Over the past six months, media coverage referencing shechita, the Jewish religious and humane method of animal slaughter for food, has taken on a troubling and increasingly polarized tone across parts of the British press and political sphere. What is most striking is not simply the direction of the criticism, but the near total absence of engagement with those affected.
This past October, The Critic published a feature titled “The problem of ritual slaughter,” presenting shechita (the Jewish method) and zabiha (the Muslim method) as the same and both ethically suspect, even damning. Of course, we offered a response. The magazine didn’t even decline it – they simply ignored us, and did not even acknowledge our phone calls, emails, and hand delivered letters.
In early December, The Daily Telegraph ran an investigation, “The truth about halal slaughterhouses,” which relied on a simplistic and damaging binary between “stunned” and “non-stunned” meat, implicitly drawing shechita into the frame without delineating the facts on the ground. As with The Critic, The Telegraph simply ignored us.
Around the same time, correspondence in The Times referred to “barbaric religious slaughter.” Our letters in response were not published.
The Mail on Sunday gave “celebrity” Selina Scott free rein to rant ignorantly about “unstunned” slaughter without any facts. Again, our approaches to provide balance were just ignored.
It seems that it is easier for some media outlets just to ignore us rather than allow debate.
The campagin aganst ritual slaughter
All this has been reinforced by a growing campaign environment. This new year has heralded more polarized calls of damnation. The noise-making National Secular Society issued another press release urging the government to review religious exemptions permitting “non-stun slaughter” and to include this within the new Animal Welfare Strategy, alongside renewed calls for mandatory labeling. The RSPCA has also launched a petition calling to “end non-stun slaughter for farm animals.”
As I write, two parliamentary e-petitions are currently active. One, calling to “Require non-stunned and stunned meat to be labeled accordingly,” has already attracted around 70,000 signatures and requires 100,000 by March 1 to trigger a House of Commons debate. A second petition, launched in September calling to “Label all meat as Religiously Slaughtered or Non-Religiously Slaughtered,” has gathered around 30,000 signatures.
Parliamentary rhetoric has followed a similar trajectory. In a House of Lords debate on meat labeling on January 13, Baroness Hoey made a series of pejorative, incorrect, and fantastical claims about shechita. Our letters and outreach to her were also ignored, with not even an acknowledgement of receipt.
Evidence and outreach ignored
Last year in 2025, three new peer-reviewed scientific studies were published, each demonstrating that the shechita method more than satisfies both the legal requirements and the norms of animal welfare. They have been sent to the government and their scientific advisors; we still await a response.
Beyond Westminster, the tone continues to harden. On January 11, Robert Jenrick contrasted the ban on trail hunting with the continued legality of halal slaughter. And on his social media accounts, perhaps showing more of a display of antisocial behavior, Rupert Lowe has repeatedly stated that he “would ban kosher slaughter.” Of course, we reached out. Silence.
All taken together, this reveals a deeper problem. A lawful, scientifically proven humane religious practice, explicitly protected in UK law, is increasingly discussed as though it were a moral aberration. The communities who observe it are talked about, not talked to. Requests for comment are not made to us, as the campaign group directly representing the cause. Our rebuttals are not published, with seldom a private response.
The lack of debate and real consequences
My issue is not that of debate. I have made my living on debating and lobbying, arguing and counter arguing. My issue is the lack of debate. Shechita has been vilified and our responses have been wholly ignored.
The consequences are not abstract. A ban on non-mechanically stunned slaughter would profoundly harm the lives of observant Jews. It would make life harder and would of course place Britain out of step with its own tradition of religious accommodation. For some Jews, it would inevitably raise the question of whether this country still has space for them.
Such a ban would also be increasingly detached from evidence. The latest peer-reviewed scientific studies, published within the past year, indicate that shechita is at least as humane as certain mechanical stunning methods currently in use. These studies are publicly available and already form part of the evidence we have shared with MPs, officials, regulators, and animal welfare bodies.
It should be noted that after years of us questioning how the use of CO2 in the gassing of pigs to asphyxiation can possibly be classified as humane, the government is at last seeking its ban. We now hope that it will turn its attention to the water bathing and electrocution of poultry.
There has been one notable exception to the silence. At the end of December, The Daily Telegraph published a comment piece by Michael Mosbacher, which acknowledged the negative consequences that banning shechita would have for British Jews. Michael was happy to meet – at a kosher restaurant. What we need now is more of that: More conversations. More lunches. More listening. Less damnation by headline, petition or soundbite.
The Critic, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, and The Mail on Sunday should not be frightened to debate, nor should parliamentarians. It does seem to me that currently, no one wants to spoil a good story with the facts.
The writer is the campaign director for Shechita UK as well as the campaign director for the Conference of European Rabbis.