Caroline Lucas must be the only person still claiming the government is not recognising animal sentience following the exposure of last month’s fake news. She is once again attempting to have the EU protocol on animal sentience moved into UK law after Brexit. As Guido has noted previously, the EU protocol is weaker than what is being proposed by Michael Gove. The Brussels 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 with no exemptions, 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 – it means ministers must always have regard to animal welfare. What Caroline Lucas is proposing would be dramatically less ambitious and worse for animal welfare than the government’s policy. As she scrabbles to respond to Gove’s green agenda, Lucas is actually proposing to make things worse…