cross-posted from : https://news.abolish.capital/post/16129

The US is once again trying to gets its chlorinated fowl into UK markets, a strategy linked to their push for chlorinated chicken exports. Reportedly, it’s happening because of the collapse of an equally bad (if not worse) AI tech deal:

This confirms it.

The US is using the collapsed tech/AI deal to force Britain to accept chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef.

Food standards are the leverage point and the red line.

You can’t align with US tech power and stay aligned with Europe.… pic.twitter.com/Ru37rLPH80

— Liz Webster (@LizWebsterSBF) December 29, 2025

‘Farm to fork’

As Farming UKhave reported, British regulators are against chlorinated chicken because it’s at odds with the UK’s ‘farm to fork’ ethos. The UK is supposed to prioritise hygiene and welfare standards, the Americans, meanwhile, make up for laxer standards with an end-of-process chlorine rinse.

As we’ve reported before, the UK is far from perfect when it comes to welfare standards. However, accepting chlorinated chicken would be a step back; it means there’s work to be done getting our own house in order.

This is all happening now because the US-UK technology deal has faltered. In part, it’s due to the Americans’ position that the UK’s Online Safety Act will have a detrimental impact on their tech sector. We have voiced our own criticisms of the Online Safety Act, with Steve Topple writing in July this year:

When both the left and the right are united in their disdain for a piece of legislation, you know there must be something up. So, enter the Online Safety Act: a law so riddled with corruption, incompetence, and authoritarianism that you’d be forgiven for agreeing with Nigel Farage. But exactly what are the problems with this Tory written, Labour-allowed piece of legislation?

He added:

While the Online Safety Act was sold as a child‑safety milestone, critics argue it’s structurally incapable of delivering that outcome. Campaigners from organisations including Barnardo’s, the Molly Rose Foundation and CARE UK warn that loopholes around algorithmic recommendations, autoplay, live‑streaming, and age verification mean the legislation “will not bring about the changes that children need and deserve”. Rather than curtail harmful exposure, the law risks becoming symbolic rather than effective.

Since enforcement began on 25 July, age verification—via ID scans, facial estimation, or mobile verification—has triggered over five million age checks per day, mostly on porn sites. But this in turn has driven a rapid surge in VPN downloads as users seek to bypass access controls, shifting minors toward less‑regulated parts of the internet and raising their exposure to greater harms rather than reducing it.

Laws like the Online Safety Act ultimately benefit tech giants, but they also introduce additional layers of oversight. The tech overlords would prefer to get all of the benefits with none of the downsides, which is why they’ve worked so hard to ingratiate themselves with the Trump administration.

US President Donald Trump invited the world’s richest billionaire oligarchs to sit at the center of his inauguration.

Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, & Google CEO Sundar Pichai symbolically sat with Trump’s cabinet picks.

A dozen billionaires will be in the Trump admin. pic.twitter.com/9CHzpmFAEU

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) January 20, 2025

Given that US tech oligarchs have attained ungodly levels of power since 2020, we shouldn’t want the UK to be more enmeshed with them, especially on this chlorinated chicken issue. Recent events have demonstrated the power that they have and why they choose to wield it:

Tech oligarchs are now openly conspiring against @RoKhanna because he dared to back a modest wealth tax. https://t.co/pCh170Oa3v

— Krystal Ball (@krystalball) December 28, 2025

Farmers rights

As Farming UKfurther note:

For British farmers, the stakes extend beyond poultry. The US is also pushing for greater access for hormone-treated beef, another area where UK standards are stricter than those in America.

Farming unions have warned that accepting such imports would weaken consumer trust in British food and risk eroding the premium attached to UK produce at home and abroad. Sir Keir has previously treated food standards as a red line, rebuffing Mr Trump’s demands to allow chlorinated chicken in exchange for lower tariffs.

Since Labour returned to power, right-wing politicians have been making a big show of supporting farmers and opposing chlorinated chicken. This is ironic given that they didn’t seem to give a shit when the Tories were in power. As journalist Jon Burke recently highlighted, other agriculture deals have gone incredibly poorly for us.

I see the @Telegraph is now reporting on the Australian trade deal disaster for which it campaigned.

Nobody, and I mean *nobody*, has betrayed this country like the libertarian wreckers who lied to the public about ‘Brexit benefits’. pic.twitter.com/fps85uTWaE

— Jon Burke is mainly posting on Bluesky (@jonburkeUK) December 27, 2025

The Australian trade deal that @trussliz struck – despite extensive warnings from civil servants – is turning out to be a disaster for British farmers, you say?

If only we could have foretold this in some way… https://t.co/aTlh0B3Bwv pic.twitter.com/0JJN5VQYCU

— Jon Burke is mainly posting on Bluesky (@jonburkeUK) December 27, 2025

The White House stated that our refusal to accept chlorinated chicken and hormone-pumped beef is an obstacle to them removing the tariffs that Trump introduced earlier this year. As Farming UK noted:

Any decision to relax those rules would carry significant political and economic consequences. Farming leaders argue it would not only threaten livelihoods in the poultry and beef sectors but also set a precedent for weakening food standards more broadly, potentially reshaping the future of British agriculture in trade negotiations yet to come.

Chicken

Starmer clearly wants to give the impression that he’s achieved something. As such, there’s a worry that he’ll accept whatever deal is on the table — possibly even one involving chlorinated chicken — so that he can act like he got a win. This is why it’s important to be clear that no one will accept capitulation to Trump as a victory.

Featured image via BBC

By Willem Moore

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