Sat 10 Aug 2019, 09:57 AM | Posted by editor
LETTER from Mark Langabeer, Newton Abbot Labour Party
A Dispatches programme, entitled The truth about Chlorinated Chicken, examines the reasons why a post-Brexit trade deal would not be in the interests of working people in the UK. An undercover reporter gets a job at a chicken processing plant owned by Tyson foods, the largest meat company in the US.
The reporter discovers poor hygiene at the plant and filmed these practices. Showing the film to a former UK meat inspector, he described the practices as “unacceptable” in the UK. The EU has banned chicken imports from the US because they use chlorine and other agents to remove bacteria from the meat.
Scientific research suggests that chlorine does not prevent salmonella and other types of bacterial poisoning. Last year, hundreds of Americans died from salmonella. In the UK it was nil. Food poisoning in the US is ten times the number than the EU.
Another concern is the poor record of health and and safety in the US poultry industry. Over a 21 month period there has been 70 serious injuries at Tyson’s. Over the same period, the US poultry industry had 50 amputations (loss of fingers due to machinery), while the UK has had 4. Chicken is cheaper in the US, but it is at the expense of the workers employed in the industry.
The Tories claim that there will be no reduction of standards as a result of a trade deal with the US. This is hard to believe as Trump’s America is about putting the US first, starting with the agricultural sector. A Tory Brexit is about a race to the bottom: it’s about putting private profit above all else. Only a Labour Government, implementing socialist policies can prevent this from happening.
