Last night, Conservative MP’s voted against an amendment bill that would force foreign food exporters to adhere to domestic food standards. These standards protect animal welfare and food quality.

Why would anyone want to compromise that? Why would anyone put British farming at risk by allowing any other nation (notably America) to only be asked to apply their own food standards to exports into Britain.

Trade Deals

For trade deals of course. Despite striking a world beating post EU deal with Mongolia last week, we are struggling for bargaining power with trade partners. Breaking international law by changing the content of an ‘Oven Ready’ Brexit deal hasn’t helped. Increasingly, we need to operate on the terms of our new ‘partners’.

The complexities of this are far and wide. If Jo Biden and the Democrats win the American election, they will be more concerned about destabilising the Northern Ireland peace agreement than a trade deal. Don’t expect the EU to agree to a frictionless border, allowing US goods through Northern Ireland into the Republic (in effect, the EU).

Square that circle if you can.

A Right Old Pickle

This is turning into a right old pickle and the British government are trying to blame the EU for their woes. However, they (The EU) would be taking leave of their senses if they just allowed standards to be compromised to satisfy a member that chose to leave the Union.

That would be like me leaving my cricket club and telling everyone that, because I was once a major part of it, I can still come along and enjoy the good stuff, but won’t have to pay membership or subscription fees for playing matches. I’d get told to clear off, and rightly so.

That’s the problem when people are encouraged to act on impulse rather than logic.