I'm well aware of how flawed and destructive the CAP is, and it's long overdue for substantial reform. I have no issue with George Eustace's recent announcements, which certainly make a lot of the right noises, should they actually come to fruition. But given this government's track record of grand promises (where's that £10 billion "world-beating" test and trace system that was going to prevent the need for additional lockdowns?), I'll wait to see it actually implemented before I agree that it's really happening. But on this specific issue, I simply don't buy the notion that banning live exports, as encouraging a step forward as it is, will turn the UK into a bucolic paradise - rather, it is likely to mask a wider drop in animal welfare standards as UK farming is forced to compete with imported produce of lower standards than those it currently (but not for much longer) enjoys. Surely you didn't think that a trade deal with the US and others is going to involve a race to the
top? Why has the government refused to back up its fine words and election manifesto promises on food standards by putting them into law?
This clip may be of interest:
https://www.channel4.com/news/critic...ld-be-affected
As might this article:
https://www.theguardian.com/food/202...ing-jay-rayner
The final two paragraphs are worth reproducing in full -
"If cheap, low-standard products are allowed in from the US and elsewhere,
British farming will be forced into a cost-cutting war, which will undermine its standards but also threaten its economic base. More farms may go out of business. We risk becoming ever more dependent on those imports. And just
slapping tariffs on low-welfare products, as has been suggested, won’t solve the problem. Once they are allowed in, the haggling will begin and inevitably, over time, the tariffs will come down. Surely consumers could just vote with their wallets and not buy those products? In the shops yes. In unlabelled food service – in the school meals our children eat, in the sandwiches we buy from supermarkets – we’ll never know. It’s all a deeply unappetising prospect. And nothing the government has announced recently assures me it won’t come to pass."
PS - my "dystopian fantasy" reference was directed at anyone who might dismiss the issue of antibiotic resistance as being such.