The
environmental campaigning organisation Greenpeace has uncovered a secret plan by political
think tanks from the
UK and US to influence deregulation of Britain’s food standards after we leave
the European Union (EU). The plan was published accidentally on the website of
the Initiative for Free Trade (IFT) which
is coordinating the network of transatlantic think tanks, but has since been
taken down. Greenpeace have published the document themselves and you can access the plan here.
The idea is
that these talks and this plan will form the “blueprint” for the real
negotiations between the British and US governments. The groups involved even have
close links with Liam Fox, the current Tory International Trade Secretary, and claim
future talks would be attended by an official from Fox’s Department. Fox, has
previously told the IFT that his department is “a very, very willing partner in
your great and wonderful quest.”
According to
the documents, the shadow trade talks are set to include 10 leading right-wing
think tanks from the UK and US, including the London-based Institute for
Economic Affairs and the Legatum Institute, which has recommended scrapping the
EU’s ‘precautionary principle’ to boost trade. On the US side, the American
Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation are listed as participants. The
Cato Institute, which was founded by billionaire oil refiners, the Koch brothers,
will write the first draft of the “ideal” agreement.
The Koch brothers
have made significant financial contributions to libertarian and conservative
think tanks and have donated primarily to Republican Party candidates running
for office. They actively fund and support organizations that contribute
significantly to Republican candidates, and in particular that lobby against
efforts to expand government's role in health care and combating global
warming. In January 2011, Rolling Stone magazine included the Koch brothers on
its list of the top twelve people blocking progress on global warming.
The IFT report
says a shift away from the EU’s approach would mean that “US exporters of
agricultural produce, beef, for instance, would have a brand new market to sell
to”. Imports of US beef are currently restricted by the EU because of the
widespread use of growth hormones and anti-biotics that the European Commission
deems unsafe.
This type of
regulatory change would also allow for imports of chlorinated chicken, again
banned under EU rules. This is because of the precautionary principle, applied
by the EU to food standards. Basically, these practices have to be proved safe,
before they are allowed to be sold to consumers. The Council of Europe has said that this method can “lead to the
formation of chloroorganic compounds, several of which are persistent,
bioaccumulable or carcinogenic”. In other words it can cause cancer.
According to the Guardian a spokesperson for the IFT said “mutual
recognition of standards, which we do mention quite a bit, would not require
the UK to move away from the precautionary principle at all, or to change its
standards, regulations or laws in any way. If consumers don’t want to buy
products made to different standards to our own, they will see the US flag on
the packet and not buy it,” she said.
You can see
the outlines of this plan from this statement. There has been quite a lot of
negative comment in the British media about chlorinated chicken, so the British
government will have to sell it to the public, which will probably be cautious
about such produce. But by labelling the product, although how clearly this would
have to be would be part of the negotiated deal, it would allow the government
to say, if people don’t want to buy this produce then they would have the
choice not to.
There is a
reason why the US farming industry regulations allow these methods, it is
because it increases yields and reduces costs, which to some extent can be
passed onto consumers. If there is a choice of reasonably priced alternatives, I
think British people will avoid US produce, but that is not a given, since food
from the EU will likely be more expensive. Australia and New Zealand would want
to export more food to the UK, but the geographical distances make it more
expensive, not to mention increasing carbon emissions.
So, what we
end up with, under this plan is that US food will be much cheaper than British
or other countries produce, unless they adopt the same practices, so there
would be a two tier food market. For those who can afford the food under
existing EU regulations they won’t need to eat it, but for the poorest
households there will be no real choice but to consume this type of potentially
unsafe produce.
None of this
will solve our border congestion problems, or the Irish border one, but if we
really do disregard these problems, the future could look very like the one the
IFT is planning. I doubt the likes of Boris Johnson will be partaking in US
labelled food produce, because he won’t need to.
Totally agree and am furious that we won't have a lot of choice. The only fightback available is pushing the local food scenario and that has its own limitations, not least the sell-off of British farmland to housing developers.
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