As an animal lover I routinely highlight welfare abuses and you can’t get much more abusive than foie gras producers who force-feed geese and ducks by sticking tubes down their gullets and pumping in grain.
It is so cruel that production is banned in the UK, but the pate is imported from France and sold in some posh restaurants.
Efforts to have the imports banned face the problem that this breaks European Union rules on free movement of goods.
The Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation says: “ Brexit provides us with the key opportunity to ban the import of foie gras when we leave the EU.”
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs also says that a ban can only work after we leave the EU.
A spokesman said: “After Brexit we will have the opportunity to better protect animal rights and environmental concerns, including the ability to consider options to ban goods being sold in the UK where there is clear evidence of unacceptable welfare standards, including foie gras.”
Now Labour, in its Animal Welfare Manifesto , has also called for a ban on foie gras imports “to restrict the market for this cruel and inhumane product”.
Which is great, except that this seems to overlook the fact that a ban cannot work while the UK has its hands tied by EU trade laws which enshrine the free movement of goods.
So how does Labour plan to put a ban into practice if it also wants the UK to remain in the EU?
I’ve asked its press office three times and have yet to receive an answer.
I really hope they're not just calling for a ban because it sounds good, while cynically knowing such a ban is currently impossible.
