Labour government looks to sacrifice fur-bearers & ducks and geese raised for foie gras to regain favored access to European Union markets
LONDON, U.K.; NEW YORK, N.Y.––Ten years after Brexit, the 2016 exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union, at least some of the worst predicted for animal welfare seems to be happening.
“The U.K. government is to break a manifesto commitment to ban foie gras imports, and has declined to stop fur imports,” reported Helena Horton for The Guardian on April 5, 2026, “after the European Union made these red lines in its discussions for a trade deal.
“Sources close to the discussions between the United Kingdom and the European Union,” Horton explained, “said the U.K. was ready to drop the foie gras import ban, as there were other sticking points of higher priority.
Left foie gras ban out of animal welfare plan
The Labour Party government “left a foie gras ban out of its recently launched animal welfare plan,” Horton noted.
“It also released its response to a consultation on a fur ban at the end of last month. Despite 97% of respondents saying it was wrong for animals to be killed for the sake of their fur,” Horton detailed, “and that the vast majority of those surveyed wanted a ban, ministers did not commit to import restrictions, and are instead setting up a working group to look into the fur industry.
“Fur farming has been banned [in the United Kingdom since 2000,” Horton recounted, “and the production of foie gras in the U.K. has been outlawed since 2006.
“However, both are still imported, mostly from European Union countries, and sold in shops and restaurants in the U.K.” Horton observed.
Missed chance to ban fur & foie gras imports
“European Union member states are not allowed to ban one another’s products on animal welfare grounds,” Horton elaborated. “Since the United Kingdom left the European Union, it has had the freedom to restrict imports of European Union products, but so far has not done so.
“Now, under a trade agreement expected to be firmed up in the autumn,” Horton said, “the United Kingdom will once again need an exemption from European Union law to ban these products.”
Animal welfare leaders saw this coming
Many British sources in animal welfare anticipated this would happen when Brexit first came into effect, as ANIMALS 24-7 detailed at the time in a five-part series beginning with Will U.K. leaving E.U. mean leaving animal welfare behind?, progressing with specific examinations of the probable effects of Brexit on livestock exports, pet imports and traveling with dogs and cats, animal use in biomedical research and testing, and wildlife issues.
Prophesied Wim de Kok, founder of World Animal Net, now secretary-general of the World Federation for Animals, “I think Brexit will turn out to be a great loss for animal welfare in Europe. Brits have been a leading force for many years,” elaborated de Kok, originally from The Netherlands and now a longtime U.S. resident.
Assessed Janice Cox, formerly European director for the World Society for the Protection of Animals, “The United Kingdom’s positive influence on animal welfare in the European Union. will certainly be sorely missed. “But I also worry that if the U.K. suffers economic and competitive disadvantages through leaving, our own internal animal welfare standards may also suffer.”
“Bitterly disappointed”
Agreed the late Four Paws chief executive Helmut Dungler, who died in 2020, “The United Kingdom will largely lose its ability to influence animal welfare policy at the European Union level.”
Summarized Guardian reporter Horton, citing in particular David Bowles of the Royal SPCA, who was also a source for the 2016 ANIMALS 24-7 series, “Animal welfare charities say they are ‘bitterly disappointed’ that ministers are failing to use powers granted by Brexit to restrict the import of these ‘cruel’ items.”
Of the 27 European Union member nations, 14 have either banned fur farming or introduced phase-outs of the fur farming industry. Nine have banned foie gras production.
Long fight to ban foie gras
Foie gras is known to have been produced as a purported delicacy in Egypt as long as 2,400 years ago. But the production method, centering on force-feeding confined geese excessive amounts of grain through a tube to make their livers abnormally fat, was widely recognized as cruel several centuries before the existence of any organized humane movement.
Campaigns against eating, selling, and producing foie gras have been waged ever since, especially in the affluent, trendy cities where consumption has historically been highest for what has always been an expensive luxury item.
A hallmark victory came in New York City in 2019, when under pressure from Voters for Animal Rights, with the support of 81% of the electorate according to polling, the New York City Council prohibited the sale of foie gras from force-fed ducks and geese.
New York City ban upheld by appellate court
But implementing the foie gras ban, against years of litigation by foie gras sellers and producers, many of them located in the Hudson River Valley between New York City and the New York state capital in Albany, proved to be at least as difficult as passing the ban in the first place.
(See Are NYC foie gras ban & other new “pro-animal” bills all they’re quacked up to be?)
“The fight was rough,” recounted Voters for Animal Rights after the 2019 ban was upheld in mid-March 2026 by the Appellate Division of the New York state judiciary.
“Governor Kathy Hochul and the multi-million-dollar foie gras industry — which kills 300,000 ducks every year — tried to stop us in court repeatedly,” Voters for Animal Rights said in a prepared statement.
Praise for Pease
As an “intervenor-appellant and amicus curiae in the case,” Voters for Animal Rights pronounced itself “deeply grateful to our attorney, Bryan Pease, for guiding us through every legal maneuver.”
Pease is also noted for winning a recent animal advocacy lawsuit against the San Diego Humane Society.
(See Injunction vs. San Diego HS “return-to-field” cat practices made permanent/)
Pease also lost a case that sought to stop the San Diego Padres Rodeo at PetCo Park which nonetheless flushed out extensive mendacity on the part of the rodeo management.
(See San Diego Rodeo witnesses “not credible,” finds judge, but rules for the rodeo.)
“Businesses selling foie gras in New York City now face fines of up to $2,000 per violation,” Voters for Animal Rights concluded.
Favor for fur trade in Farm Bill
While the New York City foie gras ban may now be enforced, which remains to be seen, in Washington D.C., the U.S. national capital, Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy president Wayne Pacelle is worried about a clause tucked into the 2026 edition of the Farm Bill, funding the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which would help U.S. fur farmers to exploit any re-opening of the United Kingdom to fur imports.
“As if the Save Our Bacon Act isn’t bad enough,” Pacelle recently wrote, referencing language in the Farm Bill that would over-ride California and Massachusetts laws requiring that pigs and chickens be able to turn around in their enclosures, “the House Agriculture Committee chair,” Glenn “GT” Thompson, a Republican from Pennsylvania, “is also working to unwind a decades-old federal legislative prohibition on taxpayer funding for mink industry promotion — slipping this pro-factory-farming provision into the Farm bill without hearings, debate, or public scrutiny.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Thompson alleged to be a “back door man”
“This back-door maneuver would once again allow federal dollars to bankroll fashion shows in China and other foreign countries,” Pacelle said, “at a time when our federal deficit has exploded. It’s hard to imagine a more reckless use of taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars, especially because we know so much about the zoonotic disease threats posed by the domestic mink-farming industry.”
The major impetus for banning or phasing out mink farming in the 14 European Union nations that have done so was the 2020 discovery that ranched mink are a potential major vector for transmitting COVID 19 to humans.
“About 50 mink farms remain in the United States,” Pacelle continued, “with virtually no USDA surveillance of the disease threats they pose and no domestic demand for the fur stripped from the backs of the animals. Yet this provision would force American taxpayers to subsidize exports for foreign consumers while exposing our own communities to zoonotic disease spillover.”
(See Kangaroos, mink, & crocs have skin in the game; politicians do not and No Valentines for animals in GOP Farm Bill released on Friday the 13th.)
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When and where corruption, deception, and lies prevail, it is, and has always been, up to the individual, not groups, to walk the talk and refuse to abdicate his/her values, integrity, and ideology. This is the start of every movement for positive change, as it always has been.
Sharing with gratitude, sorrow, exasperation…and, as always, conviction.
Although we in this advocacy are used to bad news on a near constant basis, it is still hard to digest. B orn and raised in the United Kingdom, I had always felt that the U.K. had a ‘special relationship’ with animals, being older, wiser and more humane than the USA and its younger, more macho views and behaviors (see rodeo), but apparently, where financial exploitation at their expense is concerned, that is no longer the case.
While it is vital that the financial health of a country’s economy takes an important role, to sell one’s soul to achieve it is not supportable to those burdened with a humane conscience. It will be up to the public/the people of that nation and ours to refuse to participate and purchase those ‘animal flesh/fur ‘offerings! Once the market disappears, there will be no one to sell them to!
Polls say, the people have ‘spoken’ – let them prove it! I was never a supporter of BREXIT and this is another reason why!