To say that every one of us needs to watch last night’s Dispatches on Ch4.

[NellyJames]

Just finished watching this. I knew it was bad but not this grim. Eye opening even for me. I knew about the meat but not the fruit and veg. And apparently the trade deal will only benefit the UK economy by less than 1%!
mobile.twitter.com/C4Dispatches/status/1315651199631319045?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

@CrappleUmble

The EU have a great deal more chance of being able to protect food standards than we alone do. We are the weaker partner in negotiations with the US and it's utterly fanciful to imagine Parliament could do anything about it even if they were minded to, which this lot clearly are not. We will need the trade deal and thus not be in a position to resist US demands.

That lot will be fine. They'll just eat the grouse they are busy shooting. No trace of antibiotics on that.

I’m planning on eating meat only from farmers’ markets, if they still exist. Also on keeping a few chickens.

I agree with a pp who says we desperately need intelligent, eloquent leaders instead of the baffoons we currently have (on both sides of the pond). They are an embarrassment. They are only where they are because they’ve lied and manipulated their way to the top.
I’ve worked with that type in the past. Always the person who has their eye on a top job, who isn’t particularly intelligent, has no integrity and will trample their way ‘up’.
I bet Boris is half regretting his actions now. He’s certainly got more than he bargained for!

I totally agree with this. He thought it would be adoring crowds and being the UK "Chairman". It's obvious he absolutely hates what the job really entails in a difficult situation and frankly he absolutely deserves to lay in the bed he has made and to be disgraced, to be recorded in the history books as the most disastrous Prime Minister we have had. It's just a shame he has caused so many deaths and ruined so many lives in the process, while also relinquishing precious rights and freedoms that would benefit the next generation.

I've been saying this since 2016. I am honestly so frustrated that people were calling this "project fear" until recently. I already eat barely any meat and don't drink milk but I might become full vegan and start growing my own veg now tbh. And this is only one type of protection that will go out the window post Brexit; we can look forward to reductions in worker rights, data protection, environmental protection and human rights as well. But apparently this is what people want.

And 4 more years before we can even have a GE. Goodness knows what damage will be done by then.

Maybe we need to make a list of the ways we could potentially avoid food from the US. It’s going to be difficult especially if butchers start selling imported meat. I mean, If British farmers go under they’d have no choice but to use imported meat. Hopefully imported from the EU. We have a farm shop 15 minutes away that sources from the local farms, I think we’d have to reduce how much meat we eat and if DP wants. What he can eat it at his house!

I'm a vegetarian and this is partly why. But it's not just meat! Will give it a watch. However I definitely agree its well known that US food standards are awful. Just now we have to actually worry about them being out food standards too.

Maybe we need to make a list of the ways we could potentially avoid food from the US

before it gets as hard as trying to avoid Israeli companies ?

So the reason they didn't enshrine it in law is because they say there are already adequate tools in place to maintain the standards

@cyclingmad

So the reason they didn't enshrine it in law is because they say there are already adequate tools in place to maintain the standards

You don't need a guarantee on this washing machine. It's a Hotpoint.

I bet Boris is half regretting his actions now. He’s certainly got more than he bargained for!

I am surprised he has not thrown in the towel and legged it abroad TBH. He doesn't look like a man who wants that job anymore.

@ChangeyNameyforthis

I bet Boris is half regretting his actions now. He’s certainly got more than he bargained for!

I am surprised he has not thrown in the towel and legged it abroad TBH. He doesn't look like a man who wants that job anymore.

I'd put money on him being told to go by the end of Jan and him trying to pass it off as a "jolly" choice made for personal reasons, before he is shoved over the precipice. Won't help us all much with the devastation he'll leave behind though, while he's off in Mustique again like he was in January when he should have been here closing the borders to prevent this. The Tories want him around long enough to take the fall for the mess they've made of Covid and the disaster of Brexit in Jan, then they'll cut him loose. But probably put someone even worse in his place.

I thought the government was putting in to law that British standards for animal welfare would be maintained. Or was that yet another lie?

@Pixxie7

I thought the government was putting in to law that British standards for animal welfare would be maintained. Or was that yet another lie?

🤣🤣🤣

Yeah a massive lie again sadly Pixxie. They have just voted against doing exactly that. It seems "project fear" was really "project they'll believe whatever you tell them".

It'll more depend on if the UK is tired of bending over for the US.

@BiBabbles, but if the U.K. either leave the EU with no deal or a very basic free trade bill, won’t UK have little to option but do a trade deal with US as they need the trade having turned their backs on the EU?

How swapping the EU for US could ever be preferable for us I don’t know, but that is where the ERG Brexit MPs have taken us. Probably as they like there is less regulation in the US, making more money for those at the top,, sod that it’s crap for most of its citizens.

So pleasing to see those who voted Leave have retained their levels of "can't fool us, no, not us" in this area of life. Just out of curiosity, are they going to be queuing up for tickets to the new Unicorn Sanctuary in Kent when it opens? (Right next to the concreted over former "Garden of England" and the portaloos?!)

The EU is not perfect. Nothing is. But in 2016, a vote for Remain meant that you knew what you were voting for, at least. Due to the immensely cynical and self-serving lack of solid information or plans for Brexit, those who voted Leave were effectively buying a used jalopy without having even seen a photograph, never mind the car itself. It also meant they didn't pay much attention to where our food came from, or those who pick crops in the UK. (Hint - it's not usually picked by what the press occasionally call Gammons.)

Still, blue passports, fishes and unicorns, eh.

Watched the news last night which said Nicola Sturgeon now has a whopping 58% of Scots in favour of independence, in part due to how she’s come across as a leader during Covid. If Scotland becomes independent and manages to regain EU membership, I’d move up there in a heartbeat. I doubt I’d be alone.

No way are we cutting our standards to their level. There would be a total out cry

You know it has already gone through parliament don't you?

@NellyJames Nope, there'll be a queue at the border I reckon...we'd intended to move there ourselves before now but suspect it might be out of our reach by the time we're able to (although there is the option of getting cousins to sponsor us - and no, I'm not actually kidding on that, longer term), so we're having to look at other options based on profession and/or nationality. Regrettably New Zealand is off the list for various reasons.

Once Scotland goes independent, Ireland will unite (not sure if this might even happen concurrently); once Scotland and Ireland have formed an alliance or a federation or whatever they decide call it, I can't help wondering how long it will be before most of Wales and parts of the North will follow. I'm fairly sure it will happen in my lifetime.

I've been so sad to see what's happened to England in the last 12 or so years. This isn't the country I grew up in, that's for sure (and I grew up under Thatcher!).

@Doubletrouble99

No way are we cutting our standards to their level. There would be a total out cry, also the EU and loads of others who have high standards like us wouldn't want to trade with us. The big thing for me is, I'm certainly never going to the US again and eating their food! P.S. I'm a conservative voting Brexiteer.

After a UK/US trade deal there will be no way of knowing you are eating US food with their lower food standards.

The trade agreement will prohibit origin labelling.

@Rapunzathepenguin, yes and the sad thing is when you listen to Brexiteers saying they don’t care if the Union breaks up nor do they care if all their family loses its jobs as long as we get Brexit done.
I definitely think the reunification of Ireland is closer than its ever been.

Ireland will unite

That's the one thing out of the UKs gift (unless it plans on breaking more treaties). The GFA explicitly gives the powers over unification to Northern Ireland and Dublin with Westminster getting to sit that one out.

Because unification of Ireland isn't tied to anything in rUK, proponents can - and from the looks if it are - play the long game.

@SerendipityJane I lived and worked there for a couple of years and have a number of Irish friends and relatives and extended family. I would put money on reunification happening in my lifetime, instigated by Ireland. (If COVID-19 doesn't get me I reckon I'm about halfway through my life, based on family patterns of longevity).

The DUP have been a very convenient diversion for Westminster, and I can hear their ancestors spinning in their graves that they did a deal with the Tories. (And can anyone track down that billion quid they're supposed to have had?! In real, concrete, this is how it's helped ordinary people terms?)

As for breaking treaties, it's not like we don't have a track record of it. If I weren't English, I wouldn't trust the English government as far as I could throw them, after the behaviour on show in recent years. (And historically, come to that.) Actually, come to think of it, I AM English and I don't trust them.

The South of Ireland will continue to be part of Europe; the North of Ireland is already set to suffer dramatically under Brexit. Perhaps the most die-hard unionists would care to come and live in whatever's going to be left of England.