UK trade deal with Australia amounts to ‘offshoring’ pesticide use, MPs warn | Select committee says ministers want to rush through deal allowing food imports that fall below UK environmental standards
UK trade deal with Australia amounts to ‘offshoring’ pesticide use, MPs warn | Select committee says ministers want to rush through deal allowing food imports that fall below UK environmental standards
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Trade deal at any costs so they can show brexit is working to those that don’t actually read details – aka tory voters
> The government is rushing through a trade deal with Australia that would allow food produced with pesticides banned in the UK to be imported into the country, campaigners and MPs have warned.
Looks like the sort of grubby deal you’d expect after throwing away the trade advantages of being in the EU bloc, losing the [expected Trump friendly deal](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/18/rightwing-thinktanks-unveil-radical-plan-for-us-uk-brexit-trade-deal-nhs) to a US election result, and being forced to go cap-in-hand begging for any deal at all from countries (or even individual US states) that don’t totally hate us yet, or see a bargain opportunity.
> Josie Cohen, the head of policy and campaigns at the charity Pesticide Action UK, said: “Australia uses toxic pesticides that are banned here on health and environmental grounds. They also permit residue levels many times more than in the UK. The government’s own advisers have conceded that overuse of pesticides in Australia will put our farmers at a disadvantage but claim existing border checks will keep food with high pesticide residues out.
> “However, there is reason to believe that the UK’s border controls on food are nowhere near as robust as the government claims. Government ministers should not be running away from parliamentary committees with legitimate questions to ask – not least, what will the government do to keep consumers safe and why are they breaking their own manifesto commitment to maintain standards in trade deals?”
No wonder they don’t want proper scrutiny.
On the one hand, I’d like safe food.
On the other hand farmers voted to put themselves out of business, we must respect their democratic will…
We have been selling them Agent Orange and fuck know what over stuff that is banned here for decades, and now people are worried they might be using it on produce they are planning on flogging back to us?
Still, I’m really glad that that Brexit vow of not ever reducing food standards is holding strong.
The new Australian government does seem to be better when it comes to green policies than the previous government. Let’s hope they vote to decrease pesticide use in the future to make this less of a concern.
Remember that our own government is under pressure to bring back neonicitinoids, pesticides known to harm bees, it should not be a surprise that they are happy to let others use intense amounts of pesticides so they do not have to answer questions about their use at home.
If someone is trying to rush something to prevent scrutiny, there’s a decent chance they want to avoid that scrutiny for a reason.
Is GMO food allowed in UK? From what I have heard GMO food are banned in EU. So what the fuck other countries would do? Use poop as pesticide?
Who saw this coming?