Julian Lewis accuses UK 'cuddling up' to totalitarian state

Tory Julian Lewis, who represents New Forest East, spoke out after a Labour MP said supermarkets selling products linked to slave labour were "complicit" in prioritising profits over people.

The BBC has found that tomato puree products labelled as "Italian" and sold in UK shops appear to contain tomatoes grown and picked in China using forced labour.

Sarah Champion, Labour MP for Rotherham, told the Commons: "Yesterday's 'blood on your shelves' BBC investigation has rightly shocked the British public.

“Tomato products sold in UK supermarkets with labels informing British customers that purees were Italian made or produced in Italy were actually linked to slave labour in the Xinjiang autonomous Uighur region of China.

“Our weak and confusing product labelling has allowed a linguistic slight of hand to occur with, one can only assume, the aim of misleading consumers.

“An estimated 700,000 are involved in the production of tomatoes against their will, the UN has reported forced labour, torture and abuse.

“Survivors of the tomato fields cite having to make impossible daily quotas with physical torture such as electrocution used as punishment for failing to use these targets.

“And yet tomato products through these barbaric practices are lining the shelves of our supermarkets, sold as if they were produced in a completely different country.”

Sir Julian said: "Isn’t the root of the problem the fact that successive British governments from David Cameron onwards have been willing to cuddle and cosy up to a communist totalitarian state whilst trying to preserve some pretence of distancing themselves from direct human rights abuses?

“In reality, isn’t it the case that as long as we try to have major economic relations with a totalitarian state, it will always be possible for that state to divert the slave labour to its domestic economy and export the other products to us? So it’s only really a fig leaf isn’t it?"