Ryedale | Archive | 2003 | August | 06
From the Gazette & Herald, first published Wednesday 6th Aug 2003.
A USEFUL by-product of the debate over whether it should be legal to plant GM crops in Britain is that it has helped to bring home to a few more folk the realisation that the British Government no longer has the power to decide such things, never mind Ryedale District Council!
GM campaigners can lobby environment secretary Mrs Beckett and her fellow ministers all they like over whether the English countryside should be covered in GM crops, but is a waste of breath.
As minister Michael Meacher recently admitted, the "competence" to decide GM policy was handed over to Brussels ten years ago and there is no longer anything he and his colleagues can do about it.
It seems strangely difficult for people to take on board that Britain's right to decide agricultural policy has been handed over lock, stock and barrel to Brussels.
Updated: 11:45 Wednesday, August 06, 2003
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