Anti-EU Propaganda: Ignore the Spectator on Chlorinated Chicken
A friend posted a garbage-level article from the Spectator yesterday and it has really bugged me for a number of reasons so I'm just going to sit here and dismantle the arguments and rhetoric in the article for funsies.
The first part of the article is obvious rabid polemical pish where the author just bizarrely rants about Nick Clegg and makes the claim that "rEmAnIeRs" aren't really pro free-trade because... um, well there doesn't actually appear to be any reasoning for this claim bar attempting to paint his opponents as the real Little Englanders in what appears to be a magnificent example of projection.
From here on, I'm going to dispel some of the misleading statements and blatant bullshit in the article.
"In fact, the European Food Safety Agency has passed chlorinated-washed chicken for safe consumption."
This isn't the issue and the author is both dishonest and dense for trying to misrepresent it. Besides that, anti-microbial agents such as chlorine don't always kill all the bacteria and masks the problem. This is one of the reasons why the EU banned this practice.
"Chlorinated chicken is banned in the EU on the pretext that washing in chlorine might be used by producers to hide other hygiene problems."
Correct. This is what some producers used to do in the UK as well (banned in 1997) and what they still do in the US. The practice is banned for good reasons as you'll see below.
"But food premises are supposed to be inspected, chlorination or no chlorination – so if someone is dragging chickens through the dirt before they are sent off to the supermarket it ought to be picked up anyway."
Supposed to be inspected. Supposed to be. The chickens aren't literally being dragged through the dirt, they live in their own filth and squalor as exposed by a recent episode of Dispatches. Lobbyists among others often see to it that some producers just aren't inspected or conveniently forgotten about it
"The ban is really just one more form of EU protectionism. EU chicken-producers don’t like US chicken because it retails for around 80 per cent the price of European chicken."
The claim that the EU is being "protectionist" is beyond a mere, daft accusation. It's a bizarre claim and one that should get the author laughed out of a job. Protectionism is the application of taxes and tariffs on imports in order to protect local and national business and industry. It's not protectionist to demand certain standards with regard to the production of goods. You wouldn't buy a toaster without electrical insulation and you wouldn't buy lettuce covered in maggots, so why should we buy chicken that has been subjected to a life of living in its own shit, in cramped inhumane squalor knowing full well that this is how bacteria, viruses and disease spreads? Standards help protect us from harm.
And it's not only the product to be concerned about. If the producers care so little about the standard of their product, they probably have little care over the welfare of their workers. The Dispatches documentary highlighted workers using bare hands to handle meat and no toilet breaks; the workers actually wear diapers on the production line, for fuck's sake.
"There is nothing about Brexit which forces us to lower food safety standards. What it does mean, on the other hand, is that we will be free to determine those rules ourselves, rather than have them dictated by officials acting on behalf of lobbies of European food-producers."
We've already helped to determine those rules ourselves since we were a member of the EU when they were written up! Removing ourselves from this set of rules and standards means that we will have to accept lower standards as we will no longer have the same political, legal and financial clout that we did as a member of the EU. The message will end up being "Britain: We'll buy your shit because we can't afford or negotiate anything else!"
Secondly, the problem of lobbying is not one unique to the EU. It happens in literally every capitalist system. It's a problem of capitalism, not the EU and therefore we will still be subject to it.
Chlorine washes are a poor means of compensation for terrible hygiene practices, there's no doubt about it. Cases of food poisoning from salmonella and campylobacter are 10 times higher in the US than the UK/EU due to this. The thing that underpins this all is of course profit, as if you couldn't guess. It's cheaper to wash chicken in anti-microbial agents like chlorine than it is to ensure decent, respectable working practices and hygiene standards for both workers and livestock.
We shouldn't have to and we don't need to accept lower standards just because some swivel-eyed loon career politician has an ideological pursuit. They should be meeting *our* standards, not the other way around and the fact that they'll be lining their own pockets in the process is an utter disgrace.
Sources:
https://www.aspca.org/animal-cruelty/farm-animal-welfare
https://www.sustainweb.org/news/feb18_US_foodpoisoning/
https://metro.co.uk/.../workers-denied-toilet-breaks-and.../
https://www.britishpoultry.org.uk/you-cant-polish-a.../
https://greatbritishmeat.com/blogs/butchers-blog/chlorinated-chicken
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jun/03/the-truth-about-chlorinated-chicken-review-an-instant-appetite-ruiner
The first part of the article is obvious rabid polemical pish where the author just bizarrely rants about Nick Clegg and makes the claim that "rEmAnIeRs" aren't really pro free-trade because... um, well there doesn't actually appear to be any reasoning for this claim bar attempting to paint his opponents as the real Little Englanders in what appears to be a magnificent example of projection.
From here on, I'm going to dispel some of the misleading statements and blatant bullshit in the article.
"In fact, the European Food Safety Agency has passed chlorinated-washed chicken for safe consumption."
This isn't the issue and the author is both dishonest and dense for trying to misrepresent it. Besides that, anti-microbial agents such as chlorine don't always kill all the bacteria and masks the problem. This is one of the reasons why the EU banned this practice.
"Chlorinated chicken is banned in the EU on the pretext that washing in chlorine might be used by producers to hide other hygiene problems."
Correct. This is what some producers used to do in the UK as well (banned in 1997) and what they still do in the US. The practice is banned for good reasons as you'll see below.
"But food premises are supposed to be inspected, chlorination or no chlorination – so if someone is dragging chickens through the dirt before they are sent off to the supermarket it ought to be picked up anyway."
Supposed to be inspected. Supposed to be. The chickens aren't literally being dragged through the dirt, they live in their own filth and squalor as exposed by a recent episode of Dispatches. Lobbyists among others often see to it that some producers just aren't inspected or conveniently forgotten about it
"The ban is really just one more form of EU protectionism. EU chicken-producers don’t like US chicken because it retails for around 80 per cent the price of European chicken."
The claim that the EU is being "protectionist" is beyond a mere, daft accusation. It's a bizarre claim and one that should get the author laughed out of a job. Protectionism is the application of taxes and tariffs on imports in order to protect local and national business and industry. It's not protectionist to demand certain standards with regard to the production of goods. You wouldn't buy a toaster without electrical insulation and you wouldn't buy lettuce covered in maggots, so why should we buy chicken that has been subjected to a life of living in its own shit, in cramped inhumane squalor knowing full well that this is how bacteria, viruses and disease spreads? Standards help protect us from harm.
And it's not only the product to be concerned about. If the producers care so little about the standard of their product, they probably have little care over the welfare of their workers. The Dispatches documentary highlighted workers using bare hands to handle meat and no toilet breaks; the workers actually wear diapers on the production line, for fuck's sake.
"There is nothing about Brexit which forces us to lower food safety standards. What it does mean, on the other hand, is that we will be free to determine those rules ourselves, rather than have them dictated by officials acting on behalf of lobbies of European food-producers."
We've already helped to determine those rules ourselves since we were a member of the EU when they were written up! Removing ourselves from this set of rules and standards means that we will have to accept lower standards as we will no longer have the same political, legal and financial clout that we did as a member of the EU. The message will end up being "Britain: We'll buy your shit because we can't afford or negotiate anything else!"
Secondly, the problem of lobbying is not one unique to the EU. It happens in literally every capitalist system. It's a problem of capitalism, not the EU and therefore we will still be subject to it.
Chlorine washes are a poor means of compensation for terrible hygiene practices, there's no doubt about it. Cases of food poisoning from salmonella and campylobacter are 10 times higher in the US than the UK/EU due to this. The thing that underpins this all is of course profit, as if you couldn't guess. It's cheaper to wash chicken in anti-microbial agents like chlorine than it is to ensure decent, respectable working practices and hygiene standards for both workers and livestock.
We shouldn't have to and we don't need to accept lower standards just because some swivel-eyed loon career politician has an ideological pursuit. They should be meeting *our* standards, not the other way around and the fact that they'll be lining their own pockets in the process is an utter disgrace.
Sources:
https://www.aspca.org/animal-cruelty/farm-animal-welfare
https://www.sustainweb.org/news/feb18_US_foodpoisoning/
https://metro.co.uk/.../workers-denied-toilet-breaks-and.../
https://www.britishpoultry.org.uk/you-cant-polish-a.../
https://greatbritishmeat.com/blogs/butchers-blog/chlorinated-chicken
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jun/03/the-truth-about-chlorinated-chicken-review-an-instant-appetite-ruiner
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