'Trade campaigners have welcomed the release of leaked papers detailing trade talks between the Trump administration and British government officials, which show the US government pushing Britain into as hard a Brexit as possible because they see this as the best way of benefitting the US economy. This comes at the expense of standards, protections and livelihoods in Britain.'

On Feb 28, 2019, the US Trade Representative (USTR) published the US negotiating position on a post-Brexit US–UK trade deal. USTR made clear that the UK must abandon the EU's high food safety, animal welfare, and environmental protection standards as a condition for agreeing the kind of deal many Brexiteers desire.

It is one of the starkest of all Brexit contradictions. The most strident supporters of the project want to leave the EU because it imposes demands upon the UK, but then also secure a trade deal with the US which would involve accepting a whole new set of obligations.

US ambassador to the UK, Woody Johnson, accused the EU of prioritising ‘history and tradition over innovation and science’. Perhaps, but at least we have high food standards.

Wanting to forge new trading relationships after Brexit and securing them are two very different things.

Britain should not be forced to accept lower US food standards. But this is only a small part of the harm done by globalisation. What’s wrong with chlorinated chicken? It’s not as if chlorine is absent from our lives: we drink it in our tapwater every day. Surely it’s a small price to pay for the trade deal with the US that the British government seeks?