Failures and false promises: Brexit’s impact on animals, two years on
It was all smiles and optimism from the Brexiteers, but many of the promises made prior to the referendum and the failures since exiting the EU have centred on nonhuman animals, as our analysis has revealed.
DEEP DIVE: Britain’s exit from the European Union presented both threats and promises to animal justice in the UK. But since coming into effect in 2020, what - if anything - has actually changed? Devon Docherty writes.
The semantics of animal sentience
If you have ever spent time near an animal, then it may come as a shock that UK law does not currently recognise them as the conscious, feeling beings that they are. Post-Brexit, the UK decided against subsuming EU legislation legally recognising animals as sentient beings and impelling member states to “pay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals.”
Instead, the government said it would consider how it will reflect this principle in wider UK legislation, resulting in The Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill which is currently passing through parliament. The provision of a distinct bill recognising animal sentience seems initially promising since animal sentience in the EU constitutes just one article of a more general agreement, namely the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
READ: Animal sentience to be legally recognised and most live export banned, announces UK Government
The proposed bill would recognise all vertebrate animals as ‘sentient beings,’ but curiously sentience is undefined, leaving much open to interpretation. A new committee will also be established to ensure animal sentience is ‘at the heart of government policy.’
While the principle of this is solid, it would be a mistake to take these propositions at face value. For example, the new committee will not have enforcement nor advisory powers, meaning it is only able to ‘scrutinise and report’ on whether government policy is adequately considering the interests of animals - which activists and journalists already do. Moreover, a recent amendment to the bill extends sentience to a small number of invertebrate animals - namely crabs, octopuses and lobsters - seeming to pave the way for an end to the cruel practices these species are often forced to endure, such as cutting off limbs and being boiled alive.
Yet, summarising the amendment, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) stated: “Existing industry practices will not be affected and there will be no direct impact on shellfish catching or in restaurant kitchens.” This casts a lot of doubt around what this bill will achieve for those it aims to protect; arguably not very much if it cannot even guarantee a sentient being will not be boiled alive. Similarly, the newest amendment means cultural traditions must be respected, i.e the government will not interfere with practices that would usually violate animal welfare but have religious, cultural or regional mandates.
Crabs are among the invertebrates to be recognised as sentient according to UK law with the passing of the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill, but will it actually change anything for them?
One example is shooting wildlife for sport, and rather unsurprisingly the amendment was put forward by MPs Geoffrey Clifton-Brown and Jonathan Djanogly who chair two pro-shooting groups: the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, and the British Shooting Council.
Another example is the cutting of animals’ throats without prior stunning, as necessitated by Jewish and Islamic dietary laws. The same clause is featured in EU law and continues to permit barbaric actions like bullfighting in the name of culture.
Brexit’s proponents promised higher welfare standards for animals. But actions speak louder than words, and the Animal Sentience Bill weakens its protection of animals at every stage. Instead, the bill seems aimed at claiming a superficial political win in the messy aftermath of Brexit, rather than achieving any tangible improvements to the lives of non-human animals.
Farming subsidies
In place of the EU’s £2.4bn annual farming subsidies, farmers in England will be paid to rewild their land. A system of “public money for public goods” will be implemented, whereby farmers are paid for making environmental improvements to their land rather than being paid for mere land ownership.
However, the government has been running similar “nature-friendly farming” schemes for decades, and there have still been huge declines in wildlife.
One of the reasons for this is that policymakers consistently fail to recognise the crux of the problem, despite substantial evidence and expert advice. The UK is one of the least biodiverse countries in Europe and on the planet. An extensive report into biodiversity loss by Chatham House named animal agriculture as a leading cause and said that animal farming has a disproportionate impact on biodiversity, land use and the environment.
The report also stressed that global diets must become more plant-based if large-scale nature recovery is to be possible. A huge amount of land and resources are needed not only to farm animals, but to farm the vast amounts of grain they need to eat. This is all land and resources that could be spent on truly and efficiently rewilding Britain if the dominant food system was plant-based. Instead, the government continues to spend hundreds and thousands of pounds in taxpayer money on advertising animal exploitation. Tackling powerful agri-business is paramount to restoring a healthy natural environment; the government’s post-Brexit agricultural plans not only fail to tackle but actively uphold these destructive industries.
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The meat and dairy industry
In any case, it seems as though various animal-produce industries are on the brink of toppling. As we reported in April last year, Britain's dairy industry took a hit as sales to the EU plummeted 96 per cent because of Brexit. The situation has since spiralled further out of control, with supply chain problems caused by the Ukraine crisis adding complications to a sector already buckling under the combined strain of Brexit and the pandemic. One dairy farmer told The Times he was killing his herd one by one to “generate quick cash to cover bills” as prices for dead animals “has gone through the roof as there is a shortage of cows for McDonald’s and those sort of places.”
Another effect of this triple threat is a wide-scale labour shortage, which has been ‘particularly severe’ for the meat industry. Around 62 per cent of the 97,000 meat industry workers in the UK are EU nationals, many of whom have left their jobs in the UK or are no longer coming here to work. As a result, there has been a colossal cull of pigs, with farmers citing reduced capacity in slaughterhouses and meat processing plants as justification. In other words, slaughterhouses simply aren’t killing and butchering animals as fast as they used to, so the chosen solution is to kill more animals, more rapidly. It truly is an absurd and brutal system.
More than 30,000 pigs have been killed so far, showing no signs of slowing down. Farmers have described this as a tragedy, with “grown men in tears” over the death of their healthy pigs, despite the fact they are due to be slaughtered in a matter of months anyway. Farmers Weekly magazine has even branded this event ‘the pig welfare cull,’ as if murdering a healthy animal is ever in the animal’s best interests.
More than 30,000 pigs and many more piglets have been culled since labour shortages slowed down slaughterhouses, as migrant workers were sent home following Brexit.
MPs have concluded the sector faces permanent damage if leaders fail to address the worker shortage. In one such attempt, dead animals are being sent to places in the EU like Ireland and the Netherlands to be butchered before returning to the UK to be stocked in supermarkets. Is this the best the government can come up with? Surely this signals that a different approach is long overdue, perhaps one in which the public is incentivised to eat plant-based and farmers assisted to transition to plant-based farming, in which British workers would presumably be more willing to get involved.
Indeed, one of the reasons there is such a huge demand for migrant workers in the meat sector is that “local people” do not want to kill animals for a living. Arguably, nobody does. The meat industry is one that is consistently linked to psychological and physical damage to its workers. As reported in The Guardian, the reliance on foreign workers may mean that many people have little knowledge of their rights or how to complain, and end up suffering in silence.
They also reported on a study that detailed how people are being illegally trafficked to the UK to fulfil roles in slaughterhouses, and there was even talk of prisoners being coerced into taking up jobs in slaughterhouses via work release schemes. How much longer will we have to rely on other people to do our dirty work? How much longer will people be forced to kill innocent beings for a living? How much longer will animals have to suffer, and be killed in their billions? How much longer will we have to endure all of this because of political and economic formalities?
READ: UK meat industry to exploit prisoners because no one really wants to kill and slice up animals
Feuds within the fishing industry
Britain’s fishing industry is also in muddy waters. Work and money are drying up for those in the trade; fishing makes up just 0.12 per cent of the UK’s economy, a figure which continues to dwindle. Despite the fact that gaining more control of fishing policy was used as a key argument for Brexit, there has been significant and sustained chaos in this sector, with British and EU fishermen engaged in political tennis over catching quotas while marine life continues to be decimated. The EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) maintained relative peace between nations, and Britain leaving it has caused turmoil.
One of the main disputes is due to Britain and France denying each other licences to fish in each other's waters, leading to escalating tensions and massive profit losses. While workers in this industry - and indeed any industry - deserve respect and help, their comments highlight how worthless the lives of fish and other sea-dwelling beings have become. One French fisherman told the Express how his ‘catch’ had been affected by the dispute: “The whole catch - there are about 20kg of Dover sole back there, and all these are dogfish. They don’t really sell. They’re worth no more than 20 to 50 cents per kilo. So it’s nothing, and a few crabs. All this stuff in the nets is worth nothing.”
Another British fisherman made claims to the Express about the French setting fish alight: “If they don’t get their way, they’ve been known to unload fish from lorries and pour diesel on them… set them on fire.”
In addition to this wanton waste of life, the CFP was designed to be sustainable, but it was found that up to 83 per cent of fish populations remain overfished or outside safe biological limits. Similarly, post-Brexit analysis finds two-thirds of UK fish populations are not in a healthy state. Britain’s workers and animals are bound in a lose-lose situation until the government decides to use their new post-Brexit political freedom to take the road less travelled.
Britain is falling behind
In general, the UK has been falling behind the EU on improving animal legislation. The EU recently passed legislation to stop farmers from routinely using antibiotics to compensate for animal health problems caused by unhygienic living conditions on cramped factory farms. Routine antibiotic use remains legal in the UK.
Perhaps much is to be said for Brits’ belief that their apparently superior standards and farming methods - evident when the government and its supporters consistently describe Britain as “world-leaders in animal welfare” - put them above worrying about antibiotic use.
In addition, the European Commission pledged to phase out the use of cages for hens, mother pigs, calves, rabbits, ducks, geese and other farmed animals by 2027, following a petition signed by over 1 million EU citizens. Animal justice groups are now calling on the British government to follow suit, but progress is unlikely if the past is anything to go by.
Labour MPs previously called on the government to use Brexit to push through a ban on cruel farrowing crates for pigs which keep mother pigs confined in metal crates barely bigger than their bodies. But the matter was swiftly rejected in November over worries about how it would affect farmers' profits. The public should not accept this flagrant disregard for animal wellbeing and continue to demand that the government puts sentient life ahead of the heedless pursuit of profit.
And just as the UK seemed to be making progress on a bill that would ban trophy-hunting imports and live exports – in which animals endure long, hot, and painful journeys across national borders on their way to slaughter – the motion has been paused due to backlash within the party.
The campaign against the new animal welfare bill is being led by chief Tory whip Mark Spencer, who is a farmer himself. You have to wonder how a person who purports to care about his animals’ welfare could want to block a bill aimed at improving just that. Although, one must also wonder how a person who purports to care about animals could willingly send them to their death in the first place.
The UK was set to become the first European country to outlaw live export, which would have been viewed as a significant advancement in terms of animal welfare. On this point, it is important to point out that the only just goal is to stop any and all animals from being slaughtered. However, a step to reduce animal suffering is a step in the right direction. So, while the Tories continue to play party politics, animals in Britain will continue to suffer nightmarish conditions in their last few days and hours of being alive.
Conclusion
Brexit has so far been a bitter disappointment for animal justice, characterised by failures and false promises. The positive, tangible results that were cited in support of the referendum are elusive almost six years later, and while new animal-minded legislation and committees are welcome, it seems likely they will only continue to pay lip service instead of enacting the structural change that we - and the animals - so desperately need. Take foie gras, for instance. Whilst the barbaric practice of force-feeding ducks and geese was banned from being physically carried out on UK soil in 2006, it can continue to be imported and consumed in the UK until this day.
In many ways, the foie gras issue is symbolic of the Conservative government’s position on animal justice issues in general - merely hoping to tick a box, or make it someone else’s problem. But the animals deserve better. Though many of us may not have wanted Brexit, there are still opportunities to demand change and ensure that Britain may one day fully live up to its reputation as world-leaders in animal welfare, the epitome being a society in which animals are entitled to the most basic right: to live.
Devon Docherty is a Surge Media intern and Master’s student in Human-Animal Interactions, working towards improving the lives of animals and humanity’s connection to them. Interested in psychology, rewilding and increasing the animal rights perspective in academia. Find Devon on LinkedIn.
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