This vote of ‘lobby fodder’ MPs is betrayal of farmers – The Yorkshire Post says

This was the clause that would have set a requirement “for imported agricultural goods to meet animal health” and other standards “which are at least as high as those which apply to UK produced agricultural goods”.

Instead of showing undiluted support for British agriculture, it was defeated by 326 to 263 votes – presumably because whips, including Pudsey’s Stuart Andrew, the deputy chief whip, told the more malleable backbench MPs not to risk a potential trade deal with the United States.

Yet, by treating MPs like ‘lobby fodder’, it assumes that there will be a US trade deal when American politics has never been more visceral and contradicts all those Ministers, like Environment Secretary George Eustice, who have promised to maintain farming and food standards. And, more fundamentally, it risks compromising the future viability of many UK farms – and food producers – if their strict adherence to the highest animal welfare and environmental standards is undermined by a deluge of cheap imports like chlorinated chicken or hormone-reared beef from the US.

As such, The Yorkshire Post implores the House of Lords, as the revising chamber, to instruct the Commons to think again on this crucial clause. Not only will peers be improving legislation, another of their key remits, but they will be showing why the House of Lords matters more than ever as 10 Downing Street becomes even more centralised – some would say dictatorial – under Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings. That is not what ‘taking back control’ was ever intended to mean.

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James Mitchinson

Editor