PM’s chlorine chicken pledge is ‘empty promise’ without trade powers, campaigners say
Date: 16 May 2023
Reacting to the Prime Minister’s open letter to farmers today in which he claims “There will be no chlorine-washed chicken and no hormone-treated beef on the UK market. Not now, not ever”, Jean Blaylock, trade campaigner at Global Justice Now said:
“Rishi Sunak was a key part of the Cabinet which sold British food standards down the river in the Australia and New Zealand trade deals. Yet now, the year before an election, he asks farmers and shoppers to trust him to keep chlorine chicken and hormone beef off the menu.
“The best way for the prime minister to show he’s serious would be to give parliament a binding vote on future trade deals so he can be held to his word. Instead, last month he even scrapped the dedicated committee that scrutinises them. This looks like another empty promise from a government that has put City profits ahead of protecting food standards time and again.”
Notes
1. Sunak’s letter is available at: https://www.fginsight.com/news/prime-minister-rishi-sunak-commits-1m-for-dairy-exports-in-letter-to-farmers-135624
2. UK parliamentarians have less power to scrutinise trade deals than their counterparts in the US and EU, see: https://twitter.com/TradeJusticeMov/status/1318113200018214912
More
Photo: Firn/Shutterstock
