Among them are those who think that banning all imports of EU 'beef' would be a proportionate response to the horse meat scandal.
The other big news story is the horse meat scandal, which has exposed the failures of the EU single market and its regulation procedures. Typically the European Union ties our hands when we try to respond to the crisis. The UK cannot introduce a temporary ban on foreign [meat] under trade rules (even though the French banned imports of British beef and cattle during the BSE crisis in 1990 and Italy banned the import of French beef in November 2000). We however are forced to negotiate with un-elected commissioners before we can even introduce random testing. The EU has helped to cause this problem and is now preventing us from fixing it effectively ourselves. Now they are using this exercise to grab more power from member states
In this, as in most things in life, the free market is more than capable of handling the situation. Those who want British beef can easily choose it over the imported variety.
It is of course typical that British officials stick to the rules, while the French and Italians happily take any excuse to favour their domestic producers. It doesn't follow that we should stoop to their level.
It is of course absurd (if true) that discussions with EU officials are required "about the extent to which this country could randomly test meat being imported from the continent" (as the linked Spectator article claims).
And it is of course predictable that the Eurocrats would see in this 'crisis' an opportunity to expand their powers.
There is no question that we need to restore our sovereignty, but it's clear that the fight for a smaller, less invasive state will continue for a long time after we Get Britain Out.
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