EU backs covert campaign to dupe consumers on ritually slaughtered meat
DECEMBER 2010: EUROPEAN Ministers have dropped plans to ensure that halal and kosher meat from animals slaughtered without pre-stunning is accurately labelled.
Earlier this year MEPs voted in favour of German MEP Renate Sommer’s proposed amendment to draft legislation on food labelling which would mean that meat and meat products from ritually slaughtered animals must carry the label “Meat from slaughter without stunning”.
However, the European Council of Ministers have now approved a draft of new food information regulation that did not include amendment 205.
The latest move to drop the proposal follows a Europe-wide lobbying campaign by the Jewish food lobby group Shechita UK, which has targeted European Ministers representing their various governments at the Council of Ministers.
Shechita UK has argued that unless meat from religiously slaughtered animals is allowed to slip into the general market covertly, this meat will become commercially unviable. Electrical pre-stunning is not allowed under strict Jewish traditions.
To make matters worse the British Government has backed the decision of the European Ministers. Jim Paice MP, Minister of State for Agriculture and Food, signalled the UK Government’s intention to oppose the labelling amendment saying that he had recently met with Shechita UK to help him “understand the concerns driving their opposition to labelling”.
This morning on hearing the news while on his way to Strasbourg for a week of voting in the European Parliament, Nick Griffin pulled no punches in condemning the dropping of Amendment 205.
"This disgraceful decision yet again highlights two sad truths of modern British politics: First, that the noisy voices of those who persist in inflicting the most hideous cruelty on defenceless animals in the name of religion continue to drown out the voice of the vast majority who believe in humane killing of animals and equality before the law among the different communities living in Britain.
"Second, that democratically elected MEPs seeking to represent the wishes of thier constituents are continually thwarted and trumped by the unelected bureaucrats who really call the shots in the European Union.
"Both problems illustrate the shocking democratic deficit in the system, something that only the British National Party really works to highlight and is serious about addressing."
