Sunday, December 22, 2019
Does Tory defence of US food standards presage the realities of new trade deal?
The Independent reports that senior Conservative MPs have dismissed concerns over US food practices such as chlorinating chicken and allowing a certain amount of fly eggs in drinks as “tired old lefty rhetoric” as the government looks to tear away from the hygiene standards expected by the EU to broker a trade deal across the Atlantic.
They say that former trade secretary Liam Fox and former party leader Iain Duncan Smith took turns to jibe at Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn after he decried US government regulations on acceptable levels of maggots in orange juice:
The US food and drug administration (FDA) says juice with five or more fly eggs or one or more maggot per 250ml should be automatically considered defective.
But Mr Duncan Smith claimed approaches across the Atlantic – such as the management of salmonella through practices like washing chicken meat in chlorine in an attempt to sterilise it – were more effective than those deployed by UK farmers. He accused the Labour leader of “sneering at the standards in the United States".
Speaking in the Commons about the importance of the results of hygiene systems as opposed to practices, he said: “If you look at their standards, when it comes to campylobacterial infection and also salmonella they have fewer deaths per capita than the UK or the European Union. It gets there by different methods and it gets there better than we do, so we should stop sneering."
Of course it is not just Corbyn who has raised concerns about the lowering of food standards if we do a trade deal with the United States. The general public are also wary of such a development. Until Johnson secured a majority in the House of Commons for his Brexit deal, he and the Tory Party had been careful to offer reassurance on this point. Now they are preparing the ground for a U-turn.
What commitment will be abandoned next in the quest to appease Donald Trump? My money is on access being granted to US companies to both take over some health services and to harvest our medical data.
They say that former trade secretary Liam Fox and former party leader Iain Duncan Smith took turns to jibe at Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn after he decried US government regulations on acceptable levels of maggots in orange juice:
The US food and drug administration (FDA) says juice with five or more fly eggs or one or more maggot per 250ml should be automatically considered defective.
But Mr Duncan Smith claimed approaches across the Atlantic – such as the management of salmonella through practices like washing chicken meat in chlorine in an attempt to sterilise it – were more effective than those deployed by UK farmers. He accused the Labour leader of “sneering at the standards in the United States".
Speaking in the Commons about the importance of the results of hygiene systems as opposed to practices, he said: “If you look at their standards, when it comes to campylobacterial infection and also salmonella they have fewer deaths per capita than the UK or the European Union. It gets there by different methods and it gets there better than we do, so we should stop sneering."
Of course it is not just Corbyn who has raised concerns about the lowering of food standards if we do a trade deal with the United States. The general public are also wary of such a development. Until Johnson secured a majority in the House of Commons for his Brexit deal, he and the Tory Party had been careful to offer reassurance on this point. Now they are preparing the ground for a U-turn.
What commitment will be abandoned next in the quest to appease Donald Trump? My money is on access being granted to US companies to both take over some health services and to harvest our medical data.
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I have heard that Amazon has got in thru the back door and obtained patients info. Of course it will be kept confidential (whilst targeting medicines ). Yes I can see a slow eroding of standards etc. This can bypass the public by the media pushing the Govnt line. As a party we can point out the 're-aligning' thru social media AND our focus ,or knocking on doors explaining what is going on.
Re SK and EU standards.To fight for a good deal OR to indicate to people the differences in standards we can compare and contrast the standards of both . the differences can be highlighted on social media and on our leaflets. The people can decide .
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