Labour are clearly taking fake news lessons from the Indy’s infamous viral story about the Tories and animal sentience. Their response to Michael Gove’s new Animal Welfare Bill this morning claims it is not “equivalent to current EU standards” and “does not appear to cover wild animals – giving this Tory Government freedom to pursue their pro-fox hunting agenda across England”. This is unmitigated BS from shadow Defra spokesman Sue Hayman…

First, Gove’s bill objectively goes further than the existing EU standards on animal sentience. The EU legislation only recognises animal sentience in EU-related policy in six areas – agriculture, fisheries, transport, internal market, research and technological development and space policies. The new Defra bill applies to all domestic policy, not simply repatriated EU policy, in all areas, not merely the six covered by the EU. By any fair reading, the new bill goes significantly further than current EU standards…

As for Hayman’s claim that the sentience measure does not cover wild animals, this is literally fake news – it does. The fox hunting jibe is also rubbish, the hunting ban ain’t going to be repealed. Labour saw how mega-viral the Indy fake news story went, Sue Hayman’s response today is another cynical attempt to spread post-truth nonsense…

And a special mention for the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland, who says there is “no need to leave the EU” to secure higher animal welfare standards. Actually we do have to leave the EU to ban live animal exports and products that don’t meet our welfare standards. Jonathan is big on calling out fake news and post-truth politics so sure he will want to correct his tweet…