The bizarre EU diktats we'll be stuck with after Kemi Badenoch U-turn

From ‘nuts may contain nuts’ to the ban on butchers giving dogs a bone… These are the bizarre EU diktats we’ll be stuck with after Kemi Badenoch’s U-turn that was branded as ‘absurd’

• Kemi Badenoch announced last week plans to scrap EU rules were scaled back 
• It is claimed packets of nuts will now warn that the bag may ‘contain nuts’ 
• Butchers may also be banned from giving away bones and raw meat for dogs  

The row over the watering down of the Government’s pledge to scrap EU laws deepened last night amid claims that having warnings on packets of nuts saying ‘contains nuts’ and banning butchers from giving a dog a bone were among the ‘daft rules’ that will survive.

And Brexiteer Tories say even a law allegedly derived from Nazi Germany ‘forest race laws’ and relating to the planting of oak trees has had a stay of execution.

Last night, Conservative MP Sir John Redwood said: ‘It’s absurd that the Government cannot even get rid of the more ridiculous rules of the EU from bent bananas to banning butchers’ bones for dogs, let alone giving freedoms to businesses that are suffering from high and needless regulatory and tax costs from the EU.’

Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch sparked fury last week by announcing that a promised post-Brexit ‘bonfire’ of EU red tape was being scaled back. Instead, she said only a fraction of the estimated near 5,000 EU laws would be removed by the deadline.

Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch sparked fury last week by announcing that a promised post-Brexit ‘bonfire’ of EU red tape was being scaled back

Regulation (EC) 1774/2002 bans butchers in Britain from offering shoppers doggy titbits such as raw meat not safe for human consumption. It means meat suppliers will have to continue paying for bones and other parts to be incinerated or thrown away

READ MORE: Lindsay Hoyle fumes at Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch as Commons Speaker takes her to task for failing to announce EU laws U-turn to MPs and asks: ‘Who do you think you are speaking to?!’

However, prominent Brexiteers insisted that the Retained EU Law Bill would remove only 600 regulations by the end of the year – about one in eight of the total.

The climbdown left leading members of the party’s European Research Group incandescent, not least because Rishi Sunak’s pitch for the party leadership last summer included a promise to review or repeal over 2,000 EU rules.

Last night, Tory Brexiteers listed several of the ‘daft’ Brussels laws that would now live on.

That included Regulation (EC) 1774/2002, which bans butchers in Britain from offering shoppers doggy titbits such as raw meat not safe for human consumption. 

It means meat suppliers will have to continue paying for bones and other parts to be incinerated or thrown away rather than hand them free to customers for their pets.

Another legislation survivor, say Brexiteers, is Regulation (EC) 1924/2006, which forbids companies from claiming that water can prevent dehydration. 

Packets of nuts must continue to say ‘contains nuts’, while fish packaging says ‘contains fish’, because of Regulation (EU) 1169/2011.

An EU regulation will also be put in place covering how bendy bananas can get

And as well as an EU regulation covering how bendy bananas can get, Council Regulation (EC) 2200/96 will continue to stipulate that only leeks with a white end at least 30 per cent of its length can be sold in supermarkets.

A directive said to have been based on a 1930s Nazi law to preserve the purity of German forests will apparently live on to govern which acorns can be planted. The directive effectively banned the UK from planting any English oak trees in Northern Ireland.

But at yesterday’s Conservative Democratic Organisation event in Bournemouth, arch-Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg sparked laughter by highlighting one regulation that is for the chop – the one that governs the exporting of carnations from Japan to the Netherlands.

A government source said the current EU law removal plans were ‘not the limit of our ambition. We will continue to overhaul more nonsensical EU laws to ensure they work best for Britain, seizing the benefits of Brexit while enhancing our world-leading environmental standards.’

Source: Read Full Article