Green Party Animal spokesperson welcomes vote to #EndTheCageAge for caged rabbits

14 March 2017

Keith Taylor MEP: “This is great news for millions of rabbits across Europe and a great example of how the EU can take a lead on animal welfare. Greens have always opposed factory farming and I wholeheartedly welcome the result of today’s vote.”

Green Party Animals spokesperson Keith Taylor MEP is welcoming the vote to #EndTheCageAge for farmed rabbits across Europe. The MEP for the South East was among a majority of MEPs who voted to support a report calling for the practice to be outlawed at the European Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg this afternoon. More than 4,000 people across the South East had contacted their MEPs calling for action.

Rabbits are the fourth most farmed animal in the world. An estimated 340 million rabbits are slaughtered annually after a life kept in barren wire cages where their natural behaviour is severely restricted. Many scientists have called for the cage system to be urgently replaced by one which allows for the natural needs of rabbits to be better taken into account.

The report adopted by MEPs calls for higher welfare standards for rabbits and concrete legislation that would ban the use of cages. Responding to the result, Keith said:

“This is great news for millions of rabbits across Europe and a great example of how the EU can take a lead on animal welfare. Greens have always opposed factory farming and as the Green Party’s Animals spokesperson I wholeheartedly welcome the result of today’s vote. The report prioritises putting an end to the inhumane conditions in which rabbits are kept and eradicating the other problems associated intensive rabbit rearing. The current system leads to the spread of disease and the subsequent overuse of antibiotics.”

“Rabbit farming is relatively small-scale in the UK, but the fact that the European Parliament has voted to end the cage age serves to highlight the key role EU membership has played and continues to play in raising the welfare of millions of farm animals in Britain and across the EU.”

“The closer the relationship the UK maintains with the EU, retaining animal welfare and wildlife protections through single market membership, the better the outcome for British animals. Animal advocates across the UK must continue lobbying the UK government to ensure the current legal protections, for all species, offered by European Union membership are maintained and strengthened.”

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Nicola Sturgeon isn’t offering Scotland a say, she is offering false hope.

By Kez Dugdale

Just over two years ago, Nicola Sturgeon used the pages of the Daily Record to tell readers that improving Scottish education would be the driving and defining priority of her government.

So much for that, then.

After her speech yesterday, here is my message to Nicola Sturgeon : Our country is divided enough, it should not be divided again.

The vast majority of Scots don’t want to replay angry arguments between family and friends.

Nicola Sturgeon should think back to those bitter arguments before she tries to divide us again.

Specifically she should think about how wrong she was then and how wrong she is now.

The SNP said the only way to have a fairer Scotland, to end austerity, was independence.

That argument has now fallen apart. The SNP’s estimates for oil for the first two years of an independent Scotland were out by £21billion.

That’s more than our country’s annual health and education budgets put together. This isn’t just about the black stuff – it’s about the future of our schools and hospitals.

Labour warned that the SNP’s plan was reckless at the time. The SNP Government agreed with us. In secret.

An official analysis paper prepared by the civil service for them outlined the cuts that would happen with independence.

Rather than release the paper, the SNP tried to hide it. The SNP knew the sums didn’t add up. But they offered false hope, especially to the poorest in our country.

Nicola Sturgeon told people independence could end austerity, knowing that wasn’t true. She knew it would mean even bigger cuts to our public services and told people the opposite on doorsteps.

That’s not clever PR, that’s misleading the country on an industrial scale. Thousands of Scots voted Yes on the basis of a lie the SNP knowingly sold them. Nicola Sturgeon should be ashamed.
Two years on, she is ready to do it again.

None of the fundamental questions of 2014 have been answered. The SNP still don’t know what currency an independent Scotland would have. They still can’t explain how they would pay for pensions and there is still no reply to how our public services would cope with unprecedented cuts.

Even if oil revenues had not fallen through the floor, an independent Scotland would still have faced public spending cuts much worse than whatever the Tories have been planning. With thousands of Scots in need of a payrise, the SNP can’t say what their wages will be paid in – and if they would be worth the same as they are today.

Having campaigned to remain in one political union last year, the SNP now can’t explain why we should leave one which is four times as important to our economy and through which we built the NHS and the welfare state.

Just over two years ago, our country debated independence. It was the biggest democratic exercise in history. For two years there wasn’t a pub, coffee shop, workplace or Facebook timeline without people having their say.

And after those two years of debate. A record turnout saw a staggering 85 per cent of people vote in the referendum and the answer was clear: Together, we’re stronger.

That is why Scottish Labour MSPs will vote against a divisive second independence referendum at Holyrood next week.

We should be using the new powers of Holyrood to look to the future, which is why Labour will hold a People’s Constitutional Convention to chart Britain’s course for the next generation.

Labour want to see a radical federal solution that will mean more powers for the Scottish Parliament while keeping the security and opportunity that comes with being part of the UK.

That is a plan to unite our divided country. An alternative answer that will mean more powers influence and control not just to our Scottish Parliament but down to our own communities and right across the UK.

More than 200,000 children in Scotland live in poverty. Attainment in our schools is falling. Our NHS does not have enough doctors and nurses. Our economy is sluggish, jobs are too often low-pay, low- skilled and short-term.

None of these problems is addressed by a second independence referendum.

Only a nationalist could think they are, because their obsession with winning independence trumps everything else – even telling people the truth about independence.

The questions of 2014 remain unanswered.

The economic case of independence, which was tissue-paper thin in the first place, has collapsed.

Nicola Sturgeon isn’t offering Scotland a say, she is offering false hope.

This article first appeared in the Daily Record on 14/03/2017

Agree with Kez? Sign the pledge against #indyref2 here: https://www.togetherstronger.scot/

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Scottish Labour will vote against another independence referendum

Responding to Nicola Sturgeon’s speech calling for another independnce referendum, Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale said:

“Scotland is already divided enough. We do not want to be divided again, but that is exactly what another independence referendum would do.

“Two years ago, 85 per cent of Scotland’s voters took part in the independence referendum and the result was a clear vote to remain in the UK.

“With our country facing all of the uncertainty around the Tories’ reckless plans for a hard Brexit, the last thing we need is even more uncertainty and division.

“A clear majority of the people of Scotland voted to reject the SNP’s false hope and lies, and backed working together with the other nations of the UK.

“The reality is that leaving the UK would mean turbo-charged austerity for Scotland, putting the future of our schools and hospitals at risk.

“Labour believes that together we’re stronger. That is why we firmly oppose a second referendum and Scottish Labour MSPs will vote against the SNP’s proposals next week. We will stand up for the people of Scotland, who do not want a second independence referendum.

“Nicola Sturgeon could have made a passionate case for bringing powers from Brussels to Edinburgh, instead she did what she always does: sought grievance and division.

“Scotland deserves better than this. Nicola Sturgeon’s government is presiding over an education system with a growing gap between the richest and the rest, a health service that doesn’t have enough doctors and nurses, and an economy which sees more than 200,000 Scottish children live in poverty.

“Scotland would be a better place if the First Minister stopped dividing the country and started actually governing the country.”

If you agree with us, visit www.togetherstronger.scot to back our campaign against a second independence referendum.

Sturgeon’s indyref2 call ‘utterly irresponsible’

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Sturgeon’s indyref2 call ‘utterly irresponsible’

13 Mar 2017

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Nicola Sturgeon’s decision to hold another independence referendum has been branded “utterly irresponsible” by Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson.

Earlier today the First Minister announced she wanted to hold a second independence referendum next year.

This is despite previously saying she would only do so if the majority of Scots wanted another vote, and that it was a “once in a generation” decision.

Repeated polling has shown not only opposition to independence, but widespread objection to another referendum.

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said:

“Nicola Sturgeon has today given up acting as First Minister for all of Scotland.

“People have said time and again they do not want to go back to the division of a second referendum.

“Nicola Sturgeon promised the 2014 referendum would be ‘once in a generation’.

“Today she has ignored the majority in Scotland who do not want a referendum and has decided instead to double down on division and uncertainty.

“The First Minister’s proposal offers Scotland the worst of all worlds. Her timetable would force people to vote blind on the biggest political decision a country could face.

“This is utterly irresponsible and has been taken by the First Minister purely for partisan political reasons.

“Both No and Yes voters have been urging her to put this to one side – but because of her own rash decision to use Brexit in a bid to lever support for independence, she has ignored them completely.

“Quite simply, today the First Minister has failed in her job to act in the interests of all of us.”