Halal slaughter should not only be a right-wing concern

Stephen Price

Halal slaughter has found itself in the news again this week, following news that a Reform councillor has chaired a meeting with a far-right group and parents of young children to discuss “completely untrue” allegations about religious education at a Swansea school.

News reports have focused on refuted claims that pupils at Sea View Community Primary School in Mayhill were being forced to pray on Muslim mats and recite prayers from the Quran, and that Christianity wasn’t getting the same representation in lessons on religion.

Much of the anger in the wider area, and on social media, however, stems from resurfaced content from 2023 showing the widespread offering of Halal meat to children across Swansea's schools.

Senedd Waste wrote: "Alarmingly, no Senedd member on the Committee challenged Small on her shocking admission. It was almost treated as a side note. The Senedd is responsible for education in Wales. Why has it allowed councils to make Halal meat mandatory? We suspect it's because it approves.

"Small appeared before the Committee in 2023. We've therefore raised a series of questions with the Council. Firstly, when was the Halal-only school meals policy implemented? Is it still in force? How much taxpayers' money has the Council spent promoting and procuring Halal meat in schools?

"Parents will, rightly, be horrified by the Council's Halal-only school meals policy. Were they made aware? When meat was served, was it clearly labelled as Halal, a slaughter practice many consider to be barbaric?"

Fair concerns, I'd argue - but we aren't supposed to be on side because the noise isn't coming from our team.

Away from the anger and misinformation of social media, however (along with the clearly worded "all the meat we provide for example is currently Halal" from Kelly Small from Swansea Council), Herald Wales highlighted an example of a weekly primary school lunch menu in Swansea and how it looks today:

Monday: Meatballs or tomato pasta bake and accompaniments of the day, plus jam split and fruit wedge/fresh fruit; halal meatballs, gluten-free and dairy-free meatballs also available

Tuesday: Chicken curry or margherita pizza and accompaniments of the day, plus fruit yoghurt pot/fresh fruit; halal chicken curry, gluten-free and dairy-free chicken curry also available

Wednesday: Cheese and tomato calzone or breaded chicken steak and accompaniments of the day, plus jelly and mandarins/fresh fruit; halal breaded chicken steak, gluten-free and dairy-free chicken steak also available

Thursday: Roast turkey or macaroni cheese and accompaniments of day, plus chocolate cookie/fresh fruit; halal roast chicken, gluten-free and dairy-free roast turkey also available

Friday: Baked fish or cheese wrap and accompaniments of the day, plus fruit muffin/fresh fruit; halal baked fish, gluten-free and dairy-free fish fingers also available

Barely a vegetable or plant-based meal in sight. Yum.

'Race baiting'

The topic raised its head most angrily in Wales in the summer of 2024, when the former Welsh Conservative Senedd leader was accused of engaging in "Islamophobic race-baiting" by a Muslim group.

Andrew RT Davies wrote "children should not be forced to eat Halal school lunches" in an article for GB News, after a constituent alleged she was told non-halal meat was not available at her daughter's school in Cowbridge, Vale of Glamorgan.

At the time, I and many others who probably don't naturally align with Tory or Reform bit our tongues, sat on our hands, and recognised that the motives were far from entirely altruistic on the side of the animals.

His arguments were thrown out because he dared to use an old name for the school, and (like in Swansea) not every single piece of meat was Halal. End of debate. We got you. Nothing more to say.

But all the same, he had valid points to make, and no one else is raising them, so why shouldn't he?

In every discussion, those for Halal meat being fed to school children on the public purse completely overlook the true victims - the animals.

Cognitive dissonance

For an intelligent species, us humans are very happily and easily convinced that we live in a country where farmed animals roam free, living idyllic lives, and that our wider world can accommodate 8 billion people who eat meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

For most, it's easier to look the other way when told that grass fed does not mean grass-lived, that calves go without (and go it alone) while we drink the milk their mum made for them, or that welfare labelling means diddly squat, as proven by Red Tractor and RSPCA Assured farms making the headlines for one abuse case after another, one year after another.

Slap a nice photo of a cow on a Welsh mountain on the pack, or perhaps a nice cartoon on a kebab shop sign, and it's a happy affair, it's the way we've always done things, it's all very natural and kind and community building.

None of us want a badger cull, raptor persecution, Amazon deforestation, bird-flu, chicken-shit-infested rivers, forest-free mountains or blood on our own hands, but heaven forbid we look in the mirror and take accountability for the root cause of these effects.

According to Compassion in World Farming: "It’s a sad fact that around 85% of farmed animals are confined in factory farms here in the UK.

"This intensive method of farming is the single biggest cause of animal cruelty on the planet, and yet in our latest data we can reveal the number of intensive factory farms is on the rise, instead of in decline."

And with that rise in factory farms, and a rise in population and meat consumption, comes an inevitable rise in animal slaughter. The bit we all tend to leave out of the conversation.

Attacking farmers is a dangerous thing for any political party to do, as we've seen with any suggestion of inheritance tax and subsidy changes.

Slaughtering, too, is off limits for attack (as are school trips to slaughterhouses, or taking part in a day on the killing line), unless, of course, it's being done for some other agenda or concern.

Cue a number of right wing groups' current 'concern' with Halal slaughter. Or should that be, their willingness to confront a concern we should all have, but that the left have, until now, largely hoped will go away or simply aren't bothered about?

Halal slaughter

Claire Fowler, writing for PETA, shared: "The dietary laws of Islam and Judaism require that animals be “healthy” at the time their throats are cut. When these laws were passed thousands of years ago, they were probably more humane than any other existing alternative. However, the world has changed drastically since then, and today, slaughter is just the final stage of a life filled with misery, pain, and fear for animals raised for their flesh on factory farms.

"Many animals killed using ritual slaughter practices are fully conscious when their throats are cut. It isn’t possible to generalise about all religious slaughter, because practices do differ, but one thing’s certain: any fully conscious animal is absolutely and understandably terrified when a chain is shackled to their leg and they’re hoisted into the air upside down. Birds thrash wildly in panic and excruciating pain, since their legs can break or be pulled out of their sockets under their own bodyweight.

"Research shows that when cattle and sheep are killed without stunning, it can take several unimaginably agonising seconds for them to lose consciousness after their throats are slit. Recent studies have demonstrated that stunned animals bleed out in exactly the same way as non-stunned animals, meaning there’s no need to withhold stunning for the purposes of avoiding the consumption of blood, one of the aims of ritual slaughter."

Current UK law requires animals to be stunned before slaughter, so they don't feel pain. However, Jewish and Muslim communities aren't required by law to stun animals before slaughter. All Shechita (Jewish) and some Halal (Muslim) slaughter involves cutting the animal's throat without stunning them first.

According to the RSPCA, pre-stunning ensures that an animal is unconscious and cannot feel pain before slaughter up until the point of death. Animals that haven't been pre-stunned:

• Feel pain during the neck cutting process and up until they lose consciousness (through loss of blood)
• Experience a delay in loss of consciousness (e.g. up to two minutes in cattle)
• Are subjected to unnecessary pain, suffering and distress.

Current UK law requires all livestock to be stunned before slaughter, so they don't feel pain at the time of killing. However, there is an exemption from this requirement that permits non-stun slaughter for religious purposes - to meet the demand of Muslim and Jewish communities.

The charity writes: "We believe that all animals should be stunned before slaughter. Evidence shows that slaughter without pre-stunning can cause unneeded suffering.

"We oppose the slaughter of any animal without first ensuring it's unable to feel pain and distress.

"We're pressing for law changes to improve animal welfare at slaughter. Until this happens, we propose:

• UK Jewish and Muslim communities review their slaughter practices
• Meat produced from animals not stunned before slaughter should be clearly labelled to allow consumer choice

"We're working to improve the lives of animals at the time of slaughter. Read our joint statement of principles on animal slaughter"

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Silence

The silence over our consumption of meat is something I will never wrap my head around though.

The oft-overused, 'If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegan' is very true, and I personally have more respect for a hunter or slaughterhouse worker than I do anyone that picks up pre-packaged, blood-free, face-free meat from a shelf who couldn't hold the knife to an animal's throat themselves.

When it comes to Halal slaughter, however, many on the left remain on the fence or actively support the freedom of those with other faiths.

Exposé after exposé has revealed shocking levels of abuse at slaughterhouses across the UK, and time after time Halal slaughterhouses make it to the press.

In one of the most memorable that comes to mind, hidden cameras at a Yorkshire slaughterhouse found horrific footage of religious slaughter without pre-stunning, with sheep kicked in the face; smashed into solid objects headfirst; picked up and hurled by legs, fleeces, throats and ears.

Footage also showed a worker standing on the neck of a conscious sheep, then bouncing up and down, and slaughterhouse workers erupting into laughter at a sheep bleeding to death with spectacles drawn around her eyes in green paint.

Another worker held a sheep by her throat, pulling back a fist as if to punch her, while footage showed slaughtermen taunting and frightening the sheep by waving knives, smacking them on the head and shouting at them.

These cases continue, and will continue as we disconnect and turn a blind eye - and while we and our councils pay others to do roles we ourselves could never dream of carrying out.

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Petition after petition

In petition after petition, the UK Government continues to prioritise the feelings and beliefs of those with religious convictions over compassionate animal-loving people, and the animals themselves who deserve so much better than to be brutally killed for the sake of a cholesterol-laden snack or school dinner - often purchased unwittingly by those with no religious convictions themselves.

The most recent petition to get debated by the UK Parliament received over 100,000 signatures. It said: "In modern society, we believe more consideration needs to be given to animal welfare and how livestock is treated and culled.

"We believe non-stun slaughter is barbaric and doesn't fit in with our culture and modern-day values and should be banned, as some EU nations have done.

"In a landmark case, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that a ban on the ritual slaughter of animals without prior stunning does not violate the ECHR.

"The Court considered that the protection of public morals, to which Article 9 of the Convention referred was not indifferent to the living environment of individuals covered by its protection and including animals."

In its pathetic response, the UK Government said: "The Government would prefer all animals to be stunned before slaughter.

"However, we respect the rights of Jews and Muslims to eat meat prepared in accordance with their religious beliefs."

Although a slightly fuller response, no less cowardly, can be read here.

Philip Lymbery, Chief Executive for Compassion in World Farming, said previously: "We completely respect every individual's religious choice. However, it is illegal for slaughterhouses to slaughter animals without first stunning them unless they are satisfied that the meat is intended solely for the Muslim or Jewish communities. In our view it is also against the law for a company to sell or serve meat from unstunned animals to the wider general public."

The charity say that there is a need for up-to-date statistics to survey progress towards better welfare in the slaughter of meat for religious communities. We are requesting updated figures from the Government on the percentage of Halal meat that comes from pre-stunned animals.

Compassion in World Farming also believes that all food from animals that have not been pre-stunned should be labelled as such so that the consumer can make an informed choice.

Left is right, right is left

To portray Islamic slaughter as an acceptable thing, untouchable from debate, and all the more so because the right don't like it, and Muslims simply can't live without it or allow reform, is downright ridiculous.

Right or wrong should know no political yardstick of left or right when violence is on the table. And similarly, the way we treat animals should also not be a left or right issue either. We either treat an animal humanely, or we don't.

As a vegan myself, I would naturally be assumed to be in the 'all or nothing' brigade for animal flesh as an ingredient, but I mirror the beliefs of those at Compassion in World Farming that, at the very least, we can do better.

I recognise that, while so many across the world do still eat animals, there are very clear red lines when it comes to practices that should be an unquestionable right for all living beings - a right to live freely, to feel sunlight on their skin, and to spend the lives they do have without pain, fear and abuse.

And at their final moments, their death should at the very least be as painless as is remotely possible - and as controlled, monitored, and free of religion as can be in a secular society.

Of course, more than a fair few people, and Tory or Reform supporters, are anti-Halal for reasons far from animal rights, their lack of concern for the way pigs are slaughtered - all too often in gas chambers, hidden from plain sight being an obvious hole in their arguments - but to simply take an opposing view, to rule out debate, and to not demand better, is shameful.

Attacks on right wing groups or parties for capitalising on the public's concern on this, and any other topic politicians (and in this case the religious too) know better about will only serve to drive those on the fence into Reform's arms.

In line with Compassion in World Farming, Halal meat only being provided (especially when paid for by the taxpayer) for those that demand it is the smallest of asks to make, along with making plant based meals, which are by default permissive to everyone, much more widely available.

Taking a cheap swipe at Reform and others for their concerns does no one any favours.

Just as the right must, the left should also call out human and animal cruelty at any and every opportunity.

And we must collectively, wherever our political allegiances lie, strive for a more compassionate world for the innocent, gentle animals that find themselves in slaughterhouses, Halal or otherwise.

They all deserve so much better.

Take action to improve the lives of farmed animals here.