Following on from yesterday’s Booker column about Bowland Dairy Products James of England in comments gave us the link to the Scottish version of the legislation.
As David Gillies noted, this is essentially an Act of Attainder. The original EU legislation is here.
Member States shall prohibit the placing on the market of all curd cheese manufactured by Bowland Dairy Products Limited approved under the number UK PE 23 and located at Fulshaw Hoad Farm, Barrowford, Lancashire BB9 6RA and shall trace, detain and dispose of all remaining quantities of curd cheese of that origin.
Running through the whole document is the argument that this is all about trace antibiotics in milk. They are not saying that there is in fact such: rather, they are saying that they have tested insufficiently. The claim is, so far as I understand it, that simple testing is done in the milk distribution system, to see whether there are any antibiotics in it. If that first simple test shows that there is or might be then it sometimes went to Bowland. They should have then tested to find out exactly what level there was, but didn’t. The UK authorities were happy with what Bowland was doing.
That’s what the Commission is claiming, anyway.
Here is an interesting Parliamentary debate on the subject, Gwynneth Dunwoody leading the charge (Bowland is in her constituency I think). Quite the most important part is this:
The
Court agreed. It was
illegal.
That is, that the Court of First Instance found that the Commission’s actions were illegal. But still they proceeded and issued the diktat closing Bowland down. From the Dairy Reporter about that judgement:
Lack of access to the most recent inspection evidence left the FSA unable to take part in this week’s vote to ban Bowland’s curd cheese across the EU.
Follow-up inspections two weeks ago
showed little improvement, the Commission said, pointing the finger at
UK authorities for failing to act.
The accusations concerning the contaminated milk have rattled the FSA. “They
still haven’t shared that report with us, we don’t know what the full
claims are. From our own investigation, we haven’t found anything,” said an agency spokesperson to DairyReporter.com.
“We can’t just close something down because the Commission
tells us to. Until we have the evidence, legally we can’t act. We have
been asking for the evidence.”
The European bureaucrats would not share the results of the second tests with the UK bureaucrats. Seriously, just didn’t tell them.
The Lancashire-based firm recently won a case against the
Commission in the European Court of First Instance over the issue of
antibiotics residues in its milk. The court ordered the Commission on
12 September to withdraw a food alert warning that Bowland produce was
unsafe.
The FSA said it had taken several
corrective measures against Bowland since the original Commission
inspection in June, but still disagreed with the Commission’s
interpretation of test results for antibiotics in Bowland’s milk.
“There are genuine differences of views on the science
behind the testing for antibiotics in milk and these have not yet been
resolved.”
Bowland was left fuming by the Commission’s decision Friday.
The court said that not only were the Commission’s actions illegal they had to withdraw the food alert. The Commissions reaction? That new law which every single one of the 25 countries of the EU MUST pass, deliberately singling out Bowland as a company that no one can deal with. Bankrupt them, make the problem, the cock up, go away.
BTW, as far as I can tell (and I’m not by any means an expert in searching for these things) the judgement has been removed from the website. It’s T 212/06 and should be here:
| T-212/06 | Removed from the register on 29/11/2006, Bowland Dairy Products / Commission |
Nice, eh? We can’t go back and loook up what the court said.
So, to recap. The EU bureaucrats (FVO) are arguing with the UK bureaucrats (FSO) about exactly how the second set of testing for antibiotic residues in raw milk ought to be conducted. Bowland Dairy Products is somewhere in the middle of all this. They’re obeying the law as the FSO both understands and imposes it. So they’re obeying the law of the land. The FVO disagrees and gets a blanket banning order on the company’s products.
Bowland argues this case in the Court of First Instance who agree that the Commission has acted illegally and that they must withdraw said blanket ban. On a retest of the plant, the FVO did not (whether from malice or incompetence) share the results with the FSO meaning that the legal authority in the UK had no way of taking part in the subsquent discussion over whether the Commission should continue with its illegal activity.
Which they did, passing a law, binding upon every single one of us 450 million EU citizens, making it a jailable offense to place upon the market, or even prepare to place upon the market, production from Bowlands Dairy Products.
So, in conclusion, who is running this country? Us or them? Clearly, them. While they are doing so, are they obeying the rule of law? Are they doing things by the book, as must be done in any approximation of a free and liberal society? No, they aren’t, they are deliberately flouting direct court orders restraining their actions.
As David Gillies said:
That is, to all intents and purposes, a Bill of Attainder. Merely
leaving the EU is insufficient. These people need killing. Seriously.
The reason we chopped Charles I’s head off was his riding roughshod
over Parliament.
It would appear that the English Civil War is entering its third phase. Who rules? The Monarch or the people? The State or the people? First time round we said the people in the form of their elected representatives. Second time around the Americans made the same decision (note that the Commission’s act, being one of Attainder, would be illegal under the US Constitution). Now it appears that we are being asked again. Who rules? Us or them?
The answer may well turn out to be tumbrils and gibbets outside the Berlaymont.
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