Dear John,

Their promise is not good enough.

Ministers pledge our protections won’t be watered down, but what’s that worth?

The government conceded to a Trade and Agriculture Commission scrutinising trade deals. But a damning report by a standards watchdog confirms current measures are too weak to robustly defend our food, environmental and animal welfare standards.

Future trade deals could still allow hormone-injected, antibiotic-laden, chlorine-covered food on our supermarket shelves.

This is not just a matter of our food, but environmental well-being across our globe. US farmers give their cattle nine times more antibiotics than is legal in the UK, driving up disease resistance.

The UK should be trying to raise environmental standards around the world, not stooping to the lowest common denominator.

Call on your MP to push for our standards to be enshrined in law, not dependent on this government’s flimsy promises. Demand that our food and animal food standards are never compromised. And urge them to reach a wide-ranging deal with Europe to reinforce high standards globally.

Government ministers have repeatedly pledged there would be no chlorinated chicken or hormone-injected beef allowed in the UK.

But even if we trusted the government (and who would after they broke an international treaty?), future governments may feel differently. Their refusal to enshrine these pledges in law suggests we would be right to be suspicious.

Chicken and beef are just the totemic issues. There are a whole host of bad US agricultural practices which will be imposed on the UK – either through exports or driving down standards at home.

Cows are also regularly injected with BST, a genetically engineered lactation-promoting hormone, to increase milk yield – a practice banned in the UK on animal welfare grounds. Pigs are injected with the dangerous hormone called ractopamine, which can kill pigs and which is also banned in the UK.

The USA is likely to push for the UK to lower its farming and food standards to meet their own. In the absence of a trade deal with Europe, the pressure to concede on standards for a US deal becomes more acute.

Call on your MP to keep British standards high and secure a comprehensive deal with Europe which strengthens them. Send a message to your MP now.

There is little over a month until the end of the transition period, and any EU-led protections of our food and our farming will be gone. We need robust statutory protections in place to stop inhumanely or unsafely farmed produce entering the UK.

We cannot allow our high standards to be undercut, nor should we ever support cruel agricultural practices abroad.

Best wishes,

Cary Mitchell,
Director of Operations, Best for Britain