THE BROUHAHA OVER halal meat just keeps on popping up.

Over the past couple of years there have been the usual shockers in the papers about halal meat going into the food supply of schools, hospitals, the House of Commons, etc., without people being aware of it; and conversely Muslims being given non-halal food when they weren’t expecting it. We also had Mehdi Hasan in The New Statesman, basically saying you’re a hysterical Islamophobe if you even dare to talk about it.

The argument, however, is not going to go away. It’s big business, for a start. It’s reckoned that 25 percent of meat produced in the UK is halal. Not all of that is being eaten by the 3 percent of the population represented by Muslims, or going for export. Most supermarkets are selling halal chicken and lamb, some of which is labelled. The same applies to Nandos, Subway, KFC and Dominos. Tate & Lyle are among a number of British companies “happy” to be supplying halal products (so it’s goodbye to their golden syrup). And you can bet that joint of New Zealand lamb you bought is also halal. New Zealand is the world’s major exporter of halal lamb. I bet you didn’t know that.

It was partly in response to this situation that in 2012 Philip Davis, MP for Shipley, under the ten-minute rule attempted to introduce a bill calling for mandatory labelling of all halal and kosher food. It was defeated by only three votes (70 – 73). The motion was opposed by Gerald Kaufman who said that such labelling was picking on “small minorities” and raised the spectre of anti-Semitism (wily old fox, raising the fear by denying it). His contribution, as a non-orthodox Jew defending his Muslim constituents, was rather adroit politicking, but despicable nonetheless for the contempt it showed for the majority of the population who are neither Jewish nor Muslim.

In fact you could say that Kaufman is guilty of the same “picking out” of minorities, because Sikhs, for example, are forbidden from eating halal food and Sikhs are a minority. Some groups of Christians believe they should not eat halal; and those Christian groups are minorities. Kaufman’s is a typical liberal-left approach: all minorities are equal but some are more equal than others, especially when votes are involved. It also flips the problem, which is to do with the supply of halal—and not kosher—food.

FOR SOME PEOPLE it is a matter of animal welfare because they find it repugnant for an animal to have its throat coat without being stunned first. Under both British and European legislation some derogation from that requirement is possible, though it appears that most halal meat in the UK is procured via pre-stunning. So animal welfare in general is not the problem.

What then is?

Just as to eat halal is a question of morality and principle for Muslims, so it is for non-Muslims, even agnostics and atheists.

Well, just as to eat halal is a question of morality and principle for Muslims, so it is for non-Muslims, even agnostics and atheists. The central question is whether it is right to allow food prepared according to the rituals prescribed by the law of one specific religion to be supplied to people of other beliefs (or none at all) without their knowledge. That law being Sharia—that code, you remember, that’s so respectful of women, gays and apostates. For meat to be certified halal, even if stunning takes place, a Muslim must recite a prayer over each animal being slaughtered. To an atheist or non-Muslim, that ritual may be meaningless, but it’s not therefore insignificant.

If you don’t want halal you shouldn’t have to have it—your reasons are your own; you don’t need to justify or explain them if you don’t want to. Eating religiously-sanctioned chicken may be as offensive to you as eating haraam chicken is to a Muslim. One man’s religious principles do not trump those of another who isn’t religious.

This is not a question of racism or Islamophobia, as the Hasan-Kaufman axis want to write it off as, but about equality, choice and human rights. A Muslim may claim it is his human right to be able to eat halal food. So be it. As long as my human right to reject halal is also respected. If food is labelled then everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim equally, knows what is on offer and can make their own choice. Labelling thus protects everyone. It’s a simple and obvious solution. Which is probably why it has not been done yet.

The only argument against it, on the other hand, is rather fascistic because it works on the assumption that non-Muslims will not only get halal whether they want it or not but will not even be told when they are getting it. And be called racist if they complain.

Something tells me this strategy has a limited life span.

– Michael Blackburn.