Corbyn forced to back the beef eaters
Jeremy Corbyn said he could “tolerate” meat-eaters as he rejected a call by his shadow environment secretary for an anti-smoking style campaign to cut meat consumption. The vegetarian Labour leader’s intervention came after it emerged that Kerry McCarthy, a vegan, had compared eating meat to smoking. Ms McCarthy’s comments, which were made before she took up the role, were described as “ludicrous” by a Tory MP.
JEREMY CORBYN has said he can “tolerate” people eating meat despite being a vegetarian as he dismissed a suggestion from his shadow environment minister that meat-eaters be treated like smokers.
Mr Corbyn said people should “carry on eating meat” if they wished after Kerry McCarthy, a staunch vegan, proposed an anti-smoking-style campaign to decrease meat consumption.
Her comments, which were made before she took up the role, had trig- gered a backlash from the farming community and politicians.
Owen Paterson, a former Tory environment secretary, said that the idea of campaigning to stop people eating meat was “completely ludicrous” and would undermine the countryside.
The National Farmers Union (NFU) said it wanted to meet Ms McCarthy at the “earliest opportunity” to understand Labour’s stance towards the community.
Ms McCarthy told Viva! life, a magazine for vegans, earlier this year: “I really believe that meat should be treated in exactly the same way as tobacco, with public campaigns to stop people eating it.
“Progress on animal welfare is being made at EU level ... but in the end it comes down to not eating meat or dairy. The constant challenging of the environmental impact of livestock farming is making me more and more militant.” Asked about the comments by ITV
News yesterday, Mr Corbyn said he had not eaten meat “for a very, very long time”, but added: “I think meat-eaters, if they wish to carry on eating meat, that’s up to them to do so.
“I don’t stop people eating meat, indeed many people that I know very well eat meat often in front of me and I tolerate it with the normal decency, courtesy and respect that you would expect from me.”
It is the latest example of contradicting positions within the shadow cabinet to have emerged in recent days after disagreements on scrapping Trident nuclear weapons, leaving Nato and bombing Isil in Syria. Mr Corbyn and his aides have played down the significance of differences, saying he backs a democratic style of policymaking.
Mr Paterson said: “Equating meat, which brings protein, pleasure and prosperity to consumers to tobacco, which does lead to health problems, is completely ludicrous.”
Andrew Clark, director of policy at the NFU, said it and farmers “are keen to discuss and debate the Labour party’s approach to achieving a profitable and productive future for farming”.
Ms McCarthy yesterday defended her comments. “I am not trying to tell people what they should or shouldn’t eat. But they should know what the risks are without them being swept under the carpet,” she told the Bristol Post. “There are a lot of sensible scientists and experts out there that say there are risks associated with meat, particularly processed, and that is something that shouldn’t be ignored.”
Jeremy Corbyn has pulled out of a series of Left-wing events at the party’s annual conference, which starts this weekend in Brighton. He was due to speak at a Sinn Fein meeting as well as events on the Good Friday agreement, austerity, high pay and Trident.