EU Kills Bowland Dairy As UK Parliament Stands By

Booker tells how Bowland Dairy Products Limited was forced out of business when the Curd Cheese (Restriction on Placing on the Market) Regulations 2006 made it illegal for the company to trade.

The regulations specifically applied to Bowland Dairies and to no other company, and were intended to force them out of business. Section 3 says, "No person shall place on the market any curd cheese manufactured by Bowland Dairy Products Limited ...".

The regulations were made because there was no legal way of forcing Bowland to stop trading: Bowland had broken no law and were causing no harm, so there was no reason to take them to court, and no prospect of success if they had been.

Parliament did not vote on the regulations, and no one in Parliament was inclined to force a vote on the regulations. There was a short debate in the House of Lords nearly two months later, in which some Lords expressed their concern at what had happened, but that was it.

The UK Government made the regulations because the EU told it to. The EU had decided in its wisdom that Bowland's curd cheese production was unsafe and Bowland should be banned from trading: but this was in the face of findings to the contrary by the UK's Food Standards Agency after its own investigations, and despite Bowland's clear vindication in the matter by the European Court of Justice.

It shows there is nothing the UK Government is not willing to do in its abasement to the EU.

It is a case of rule by administrative fiat and the unaccountability of EU institutions.

Bowland's treatment contravenes the principle of the rule of law - where legislation is framed in terms of general principles applicable to everyone equally.

And above all, it is a clear example of Parliament's failure to uphold the liberties of the British people, and of Parliament's willingness to allow those liberties to be trampled all over. The House of Lords may briefly have mentioned Bowland, but the Curd Cheese regulations banning Bowland were raised in the Lords only on the understanding that they would not be voted on.

As I have said before on child booster seats, Parliament cannot challenge the EU on even the smallest point without challenging the very principle of EU power. But what happened to Bowland Dairies is not a small point. What on earth is it going to take to wake up the mother of Parliaments?