‘This is not a food safety issue, it’s an animal welfare issue’, charity says

America’s agriculture secretary has urged Britain to move past “the political science of fear” over products like chlorine-washed chicken, as an animal welfare group warned a Brexit trade deal with the US could see eggs from battery hens return to UK supermarkets.

US politicians have long maintained Britain should welcome a deal that could see the market flooded with cheaper produce – including controversial products like chlorinated chicken and hormone-loaded beef.

Now the Trump administration’s top official for farming has said it is time for decisions to be made based on “sound science” not “the political science of fear”.

While insisting that his nation will not force Europe to lower its food standards, Sonny Perdue, the secretary for agriculture, said: “Both the EU, the UK and the United States benefit when we have free and reciprocal trade, and that’s really what our objective is – is to come to a conclusion where we can accept one anothers’ products freely based on sound scientific standards rather than inordinate fears.