by Rab Bruce’s Spider

Mastodon: @RabBrucesSpider1@Mastodon.Scot

X / Twitter: @RabBrucesSpider

So all meat and dairy products produced and sold within the UK will now bear a label saying "Not for EU". This is part of the latest post-Brexit deal which has been set up to appease the hardline DUP and persuade them to rejoin the Stormont power-sharing Government in Northern Ireland. At this stage, it is not clear whether other goods produced in the UK will need to bear a similar label, but that would seem to be the next logical conclusion given that the UK is determined to lower its standards on just about everything. This world-beating approach won’t be welcome in the EU, so expect to see more and more of these labels proliferate. I dare say they will be emblazoned with the Union Flag just to reinforce the point that those damned foreigners can’t use our stuff because we’re British. Rule Britannia and all that.

But what are the majority of the non-Northern Irish population going to make of this? Considering how ill-informed the UK media keeps most people, how will they react when they see their supermarket food labelled this way? I doubt very much that the majority will simply nod and say, "That’s the appeasement price demanded by the DUP".

Some will no doubt smile and convince themselves that their food is labelled that way to prove how world-beating the UK is, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the reaction of most folk will be to ask, "Why can’t it be sold in the EU? What is wrong with it?". Perhaps some of them might eventually start to realise just what they have lost thanks to Brexit.

After a while, of course, everyone will get used to this, but one thing we can be sure of is that Scottish produce, famed the world over, will be subsumed into this new UK packaging, with all signs of Saltires vanishing. That process has been under way for some time, but just watch it accelerate. We are British, whether we like it or not, and even our food packaging will reinforce that message. The Union Flag will be everywhere, and there is not a thing we can do about it. Well, there is one thing, but we need some political leadership to get us there.