Jeremy Corbyn is British Member of Parliament (MP) for a north London (UK) constituency. In May 1994 he put forward an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons. This Motion largely castigated the practices of McDonald's, particularly their use of libel laws to silence critics.
Jeremy Corbyn MP was interviewed in 1997 by One-Off Productions for their TV documentary, McLibel: Two Worlds Collide.
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I think that the power of these big corporations has to be questioned, and McDonalds don't like questions. They don't like questions from their staff, they don't like trade union organisation rights for their staff, they've a very high staff turnover because people can't stand the pace, or they're very good at chucking them out if they ask any questions.
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I think there are very serious concerns about the amount of processed food that small children are given, and children think they're being part of their peer group rivalry, or whatever, if they eat hamburgers and chips. Now often, the hamburgers - cheap hamburgers - consist of a lot of fat, and a lot of water, and a lot of preservatives added to them. The chips are often made from powdered potato and deep fried, so what they're getting is a lot of fat and a lot of water that fills them up, and they're hungry a short time later - you could hardly call it good quality food. McDonalds have this huge advertising budget and ability to dominate High Streets. They also have a trading system and an employment system that means they're open more often, in more places, and longer than almost anybody else. So in most High Streets in this country - or any other country, for that matter - late at night there's nothing open except McDonalds, and kids tend to sort of go along with McDonalds because it's an image they see on television the whole time, and I just find it very dangerous and very insidious. It's not good quality healthy food that our children want to eat because of this, it's the very opposite. And this has a knock-on effect that when you try and persuade children to take school lunches, for example (which are generally very good quality) they say: 'Well, don't like 'em - they don't look much like McDonalds.' as though good food equals something you get in a hamburger restaurant, and I find that very sad. |
McDonalds claim they don't sell beef used from ex-rainforest land - they clearly do, they claim they don't use intensively reared chicken and beef -they clearly do, they have very...very great difficulty defending themselves on the arguments about food additives and everything else. But then when one starts to look at health in a wider sense around the world- look at levels of obesity, look at levels of heart disease, and look at levels of cancer of the large intestine you find those that have highly processed high-meat diets there's a much greater prevalence of that than there is in, traditional societies that have a slightly different level.
For example, the East End of London often had a very low levels of heart disease....heart disease and other illnesses because they had an oily fish diet, like wise in Japan whereas in Scotland you've very high levels of heart disease and obesity because of the very fatty diet that is a...a sort of tradition in Scotland, and there are many other examples like that around the world. What I find sad is that McDonalds can use their power of advertising, and the power -if you like, the image - of the United States to move into a place like India and start selling burgers of some sort or the other - again, with this whole high-pressure stuff, and it seems to be just wrong that this degree of pressure should be used on young people, and the incredible waste surrounding the cooking, the packaging, selling and all the rest of it. Advertising is not a productive industry, it's actually an industry that relies on somebody else to do something, likewise packaging.
A big corporation like McDonalds, knowing that in Britain, the libel laws were wholly min favour of the rich and the powerful really just say 'Libel' and people tend to back away, because if you're a trade union and you get involved in a Libel case you could bankrupt the union, and you've then possibly lost that union protection for thousands, if not more than a million members of a particular union.
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Why can't Governments and their agencies use Libel whereas others can?As I pointed out in the motion I put to the House of Commons, Government offices and agencies can't use Libel law in their own defence. I suppose the thinking behind that is partly that it's political criticism, but then often it's...it's not political in the party political sense it's political in the sense of one believes an organisation has been negligent or done something wrong - you might be concerned about health standards, health and safety, protection, all those kind of things - and they have to deal with it in the sense of meeting the criticism. A big corporation like McDonalds, knowing that in Britain, the libel laws were wholly in favour of the rich and the powerful really just say 'Libel' and people tend to back away, because if you're a trade union and you get involved in a Libel case you could bankrupt the union, and you've then possibly lost that union protection for thousands, if not more than a million members of a particular union. So I don't criticise a trade union for backing away from getting involved in a Libel case because they've got so much to lose, and so it often does fall, historically, to the individual to stand up for justice - and I think Dave and Helen have done that.
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....the contrast of Dave and Helen in court with the QCs for the other side on their salaries is really quite remarkable and I think that every corporation will have learnt a lesson from this....
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So you would say this was an historic case in that sense?Absolutely historic case in that I've never known two people defend themselves in such a lengthy trial before - there are cases of people defending themselves, and that's a traditional right, but never in such a long and complex trial as this, or so effectively and so ably, and be able to truly humble an enormous organisation - and the contrast of Dave and Helen in court with the QCs for the other side on their salaries is really quite remarkable and I think that every corporation will have learnt a lesson from this - but I also think we should all be learning a lesson from this about the use of the law of Libel and access to legal aid for libel because why should it be that Libel should only be a matter that affects the rich and powerful.
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If Dave and Helen win, that's fantastic - they've proved a point. If they don't win and the leaflets are still distributed the whole argument goes on, and what are McDonalds going to do about it then? Are McDonalds then going to ask to have police on every shop? .... And so at the end of the day the emperor has no clothes, and I think that's what Dave and Helen have proved.
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If Helen and Dave lose they have said that they will continue to hand out leaflets ... does this make whole process meaningless ... does it remind you of other people's movements in recent years?Yes, there's many popular movements that have just stood up and said 'Well, we're carrying on regardless of what you say'. the sort of 'History will absolve me' argument, if you like. If Dave and Helen win, that's fantastic - they've proved a point. If they don't win and the leaflets are still distributed the whole argument goes on, and what are McDonalds going to do about it then? Are McDonalds then going to ask to have police on every shop? Are they going to have security staff on every shop to stop people saying to people going in there to possibly buy a McDonalds that possibly they should think twice about their own health and that of their children before they go in there? And so at the end of the day the emperor has no clothes, and I think that's what Dave and Helen have proved.
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250,000 people marched into Trafalgar Square and weren't very keen to leave there, and as a result of that we got rid of the Poll Tax. In the case of the campaign ...., the McDonalds libel trial -whatever the result- the case will go on and this has been a high water point for promoting those arguments about sustainable agriculture, sustainable development and safe food to eat. That campaign will go on irrespective of the result.
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What relationship does this have to the McLibel trial?250,000 people marched into Trafalgar Square and weren't very keen to leave there, and as a result of that we got rid of the Poll Tax. In the case of the campaign concerning the health and safety of all of us and the intensive agricultural methods, the McDonalds libel trial -whatever the result- the case will go on and this has been a high water point for promoting those arguments about sustainable agriculture, sustainable development and safe food to eat. That campaign will go on irrespective of the result.
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