I FIRST noticed the Union hijacking on supermarket labels shortly after the Brexit result. It has spread like an epidemic and must surely be contagious. The local Morrisions in Falkirk even has huge policeman wearing one of those old-fashioned London helmets adorning the entrance to its store. Very local indeed.

At the moment every fresh meat product must have an EC label on it, with the slaughterhouse and/or meat processing plant number displayed. I know that the chicken I buy from Aldi comes from Marshalls in Coupar, Angus because it is labelled with 1100. Most of the other meat I buy comes from 1560 (Bridge of Allan) or other 1000-numbered places.

Tesco and Asda sell meat from Scotland, New Zealand, Argentina and wherever else from 4000 numbers down in the north of England. Some from the same plant number – so who knows what they are getting? Why is Scottish meat going down there to be slaughtered and/or processed, only to be sent back up here to be sold when it can all be done locally?

Will the EC numbers disappear after October 31, when the guisers come out to play for the good of themselves? We should be told – but only the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Kenneth Mailer
via email

BORIS Johnson’s call for so-called “free ports” after Brexit shows the Tories promoting regional economic competition and deregulation as the bedrock of a post-Brexit economy.

Boris Johnson is speaking to a discussion within both Westminster parties on how best to use the Brexit crisis to complete the deregulation of the economy and slash wages and conditions across the board.

Thatcher’s Chancellor Nigel Lawson said the hard-Brexit wing intend to “finish the Thatcher revolution” and “make the UK the most dynamic and freest country in the whole of Europe: in a word, to finish the job that the blessed Margaret started.”

Boris Johnson has floated the idea of so-called free ports, better known as Free Trade Zones (FTZ) or Special Economic Zones (SEZ). The last three decades have seen hundreds of such zones proliferate worldwide, particularly in the Indian subcontinent, South East Asia and China. The zones have become synonymous with unbridled exploitation. In there areas businesess pay little or no tax.

Coincidentally Boris Johnson came around to the idea of “free ports” after receiving a donation of £25,000 to his leadership election. This was from the Bristol Ports Company. They would stand to make millions from the free ports proposal.

During the Tory leadership campaign, Johnson the parasitic public school boy boasted about how he was the most banker-friendly politician in the country.

He played tennis with the wife of Putin crony Lubov Chernukhin in exchange for a donation of £160,000 to the Tories.

However, the biggest warning sign of the impending carve-up of post-Brexit Britain is the appearance of John Bolton in Downing Street.

Bolton, who is Trump’s national security adviser, has been dispatched by Trump to ensure US business can participate in the biggest corporate looting since the end of the Soviet Union. This grabitisation will be overseen by Johnson.

The NHS will be first to go. Then food standards, then any remaining financial and environmental laws.

This is the nightmare that awaits. The price that will be paid for having a malignant carbuncle like Boris Johnson as Prime Minster.

Alan Hinnrichs
Dundee

COULD a trade agreement with the US, post exit from the EU, hinge on America dragging Britain into a war with Iran? The idea that a trade deal would just happen is a joke. America knows about the vulnerability of a weakened UK and will take advantage of that. Are Scottish politicians willing to forge a Brexit exit that will send our soldiers into a new war in Iran?

Mike Herd
Highland

READING the letter (August 14) criticising the proposed re-opening of the rail link to Leven, I concluded that the anonymous correspondent is not one to allow facts to get in the way of sweeping generalisations. I refer to the assertion that tourists these days would not visit Broughty Ferry for a holiday, or “even a day out”.

Firstly, Broughty properties which come on the market, especially near the river, are regularly bought up by the holiday let industry, which I can only assume is unaware that nobody visits Broughty Ferry.

Regarding the “even on a day out” remark, perhaps on one of our sunny blue-sky scorchers the writer should try to purchase a Visocchis ice-cream when the queues are half-way down the street – and no, those queuing are not all locals.

I say to your anonymous scribe, by all means have a pop at whoever and wherever you like, but keep our sun-kissed seaside suburb out of it.

Malcolm Cordell
Broughty Ferry