• It refers there to vets signing off exported meat and similar I think.

    So we'd recognise EU qualifications in our Vets, allowing EU vets to work in this country, on behalf of the UK govt in signing off animals.

    When you came to export that meat, the EU would be given a signoff by a UK registered vet (albeit one originally trained in the EU). They don't recognise UK registered vets, so that meat registration is unrecognised.

    Something like that perhaps?

  • Yes I understand that, but the concept that there would be carnage at borders due to food coming into the country, seems to be overstated.

    At the moment, food comes into the country fine because it's been produced in the EU and therefore conforms to EU regulations for food manufacturing.

    If we leave the EU it doesn't stop us saying, "EU food can enter without checks".

    That doesn't address the potential cost increase, but honestly, what is stopping us writing a law that comes into affect the day we BREXIT (if we do), that says anything that comes in from the EU conforms to our own standards?

  • Nothing.

    But expect corners to be cut then, cos that's just how things roll, you can't assume that all EU vendors will be honest if there is no EU whip to keep them in line.

    "hey people we are seeing weird stuff with some EU food"
    "Talk to the hand, not our problem anymore"

  • If we leave the EU it doesn't stop us saying, "EU food can enter without checks".

    Is that the bit that's referred to here in the article:

    But this approach would have profound consequences. Overnight, there would be no protections whatsoever for UK consumers on the food they eat.

    This would be a betrayal of ministers' assurances of high food standards after Brexit, but put aside the morality and think about the practicality. Opening the border in this way would provide an open invitation for fraudsters. They could send anything to the UK they like - any food product, any drink, with any ingredient - knowing there would be no checks. The spot check system operating under EU law would vanish. There would be no documentation, no safeguards, no court oversight, and no supervision.

    The UK would be instantly downgraded to pariah status by the EU and the rest of our trading partners. British food exports would shrivel up.

  • what is stopping us writing a law that comes into affect the day we BREXIT (if we do), that says anything that comes in from the EU conforms to our own standards?

    One of the legal obstacles is the WTO. @JWestland is wrong to say that nothing is stopping us. If we just give a green light to all EU food checks, we're violating WTO rules on trade without discrimination, by giving special favours to the EU as a trading partner. We'd have to blindly accept all food certifications from all nations, no matter how bad, to get away with it.

    One practical obstacle is the logjam at the borders, which would not be cleared by making it easier for some EU goods to get in. If getting back out is slow, even when the trucks are empty, who wants to send their trucks in?

    We're part of a network. Trucks come here, drop stuff off, pick other stuff up, head on. We're breaking that network. As a result, traffic in both directions dries up.

  • Gove, Fox, and many others were part of the discredited and dis-banded Atlantic Bridge, 'charity'.
    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/oct/15/liam-fox-atlantic-bridge

    Their intent was, and clearly remains to ditch the EU standards for food, food production and animal welfare standards to allow US manufacturers free access to the UK market. The US has some obvious areas where the EU standards are clearly different, and higher than the US;
    gmo feedstuffs are routine in US livestock production, and food production,
    most US milk is from gene-modified cattle,
    the oft-invoked 'chlorine washed' chicken.

    If at Brexit+1 minute, DExEU introduces legislation to 'copy'n'paste' EU Food Regulations,
    the Atlanticists and their backers cannot start importing US food,
    and,
    the UK will be subject to legislation, ultimately enforced by the ECJ, that we have no part in writing, (='vassalage' J Rees Mogg, '= satrapy' A dePfeffel), one of TMay's Lancaster House speech Red Lines.

    I'm also fairly certain that the UK arbitrarily adopting EU Food regulations goes against the indissolubility of the EU's Four Freedoms,
    unless specifically negotiated and agreed by the EU27.

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