The Sin Bin • Re: Brexit watch
Sal Paradise wrote:
What is currently wrong with our current food standards - has the government suggested a lowering of these or is just more remain scaremongering?
What the government has suggested is including food standards in a trade deal with the US so that it would no longer be for an elected UK government to decide on food standards but we would instead be bound by the terms of the trade deal to accept US food standards. So any future UK government that wanted to protect UK consumers by prohibiting something that is legal in the US, would not be able to do so, because the US could bring a challenge that it was breaching the terms of the trade deal.
So it's handing over control of food standards to the US rather than the UK government.
Now you can say, well what's the difference inside the EU, surely we handed over control of food standards to them when we were inside the EU. Yes, and this is part of the compromise you make in a trade deal.
The difference is, the EU imposed minimum standards on food, and member states were free to go above them and have higher standards if they wish. A trade deal with the US will say that the UK market has to be open to US food exporters and therefore cannot introduce any food protections that are not in place in the US and would make US food therefore fall below the standard.
It also means that UK food exporters to the EU will face much more onerous and costly checks to prove the quality of their products when exporting to the EU, as the EU can no longer trust the standards of food in the UK. So it both means we have lower food standards in the UK and also harms the interests of UK food producers.
Statistics: Posted by sally cinnamon — Tue Feb 11, 2020 8:19 pm