Environment Secretary Dame Angela Eagle ridiculed reports suggesting the crisp flavour could fall foul of planned EU laws banning the use of ‘meaty’ terms to describe vegetarian food.
A Cabinet minister told her interviewer to “get a life” when asked about claims that smoky bacon crisps could be banned under a new deal with the EU.
Environment Secretary Dame Angela Eagle ridiculed reports suggesting the crisp flavour could fall foul of planned EU laws banning the use of “meaty” terms to describe vegetarian food.
Dame Angela compared the claim to the Brexit debate about bendy bananas, which was a false claim from leavers during the 2016 referendum.
Asked whether closer alignment with the bloc could lead to the banning of bacon crisps’ labelling, Dame Angela told Times Radio host Stig Abell: “Oh, Stig. I mean, really, we’ve had EU straight bananas, and now we’re talking about banning smoky bacon crisps, I think you should get a life. This is actually about ensuring that we can do business with our closest neighbours.
“We’ve got huge potential growth in our economy if we allow our farmers and food producers to be able to export into Europe again without all the huge uncertainty and the costs and frictions that Brexit brought us.
“This will be a deal that improves that situation and it will enable this economy to grow and for us to have higher levels of prosperity than we’ve had before.
“If you want to obsess about smoky bacon crisps, I suppose that’s your choice.”
The PM Andy Burnham has struck three agreements with Brussels on food and farming, alongside a deal on emissions trading and a youth mobility scheme.
He is expected to sign the deal at the EU-UK summit on November 20, as he seeks closer alignment with the bloc.
Pressed on why the Government had rejected farmers’ calls for a 24-month transition period to prepare for any changes from the agreement, she said ministers were listening closely to their concerns.
She told the BBC’s Today programme: “The transition is a balance between getting and accessing those benefits as quickly as possible, but dealing with some of the transitional issues that you have to deal with whenever you’re moving from one system to another.”
Mr Burnham has said that the deals to be agreed at the UK-EU summit could raise GDP by 0.4% – up from the previous estimate of 0.3%.