Last week, the High Court ruled in favour of a judicial review challenging regulations that remove labelling and traceability from so-called ‘precision bred’ organisms. The judicial review was led by Beyond GM, with Patrick Holden, CEO of the Sustainable Food Trust, and two others standing as co-claimants. Here Patrick reflects on why he chose to speak out and on the importance of the case.
I cannot pretend that I fully understood all the legal arguments when I first agreed to become involved in a judicial review challenging new regulations governing genetically modified ‘precision bred’, organisms (PBOs).
I am a farmer, not a lawyer. What I did understand was that the new regulations, which removed traceability and labelling from certain types of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) would make it harder for producers and consumers who wished to – or had to – avoid genetically engineered organisms to do so.
That seemed wrong to me then and, following the High Court’s judgment last week, it’s clear the Government did not fully consider all the options available or the impacts of a profound change in legislation.
Becoming a claimant in a judicial review is a serious commitment. It required putting my name to a public legal challenge against the Government and accepting a level of scrutiny that many might prefer to avoid. But then again, the core issues of the case led by Beyond GM – the integrity of living organisms and the protection of organic standards – are issues that I have a long history with.
The experience has caused me to reflect not only on the case itself but on how dramatically the debate around genetic engineering has changed since the battles many of us fought in the 1990s. History, it seems, still has some important lessons to teach us.
Lessons to learn
Back in the late 1990s and early noughties, when I was director of the Soil Association, one of the standout campaigns with which I was involved was against the introduction of GMOs.
Our GMO campaign, arguing that the government should not allow genetically engineered foods to creep into our food system was won, due in no small measure to the massive media attention it attracted, but also because Labour’s Environment Minister, Michael Meacher, was both privately and virtually publicly on our side.
Michael was the one who championed the Farm Scale Evaluations – a series of large-scale trials to test the impact of GM crops on local biodiversity and ecosystems and prior to any commercial approvals. The results raised serious concerns about the environmental consequences of planting GMO crops and undermined claims that they would automatically deliver public benefits.
He paid the political price for doing the right thing.
Coincidentally, I met with him on the day that he was sacked by Tony Blair. “I’ve got some bad news,” he said, “let’s go and have a drink on the Terrace.” It was never stated publicly, but many of us believed his opposition to the Government’s pro-GM policy played a significant role in his departure.
It is heartening to know that one of the last actions Michael took before he passed away was to stand with Beyond GM on the steps of Number 10, to deliver the ‘Letter from America’ – a plea from American farmers, businesses, food advocates and civil society organisations, representing some 57 million people, for the UK not to follow the America’s unquestioning embrace of GMOs.
The empire strikes back
Twenty years later, how things have changed! There is no equivalent to Michael Meacher in the Government. Many of the MPs who waved this legislation through without scrutiny probably couldn’t tell a GMO from their own elbows and are utterly seduced by the idea that we can improve on nature using the great white heat of technology.
After a decisive blow, the industry, or perhaps one might say the empire, has struck back, and very effectively too. It did this in the form of a seemingly innocuous piece of legislation – the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act of 2023 – which sought to distance GMOs from their past failures by giving them a shiny new name: precision bred organisms (PBOs).
Ask anyone on the street and they likely won’t be able to tell you what a PBO is, yet 8 in 10 people in the UK believe that all GMOs should be labelled and traceable in our food system. This change of law has a major impact on the right to exercise informed choice and to choose not to plant, sell or buy GMOs.
The Act was signed into law by the Conservatives, but it is Labour that passed the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations, which allow the commercial planting and sale of PBO plants, into law in 2025.
Despite a feeling of a fait accompli, Beyond GM and its legal team at Leigh Day and Matrix Chambers believed there was still a possible route to challenge what was happening. Not by reversing the primary Act, which would require another Act of Parliament, but by challenging the legality of the Regulations made under it.
Taking the fight to court
The gathering of co-claimants was part of an intense and meticulous 13-month effort by Beyond GM and its legal team at Leigh Day and Matrix Chambers.
What was needed was evidence from farmers who could explain how the absence of labelling and traceability would affect their ability to maintain the integrity of organic and non-GM production. Organic farming depends not only on what happens in the field, but on the reliability of the whole chain – seeds, feed, ingredients, certification, trust. Organic farmers are legally obliged to avoid all GMOs, including PBOs. If precision bred organisms can move through parts of that chain without being identified, then the ability of organic producers to avoid them is compromised.
The case also needed a consumer voice, and that was provided by Joanna Blythman, whose long-standing commitment to food quality and transparency is well known.
As with all legal issues, there were fine lines to negotiate. Today’s organic standards, for which I can claim some credit, have always recognised that absolute purity can be difficult in a contaminated world. Spray drift, environmental contamination and other forms of unwanted intrusion have long been part of the reality organic farmers face. But that is precisely why a functioning regulatory system matters. If the Government creates a regime in which contamination becomes both inevitable and harder to identify and avoid, it cannot then pretend that organic producers and consumers are unaffected.
“Organic farming depends not only on what happens in the field, but on the reliability of the whole chain – seeds, feed, ingredients, certification, trust. Organic farmers are legally obliged to avoid all GMOs, including PBOs. If precision bred organisms can move through parts of that chain without being identified, then the ability of organic producers to avoid them is compromised.”
The Court’s verdict
I may not be a legal expert but I can read and the Court’s judgement makes very good reading.
It concludes that the Defra Farming Minister was repeatedly “misadvised” by his advisors that he had no power to mandate labelling and traceability for these new GMOs. It goes further, noting that had the Minister been given correct information he would have given greater consideration to the wider impacts of the regulations and indeed might have made different decisions about what they should contain.
The Court accepted that the consequences of removing the tools necessary to support traceability and transparency were real and likely to impose greater burdens – and costs – on famers, businesses and consumers.
It went further still, stating that organic farming is not merely a technical standard or certification scheme. For many, it represents a fundamental set of values, principles and professional commitments which the Regulations make much more difficult to maintain. To my knowledge, this is the first time something this impactful to organic has been made plain in a legal judgement.
More than a food issue
These are serious findings and, beyond their relevance to the food system, they reveal something very troubling about the way the government now works. If ministers are not properly informed, if MPs are not fully engaged and if complex regulations are waved through on the basis of ‘party lines’, industry lobbying and soothing language, then democratic oversight becomes little more than theatre.
Will the judgment make a difference? We shall see.
As I write, Beyond GM and its legal team are now in discussions with the Government about what should happen next. The Court has identified serious flaws in the way these regulations were developed and these cannot now be ignored.
The missing media
One thing is unfortunately clear. The media appetite for this issue is much less than it used to be. When the judgment was handed down, I rang my contacts at the BBC Radio 4 Today programme to let them know about a major breaking story. They said they were interested, but in the end came the familiar refrain: “Do keep in touch, we are interested in this, but unfortunately it didn’t make the cut for tomorrow’s programme.”
That would not have happened in the 1990s.
Today, the public, politicians and much of the media have allowed themselves to fall into a state of torpor about food and farming. The progressive industrialisation of our food systems has gone so far that many people have almost lost the will to complain. It is now difficult to buy genuinely high-quality, nutrient-dense, contaminant-free food.
What comes next?
I suspect this lapse of attention may be temporary. People such as Chris van Tulleken, who I recently interviewed for the Sustainable Food Trust podcast, have done a brilliant job alerting the public to the dangers of ultra-processed food. Many younger people, especially in Gen Z – if my sons are anything to go by – are increasingly worried about what is being done to the food they eat.
So, thank you Pat Thomas at Beyond GM and Lawrence Woodward, who provided strategic advice throughout, for your thorough and thoughtful work on this issue. Please do not give up – because this issue will not go away.
I may be just an ‘average person,’ albeit rather better informed than most because of a lifelong interest in this area, but I do not want to re-design nature. I do not want to eat food of poor nutritional quality. I do not want food contaminated by pesticide residues, GMOs, additives, preservatives or anything else I cannot identify or avoid.
Some people who shared these views were, perhaps understandably, reluctant to step forward and put themselves through the rigours of being a co-claimant. I chose to do so because I believe these regulations compromise my right, and the rights of others, to eat food that reflects our values and to grow it for others.
I am absolutely convinced I am not alone.
Write to your MP – you can be part of the action by writing to your MP. Use this link, expressing your concerns and your support for transparency and labelling for PBOs. It’s quick, there’s suggested text to use and it does meaningful work in letting the Government know what the people really want.
