Halal Meat, Restore Britain, and the Claims of Conscience

The national debate over halal and kosher slaughter has resurfaced in Britain with renewed intensity. The Westminster Hall discussion on 9 June 2025, triggered by a petition with over 100,000 signatures, highlighted familiar arguments: whether non-stun slaughter is humane, and whether banning it would infringe the rights of Muslims and Jews.¹ Alongside these legal and animal-welfare concerns, a third issue demands attention: the rights of consumers, especially Christians, who may not wish to eat meat ritually consecrated in another religion.

The present situation
UK law requires that animals be stunned before slaughter, with exemptions for religious practice under the Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing Regulations.² About 88% of halal meat in Britain is already stunned,³ but a significant minority of animals are not. More troubling than the exemption itself is the lack of transparency. Halal-certified and non-stunned meat can enter the general supply chain without clear labelling, meaning consumers may unknowingly eat food prayed over in the name of Allah or slaughtered according to another faith’s rite.

The RSPCA and other welfare organisations have repeatedly called for mandatory labelling, arguing that consumers should be able to know both whether the animal was stunned and whether the slaughter followed religious ritual.⁴ Yet successive governments have avoided legislating, wary of inflaming communal sensitivities. In practice, this leaves the public caught between principle and ignorance: a population forced to consume in uncertainty, denied the right to act with a clear conscience.

Restore Britain’s intervention
The Restore Britain campaign, launched by Rupert Lowe MP, has made the halal question a central plank of its platform. It has publicised claims of halal-only meat being served in schools and even in parts of the military, describing this as a scandal and an imposition.⁵ Lowe and his supporters frame this not simply as an animal-welfare issue, but as a cultural struggle: a defence of British traditions against what they regard as creeping accommodation to religious minorities. Their call for a ban on non-stun slaughter echoes similar campaigns in parts of Europe, where the tension between religious freedom and animal welfare has already led to prohibitions.⁶

While these concerns resonate with many citizens, especially those worried about Britain’s Christian heritage and cultural erosion, the rhetoric employed risks inflaming division. Describing the presence of halal food in public institutions as a “vile imposition” weaponises grievance rather than addressing conscience. The deeper issue is not hostility toward Muslims or Jews but the right of all consumers to know what they are eating, and to exercise their conscience accordingly.

Conscience and Scripture
The Apostle Paul addressed a strikingly similar dilemma in Corinth: whether Christians might eat meat offered to idols. His counsel was nuanced: “Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, eat; asking no question for conscience’ sake” (1 Cor. 10:25). Yet he also insisted: “If any man say to you: This has been offered in sacrifice; do not eat, for his sake that told it, and for conscience’ sake” (1 Cor. 10:28). The principle is that Christians must avoid formal participation in another religion’s rites. St Thomas Aquinas, in his treatment of idolatrous sacrifices, stresses that outward conformity to the rites of unbelievers risks tacit participation in their worship, and so must be avoided.⁷

This is not hostility but fidelity. Christians are not forbidden from consuming meat per se, but they must avoid eating it in circumstances that signify religious participation. It is this distinction — between ordinary food and food ritually consecrated — that is currently blurred by inadequate labelling in the British marketplace. Without clarity, the conscience of the faithful is placed in jeopardy.

Freedom of religion and freedom of conscience
The government’s current balance respects animal welfare and religious liberty, but it neglects the conscience of the wider public. Muslims and Jews rightly insist upon freedom to follow their dietary laws; yet reciprocity demands that Christians and others have the freedom not to participate unknowingly in those rites. To deny that freedom by withholding information is to turn pluralism into coercion. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us: “A lie consists in speaking a falsehood with the intention of deceiving” (CCC 2482). To fail to label meat clearly, even by omission, is a form of deceit.

Moreover, the state has a duty not only to protect freedom of religion, but also to safeguard the common good by ensuring that laws and commercial practices uphold truth and transparency. Pope Leo XIII, in Immortale Dei, warned against the dangers of a state that privileges one set of liberties while neglecting others: liberty, severed from truth, collapses into license.⁸ In the present case, a legitimate accommodation for religious minorities has inadvertently become a denial of truth to the majority.

A prudent way forward
Christians, therefore, must advocate not for prohibition but for truth. Three measures would strike a just balance between religious freedom, animal welfare, and conscience:

• Mandatory labelling distinguishing stunned, non-stunned, and ritually-slaughtered meat, enabling consumers to make informed moral choices.
• Public procurement reform ensuring that schools, hospitals, and the military always offer non-halal, non-kosher options alongside religiously certified food, so that no citizen is coerced.
• Transparency in contracts, with regular audits and public disclosures, ensuring honesty in supply chains and restoring public trust.

Such measures would preserve the rights of Muslims and Jews while respecting the consciences of Christians. They would uphold true pluralism: not the privileging of one group over another, but the recognition that freedom must be reciprocal to be real.

Conclusion
Restore Britain has given voice to genuine grievances over transparency and consumer choice. But its call for outright prohibition risks trampling religious liberty and alienating communities. Christians must chart a different course: firm in defending their own right to avoid participation in another faith’s rites, while charitable toward the legitimate practices of religious minorities. The halal debate, therefore, is not only about animals or politics but about truth. Only truth can uphold both faith and freedom — and only truth can set men free.

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Footnotes
¹ UK Parliament, Non-Stun Slaughter of Animals, Westminster Hall debate, 9 June 2025, Hansard HC Deb 9 June 2025, c39WH.
² UK Government, Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing (England) Regulations 2015.
³ RSPCA, RSPCA policy on religious slaughter, 2024; figure cited in debate, Hansard HC Deb 9 June 2025, c41WH.
⁴ RSPCA, “Clearer labelling needed on method of slaughter,” Campaign briefing, 2023.
⁵ Restore Britain campaign materials, e.g. Rupert Lowe MP, Facebook post, 2025.
⁶ See Belgian Constitutional Court, judgment of 4 October 2019, upholding bans on non-stun slaughter in Flanders and Wallonia.
⁷ Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II, q.94, a.4.
⁸ Leo XIII, Immortale Dei (1885), §32.