All hail the small fry
WE should celebrate two triumphs for the British system this week. A regulator and a judge turned the tables on two overweening organisations. One, an American multinational, the other a powerful Government agency.
For country people, the first is especially important because so much of our economy rests on food retailing and distribution. Farmers are very dependent upon supermarkets and their relationships have often been fraught, not least because the balance of power is so unequal. However, supermarkets themselves are increasingly challenged by online businesses, which have become hugely stronger during lockdown. Amazon, in particular, is now a veritable behemoth and has grown used to getting its way without any inconvenient intervention from national authorities. It is thus seen as trading unfairly, funnelling profits through low-tax Luxembourg and avoiding regulation by the UK grocery ombudsman.
Amazon has, at least since 2018, been a big enough player in the grocery market for farmers and suppliers to be concerned about this. All its serious competitors are subject to independent jurisdiction by the ombudsman, which was set up to ensure that they don’t misuse their strength. Until now, Amazon’s lawyers have managed to argue that it should escape the system, even if companies such as Ocado and B&M are covered, just like Tesco and Asda.
Last week, that changed. Their arguments have been overruled and Mark White, the increasingly feisty grocery code adjudicator, announced that he will treat Amazon the same as all its competitors and it, too, will have to toe the line. Agromenes hopes this will also encourage the Government to make good its promise to insist that Amazon pays UK tax like everyone else. After all, it uses the roads, is protected by the police and benefits from all the other services the state provides.
The second success of the week was in the courts, where Judge Edward Bindloss delivered an excoriating demolition of the Marine Management Organisation (MMO). This is the Government’s arms-length authority that is supposed to protect the coastal environment, manage the fisheries and act as regulator for marine activity. Its public-relations material is full of fine words and aspirations about environmental protection, climate change and its national and global responsibility. Sadly, so far, its delivery hasn’t lived up to the hype.
MMO can’t take all the blame. The Government made promises to fishermen about the post-brexit world that have turned out to be undeliverable. Overfishing continues, cod stocks are in a parlous state and illegalities are widespread. Ministers are not brave enough to take on the big fishery operators.
Their multi-million pound trawlers destroy the marine environment, tear up the sea bed and fracture its ability to store carbon. This is the big business that doesn’t show itself to the public, but hides behind a front of the fishermen we do care about: blue-eyed, sou’wester-wearing young men in small boats braving the inshore waters from coastal communities.
Always concealed is the desperately damaging bottom-trawling by big boats, which is allowed even in Marine Protected Areas (MPA). It was this that Greenpeace sought to stop by dumping sharp rocks in two MPAS, which did no damage to the marine environment, but did prevent bottom-trawling.
The MMO took Greenpeace to court, where the judge said the case ‘touches on the absurd’, as the MMO and Greenpeace should be ‘allies not antagonists’ in protecting the marine environment. The case collapsed in well-deserved ridicule. A rare victory for common sense.
The case collapsed in ridicule. A rare victory for common sense
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