Animal Welfare will be enhanced in the UK by Brexit-by Andrew Rosindell MP.

Former Shadow Minister for Animal Welfare and Animal Campaigner Andrew Rosindell MP today writes in the Havering Daily:

Much is made of the obvious dividends of BREXIT – gaining control of our money, borders and laws. Sovereignty itself makes this great national project a worthy endeavour, but just as the British people are passionate about the sovereignty of our nation, we are also passionate animal lovers.

So leaving the European Union allows us to turn our passion for animals into a world-leading animal welfare policy agenda.

Brussels simply can’t get regulations right. While on innovation and technology, their regulations attempt to stifle the entrepreneurial nature of our economy, on animal welfare their regulations simply don’t go far enough.  Also, because we have been part of the Single Market, we have been bound by this inadequate system.

There are so many areas that we can now move forward on with regards to animal welfare, bringing government policy in line with the views of the British public and shining a light on just how far behind the E.U. is on this issue. 

For example, the E.U. currently does not ban the live exports of animals. As a result, thousands of animals – cattle and livestock – are sent overseas, travelling in often horrendous conditions, for slaughter. These animals can travel for hundreds of miles, as far as North Africa.  As a member of the European Union, we were unable to bring an end to this barbaric practice.

Nor does the E.U. ban the imports of trophy hunting, a truly monstrous practice which has caused so much harm to some of the world’s most vulnerable species.

I was proud to see such a firm commitment to improving animal welfare in the 2019 Conservative Manifesto.  Our future relationship with the E.U. will allow us to raise standards in animal welfare. This means tougher sentences for animal cruelty; a crackdown on illegal smuggling of dogs and puppies; an aggressive ivory ban, a ban on keeping primates as pets, as well as the ban on live exports and imports of trophy hunting.

So much of this we could not do while shackled to the European Union.

I am excited for the day, soon to come, that the Brussels bureaucrats and busybodies will look on our animal welfare laws with envy… and wonder why they are so very far behind.