The far reaching consequences of the vote to leave the European Union last week are only just beginning to be understood for people, but what about the animals we share this country with?
All animals, particularly farm, laboratory and wild animals, are affected by EU legislation in a myriad of ways. Sadly, the referendum debate for the most part failed to explore this. The discussion that did take place understandably focused on farm animals. The vast majority of farm animal welfare legislation originates in EU law. This includes, for example, standards on how animals are slaughtered and transported, and the bans on barren cages for battery hens and sow stalls, which prevent female breeding pigs from moving for most of their lives.
Wild animals also benefit from EU laws, particularly the Birds and Habitats Directives, which protect certain species from being captured and killed, and the Zoos Directive, which requires zoos to be licensed and inspected. Finally, there is a large body of EU law on the welfare of lab animals which establishes a framework to replace, reduce and refine the use of animals used for scientific purposes. The EU also banned animal testing for cosmetic products and ingredients.
This adds up to an extensive legislative framework that benefits the lives of hundreds of millions of animals in the UK and across the EU. The RSPCA estimates that about 80% of animal welfare legislation comes from the EU. If the UK were to leave the EU and the common market then it would no longer need to abide by these rules. So if the UK and Scotland does leave the EU, the question becomes would these laws be discarded, retained or improved? Will we be a leader or a laggard?
Some animal welfare campaigners, particularly those who have long campaigned for an EU-wide ban on live exports, see Brexit as an opportunity for the UK to go further than the EU. The UK and the devolved countries will no longer be held back – or be able to hide behind – other countries.
OneKind will certainly be calling for this opportunity to be exploited, but I’ve seen little to justify much optimism. I hope to be proved wrong, but my guess is that these laws will be seen by some as part of the ‘red tape’ that is holding back growth. If the UK were to be operating outside of EU farm welfare legislation, for example, it will be a constant battle to dispel this myth and to prevent standards being lowered in the name of securing a competitive advantage.
Let’s face it. How many times have you heard the refusal to raise welfare standards on the grounds that our farmers will be undercut by foreign producers with no regard for animals? EU collaboration provided a way round this, even if the leadership wasn’t there on issues like live exports.
The flipside of the coin is that in times of great change, there is opportunity, particularly when the change forces us to reflect and revisit what’s most important to us.
In May 1945, as the Second World War was finally coming to a close, the Government published a White Paper on National Parks that led to their creation in England and Wales. From a purely pragmatic point of view, it’s hard to understand why this was so high on the agenda in post-war Britain. But it reflected a national desire to safeguard the country’s most valuable assets for the future, to protect these landscapes that made the country great. We’ve been feeling the benefits of this visionary leadership ever since.
I don’t for a moment compare today’s situation to 1945. But I do hope that the shock and national debate that we are now having also forces us to recognise what we value most. Improving animal welfare and ending cruelty has huge popular support but too often struggles to get noticed by politicians. Perhaps this is our opportunity to change this. Over the coming months and years, we must redouble our efforts to remind politicians how much we value the animals we share this country with, and make the case for Scotland to recognise animals as sentient beings with rights to good lives, regardless of the route Scotland takes in the future.