The logic behind Labour’s foie gras ban

It was never very impressed by the opportunity to strike trade deals across the fast-growing Pacific. It didn’t much like the idea of deregulating the tech industry. Nor did it think much of diverging on financial standards to re-boot the City. The Labour party may have accepted our departure from the European Union, but it never found any ‘Brexit freedoms’ it actually liked. Until today that is. The party has just worked out we can be kinder to geese – and, slightly surprisingly, in doing so, it may have just closed the door on the UK ever rejoining the EU. 

As it prepares for government, the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has been getting rid of policy commitments as fast as he possibly can. The green energy plan has been watered down, tax rises have been ruled out, and worker’s rights have been kicked into touch. But in case anyone thought its radicalism was dead, there is this: Labour has now pledged to ban the sale of foie gras, on the perfectly reasonable grounds that the production of the pâté is cruel to the animals involved.