Johnson’s dad slates ‘cuckoo’ EU plans
BORIS Johnson’s dad has said people like his son are living in “cloud cuckoo land” if he thinks that the EU will give Britain a free trade deal without signing up to strict “level playing field” rules.
Stanley Johnson said the Government would be forced to back down on its insistence that it should set its own farming standards if it wanted an agreement with Brussels.
The level playing field would be an agreement where the UK and EU agree to certain standards and rules in order to stop one undercutting the other. This has been one of Michel Barnier’s main demands from the Brexit talks but has been repeatedly rejected by Downing Street.
Animal rights and food standards activists have warned Britain diverging from the UK will see standards drop so we can strike trade deals with the USA and others.
Johnson Snr, 79, an animal right activists, said the UK must strike a deal with the EU to protect animal welfare standards. Speaking to the Sustainable Food Trust, he said: “Anybody who thinks, ‘Oh well, we have a free trade agreement with the EU but we don’t have to bother about harmonisation’ is in cloud cuckoo land.
He said: “Why on earth should anybody give us a free trade agreement if we’re not going to apply the same sort of standards to our production processes as our competitors are? I cannot believe that in the long run, they will allow us a free trade agreement if we are seen to be profiting from our legally independent status to have less than optimal animal welfare standards and environmental standards.”
Boris Johnson’s trade deal strategy is based around not having to harmonise with EU rules and not following the European Court of Justice.