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The DEFRA committee is this morning taking evidence on the issue of food standards in future trade deals

Witnesses:

- Nick von Westenholz, NFU's Brexit Director
- Emily Rees, Trade Strategies' Managing Director
- James West, Compassion in World Farming's Senior Policy Manager
Reminder: The government still refuses to include legal commitments to maintaining food standards in the Agriculture Bill

NFU President Minette Batters said HMG's refusal to do so was "pretty terrifying"

Now Tory MPs are calling on Johnson to do it businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-…
James West of Compassion in World Farming tells the DEFRA committee he is concerned about 2 production methods in particular being imported to the UK after Brexit

- battery cages for hens
- sow stalls for pigs
The NFU's Brexit Director Nick von Westenholz makes the point that the argument over chlorinated chicken — and whether it should be imported from the US — is primarily about animal welfare

He says the argument that US chicken is just as safe as UK chicken is bit a red herring
New: Michael Gove tells the Brexit committee that the government has "had indications today" that upcoming rounds of Brexit talks might not go ahead due to concerns over coronavirus
Gove told the committee that it was a "live question" whether next week's trade talks with the EU in London will go ahead due to concerns over coronavirus
An EU source tells me talks with the UK are currently scheduled to take place next week as planned
Downing Street and EU sources say the next round of trade talks is scheduled to go ahead next week as planned

However, Gove says it's a "live question" and that HMG has today had "indications" of health concerns in Brussels businessinsider.com/coronavirus-uk…
The EU’s trade chief Phil Hogan cancels visits to the US & Canada over coronavirus

Earlier today Gove said whether UK-EU trade talks go ahead next week as planned was a “live question”

HMG still insists extending transition is off the table, though...

uk.reuters.com/article/uk-hea…
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Adam Payne
@adampayne26
NFU President Minette Batters is delivering a punchy speech on food standards

She says it'd be "morally-bankrupt, work of the insane" to embrace some of the production used abroad e.g Australia, Brazil, Malaysia

"This isn't hysteria, this isn't mumbo-jumbo, this is fact"
Batters warns HMG that meat imports washed in "chlorine or *other chemicals*" are unacceptable (that's a clear reference to lactic acid)

She says: “What is more important to our economy, our health and our environment than the very food that we eat?”

businessinsider.com/brexit-eu-set-…
Batters pulling no bunches in this speech

She asks why government is reluctant to ask experts

If HMG "is serious" about upholding food standards after Brexit, she says, it should put legal promises in the Agriculture Bill (HMG is refusing)

Details here insider.com/british-farmer…
Read 8 tweets
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Adam Payne
@adampayne26
New: Business leaders warn that trading with the EU like Australia would be disastrous for their sectors

The National Farmers’ Union, Food & Drink Federation, and Freight Transport Association all tell me it would create chaos and cost billions

businessinsider.com/brexit-busines…
The Food & Drink Fed said trading w/ the EU like Australia would be “disastrous” for the industry

“We export something like £13 bill each year to the EU, and reverting to the most favoured nation tariffs would destroy a very large share of those exports”businessinsider.com/brexit-busines…
The NFU said an approach to EU trade “like Australia’s,” as laid out by PM Johnson this week, is "pretty much no deal”

Their Brexit & trade director @nvonwestenholz warned it’d mean new tariffs on British exports to Europe like lamb, wheat, and barley businessinsider.com/brexit-busines…
Read 4 tweets
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Adam Payne
@adampayne26
Here at the Unison centre in central London where Jeremy Corbyn is due to deliver a major speech at 9:30. It’s all very mysterious. Labour sources are tight-lipped as to what it’s actually going to be about. “It’ll add to the excitement when you find out,” one says.
Team Starmer is here. Suggests a Brexit-related speech.
Here we go. Corbyn, Starmer and Louise Haigh have taken to the stage.
Read 13 tweets

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katya adler
@BBCkatyaadler
How significant is Boris Johnson meeting with new European Commission President @vonderleyen this afternoon? It’s significant in that it’s their first face-to-face in their new roles BUT today does not mark start of post #Brexit trade talks. Why? /1
As we know from Brexit Stage One: The Leaving Process, the EU is fond of procedure and regulation.(It’s the formula to keep so many member states more or less together.) EU law dictates that trade talks can’t start till UK legally leaves bloc (end Jan), and then .. /2
EU countries must agree a mandate for EU Commission to negotiate a comprehensive trade agreement on their behalf. Mandate then has to be formally signed off at minister level by reps of all EU countries. All this means EU says trade talks will start beginning March AND .. /3
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Steve Faktor
@ideafaktory
Thread on some thoughts on @ewarren's plan to demand poor countries meet labor & environmental standards to trade with the US & on @Noahpinion's critique.

1) Yes, Clinton-era free trade agreements caused a multi-decade job bleed from the US, especially in manufacturing
2) Free trade generally benefits lower cost providers. Therefore, a net positive for emerging nations.

3) There are things we could have done to phase in free trade deals, like boost investment & re-training in other industries, to limit the downsides. But hindsight is 20/20.
4) While ALL consumers benefit from lower prices from free trade & much smaller groups of workers benefit from protectionism, it's the job of a nation's leaders to balance the two. That did not happen here. The digital boom abandoned the analog workers of exported industries.
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Peter Wilding
@eurorealist
1. Am I the only one infuriated with the view that if @theresa_may and @jeremycorbyn agree a #brexit #customsunion then all is fine. This ignores the fact that it is leaving the #singlemarket that is the killer for business making, importing or exporting products. Why? A thread..
2/ Much of the commercial debate around #Brexit has focused on whether we stay in the #CustomsUnion or not. That is because this is the current battle between #Conservatives and #Labour. If Labour prevailed, and the UK remains in a Customs Union, then the tariff issue dies
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Peter Foster
@pmdfoster
Brexit is the backstop; the backstop is #Brexit.

After 3 days in Belfast, talking to all sides, here's what I've learned - on the business and the politics of this deal. And its viability.

1/Thread
First the business/technical aspects of how a backstop would work.

I talked to business lobby groups, Stephen Kelly from @ManufacturingNI fresh back from talks with Barnier. And bosses of big companies.

The are surprisingly sanguine. /2

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/…
@ManufacturingNI If the backstop emerges as the British want (and that is still an 'if') it would look as follows:

- all-UK in a temporary customs Union
- Northern Ireland only in Single Market for goods, via devolution
- no checks GB-NI
- 'de-dramatised checks on regs NI-GB

/3
Read 26 tweets
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Tom Moriarty #FBPE
@Tommoriarty16
#brexit is a belief, a religion. There's no evidence to support it. It is just a blinkered faith. They believe what they want to believe. Their leaders are preachers, not politicians, & their reaction to doubting them is that of nothing less than a religious fundamentalist #FBPE
2. As such many will quite literally do this for some kind of reward in the next life or for a "cause" for their fellow followers. And when you read the words of some of their protagonists that is exactly what one sees.
3. And we must ask how it is possible so many have been converted to this religious extremism. In general it will the same as elsewhere, hardship, poverty, hate, a conditioned mind that is made to believe a specific group is the cause of their troubles.
Read 6 tweets

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