Is Britain’s ban on foie gras imports the bright side of Brexit or more hypocrisy?
Make no mistake, foie gras is barbaric and like any food where animals are exploited, should not be on our menus. The news that the UK is moving closer to a ban on its import, bolstering the ban on its domestic production, is wonderful, but it does somewhat highlight certain hypocrisies.
Foie gras, that delicacy of horrors, made from the engorged livers of force-fed ducks or geese. It is a huge animal welfare concern and its production has been banned in the UK since 2006 on the grounds that it causes “an animal to suffer unnecessarily” thereby making its production a criminal offence. While single-issue welfare causes always sidestep the deeper issue - that being the necessity to abolish all animal exploitation regardless of how they are treated - no one would deny that a ban is necessary.
Unfortunately, foie gras has remained on the menus of posh British restaurants due to loopholes that allow its import, the result of contradictory legislation from the European Union. But of course, the bright side of Brexit means a removal of the influence of the EU on UK laws concerning trade, and so the Conservatives and Brexiteers are chalking this one up as a win.
A post out today on the Veganuary Instagram sums up the news:
“With Brexit leaving the Government free to control UK imports, Britain is set to ban foie gras completely. British farmers are already banned from producing the expensive pâté, which is made by force-feeding ducks or geese until their liver swells to ten times the normal volume. But shops and restaurants can currently continue to import it under rules still in force from the UK's membership of the EU.
“However, Ministers are now poised to take advantage of Brexit by blocking imports. Sources said this week that Lord Goldsmith, the Animal Welfare Minister, is determined to implement the ban 'in the next few months'.”
Lord Goldsmith has campaigned against foie gras for many years, in all fairness, lobbying Fortnum & Mason in 2013 to remove it from their shelves and congratulating them by saying: “Foie gras is unbearably barbaric. It’s hard to imagine anyone could watch the process and still enjoy eating it.”
Regarding the blocking of imports of foie gras, Goldsmith had alluded to such a move, saying that a separate ban on live animal imports from mainland Europe was “just one of many animal welfare Brexit bonuses to come”.
Politically, it is a happy alignment of Brexiteering and animal concerns for the Conservative government, with Boris Johnson famously having won his premiership on promises of halcyon days following our exit from the EU while simultaneously fuelling fears that voters hold about anything foreign. However, some restaurateurs are predictably unhappy yet actually raise a valid point about society’s hypocrisy.
Speaking to the Evening Standard, Victor Garvey, chef-patron of Michelin-starred Sola in Soho, said: “I think it’s absolutely insane that we are talking about banning foie gras and not battery chicken. This isn’t about cruelty, it’s about f***ing the rich. You want to ban cruelty? Do it full stop. Don’t just ban something because it’s expensive and foreign.”
“You want to ban cruelty? Do it full stop. Don’t just ban something because it’s expensive and foreign.”
Strangely, Garvey echoes what abolitionist vegans often say - why celebrate this when we also turn a blind eye to what happens to chickens, or dairy mothers and their calves, or pigs in farrowing crates.
Quoted in the I, Richard Corrigan of Daffodil Mulligan, said: “What I find contradictory is people are willing to eat factory-farmed meat but then target this. It’s a headline grabber for me and it’s absolutely ridiculous. A lot of people’s livelihoods depend on foie gras. People will bring it back in suitcases if it’s banned anyway. There’ll be a black market. I come from a farming background and we had geese. Look at a goose. You’re not going to have an intellectual conversation with a f***ing goose. I mean come on. Get real everyone.”
There’s a lot to unpack from Corrigan’s comment that doesn’t bear thinking about, like the callous disregard for a goose’s sentience and his valuing of a goose’s right to live based on their intelligence - and we all know why that is problematic - but he makes a good point about it being contradictory, and that it will likely continue as a black market product.
Celebrating a ban on foie gras imports when you are not vegan and support other forms of animal use - free-range, organic or otherwise - is quite simply hypocritical. But by celebrating it, you clearly demonstrate compassion for animals - extend that compassion to its fullest and most logical conclusion by saying no to all animal products.
Andrew Gough is Media and Investigations Manager at Surge.
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