is no UK-EU trade deal by the end of the year, their exports to Europe will become more expensive.

Are we really looking at the possible extinction of British agriculture? Aside from the impact on the livelihoods of farmers and the countryside they manage, it would be a serious matter, given how vulnerable this country which imports 40 per cent of its food is to a breakdown in supply lines.

If the vaunted free trade deal with America looks like foundering over agriculture, which way will Boris Johnson jump? He needs to land this deal, especially as talks with the EU are not going well. But he faces the age-old choice for Tory prime ministers: farmers or consumers? It will be hard to placate both, as Peel discovered.

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Brexit has reopened a divide within the Tories that cannot be bridged - Telegraph.co.uk