Thread by @pmdfoster

Activists urge more scrutiny of standards in trade deals via @FT. This is only the start. 26 CEOs led by ⁦@wwf_uk⁩ ⁦@TanyaMSteele⁩ urge ⁦@trussliz⁩ to back warm words on maintaining standards (animal, environmental) into law /1 on.ft.com/2BQDM0A

You can read letter here; but long ans short of it is that trade comes with politics and “chlorine chicken” and USA is really only the start. GMOs, pesticide residues and a host of other welfare issues could start to gain traction/2
. wwf.org.uk/sites/default/…

Already the @NFUtweets petition to demand U.K. doesn’t import food raises with methods illegal in U.K. (Sow stalls, battery chickens) has more than a millions signatures/3

campaigns.nfuonline.com/page/56262/pet…

That has led to @trussliz setting up an advisory commisson here. But it’s not clear what it’s status is, and whether it’s going to be statutory or just a figleaf. /4

gov.uk/government/new…

But the coming internal market bill speaks, per sources, to DiT and BEIS having free hand on trade deals - see this story - which makes sense if you want to do deals. /5

. ft.com/content/246da9…

Because as Josie Cohen @josiecoh of @PAN_UK Pesticide Action Network tells me, the countries of the Asia Pacific CPTPP group also would want U.K. to subscribe to lower (non EU) standards. Her report is here/6.

issuu.com/pan-uk/docs/to…

As she and Hugh Knowles the CEO of @friends_earth say, the govts failure to back warm words with legislative guarantees sets alarm bells ringing. /7

The wider point here as @DavidHenigUK says is that the government seems to have thought the “all trade is good” narrative would swamp all this stuff. But did they not recall TTIP fights? 38 Degrees and all that? /8

The @trussliz commisson is a start (see above) but the question is whether it’s already too late for this Govt to take back control of the civil society narrative on trade? It is a world of tough choices - but a key plank of the ‘buccaneer #brexit’. Lots at stake. Good wkend.ENDS