EC plays chicken as demand for legal standards reappears*

EC demands seem more and more trivial. What happened to dignity, cosmopolitanism, suaveness etc? Every petty demand is gleefully reported by the Graun, of course, in an 'leaked' exclusive heading the website:

The EU will demand the UK maintains a ban on chlorinated chicken as the price for a trade agreement with Brussels, in a move that protects European meat exports and creates an obstacle to a deal with Donald Trump.

It seems to have been sneaked in, wrapped in general proposals, apparently as a retaliation after :

George Eustice, the new UK environment secretary, refused to guarantee that the government would not allow the importation of chlorine-washed chicken as part of a trade deal with the US.

So the EC rapidly hammered out a passage that would be 

a catch-all insurance for the EU that certain methods of food production – particular pesticides, endocrine disrupters or chlorine washes for poultry – will not be used in the UK....Barnier has admitted that such a policy is a “red rag” to the UK....“Our position, it’s not a position of revenge, or punishment or sanction, it is a position that is economically rational” [said France’s Europe minister]

More generally, a debate had been ongoing between the French government, which wanted to tie the UK completely to the developing EU rulebook on environmental, social and workers’ standards, and other member states who believed it would be a demand too far....

The EU also wants to establish a “governing body” to oversee a deal that “should be empowered to modify the level playing field commitments in order to include additional areas or to lay down higher standards over time”.

A 'governing body' legally enforcing a developing EU rule book -- sounds familiar.

In other news, British farmers also seem alarmed and have made the old npb demand for legal safeguards [so politicians can be sidestepped as in neo-liberalism, the founding principle of the ECJ and various UK judicial reviews]:

Calls for food standards to be enshrined in law to avoid post-Brexit ‘betrayal’ of consumers

I hope that will cover strawberries and BLTs. Does anyone remember BSE?

Meanwhile, P Toynbee labours [!] on and on, nearing the bottom of the barrel each time:

The only way to a Labour victory may be a pact with the Lib Dems

She's only kidding. She knows that is not on. After all, it was proposed by 'two people some Labour members may be disinclined to hear [!]  – Tony Blair and Liberal Democrat leadership candidate Ed Davey'. Despite their silver tongues, 'Frankly, the notion of a merger is for the birds'.

So what might be left?

There should be a socialist and a social democratic party.

And PR voting. I wonder why no-one has tried that before?

It will all work nicely with K Starmer as new leader ('a serious heavyweight former prosecutor, backed by a strong new shadow team'). But which party would he lead?