Kristo Muurimaa/Oikeutta eläimille

Urge the UK government to say no to a trade in cruelty!

The UK government is currently negotiating a trade agreement with the EU to improve cross-border trade in food, drink, animals and plants. We’re asking the government to secure an agreement that will protect our animal welfare standards, preserving our right to stop imports of cruel products including fur, and eggs from caged hens, and we need your voice too.

Act now to tell ministers to safeguard our animal welfare standards—and commit to a ban on fur imports and sales.

Your message

Subject*

Minister

Nick

Thomas-Symonds

UK government

Dear Emma Reynolds MP (Defra Secretary) and Nick Thomas-Symonds MP (Cabinet Secretary for EU Relations), 

 I am deeply disappointed that the government did not fully commit to a ban on fur imports and sales in its Animal Welfare Strategy. I am writing to ask you for assurance that the current UK-EU trade talks do not trade away our sovereign right to ban the import and sale of cruel products, including fur, that would be illegal to produce here.   

I understand that the current discussions with the EU focus on the trade in “agri-foods”. Fur does not fit within that definition, so I would like you to assure me that this deal will not do anything to preserve and prolong the UK’s cruel fur trade.  

The Labour government of 2003 led the world in banning fur farming. It was rightly lauded for doing so and 23 other countries have since followed suit, including 18 EU Member States. But a handful of EU countries, including Finland, still keep animals like foxes, raccoon dogs and mink in tiny barren cages for their whole lives just to kill them for their fur. Having banned fur farming for being too cruel, the UK must stop outsourcing the same suffering overseas.

I would also like your assurance that the UK negotiators will ‘secure specific exemptions from dynamic alignment with the EU on animal welfare standards’, as recommended by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, and supported by Humane World for Animals and many other animal welfare and farming organisations. This will preserve our right to stop imports of products, like eggs from caged hens, that would be illegal to produce here.  

If a product is too cruel to farm here, it’s too cruel to sell here. The UK should not trade in double standards.   

Polling by Humane World for Animals shows that over three-quarters (77%) of UK voters believe that when a type of farming is banned in the UK for being too cruel, we should also ban imports of products produced the same way overseas.

As you are representing a nation of animal lovers, I implore you to ensure our hard-won animal welfare standards are not undermined or traded away.   

Please protect our animal welfare standards, and please support the bill for a Fur-Free Britain.

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