Interview

British M.P Jeremy Corbyn on McDonald's and Parliamentary Democracy

Jeremy Corbyn is British Member of Parliament (MP) for a north London (UK) constituency. In May 1994 he put forward an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons. This Motion largely castigated the practices of McDonald's, particularly their use of libel laws to silence critics.


With regard to the two early day motions you put down in the House of Commons, what were the particular fears that made you feel it was necessary to do so?

We have this enormous corporation -McDonalds - which is global in every sense of the word, and to me, is acting in a sort of appalling manner towards people who have raised perfectly legitimate questions about the use of highly processed foods and the heavy advertising that goes with it, and the way that young children are enticed into eating McDonalds in the belief it's somehow modern, up to date, and so on. I also feel that they're very damaging of traditional cultures and food in all parts of the world. In France, for example, where a lot of traditional French food has suffered because of the presence of McDonalds and the heavy advertising amongst young people, Russia, China other countries where they pursue these sort of heavy sell techniques.

Is this just cultural preferences, or do you think it is more dangerous than that?

Yes I do, because first of all McDonalds' food is very, very heavily processed, and there's concerns about the additives that are given to the food. Secondly, it's very heavily packaged, and none of that packaging - as I understand it - can be recycled in any way, and so to look into a McDonalds restaurant and you see trayfuls of cutlery and everything else, all cascading into bins in order to be thrown away somewhere to yet another landfill site, and that seems to me to be wrong. it's also an incredibly profitable corporation which is paranoid about any kind of criticism whatsoever. They're very good at promoting themselves as being friends of the community and sort of, giving a few cartons of orange juice to the community fair, or few dinners at McDonalds or something, and then appearing as somehow or other friendly towards the community, and I think it's time that a lot of the values that they do are actually challenged.

Is the cancer - heart disease link scaremongering? And as such should we feed McDonald's burgers to our children?

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I think that the power of these big corporations has to be questioned, and McDonalds don't like questions. They don't like questions from their staff, they don't like trade union organisation rights for their staff, they've a very high staff turnover because people can't stand the pace, or they're very good at chucking them out if they ask any questions.

 I think there are very serious concerns about the amount of processed food that small children are given, and children think they're being part of their peer group rivalry, or whatever, if they eat hamburgers and chips. Now often, the hamburgers - cheap hamburgers - consist of a lot of fat, and a lot of water, and a lot of preservatives added to them. The chips are often made from powdered potato and deep fried, so what they're getting is a lot of fat and a lot of water that fills them up, and they're hungry a short time later - you could hardly call it good quality food. McDonalds have this huge advertising budget and ability to dominate High Streets. They also have a trading system and an employment system that means they're open more often, in more places, and longer than almost anybody else. So in most High Streets in this country - or any other country, for that matter - late at night there's nothing open except McDonalds, and kids tend to sort of go along with McDonalds because it's an image they see on television the whole time, and I just find it very dangerous and very insidious. It's not good quality healthy food that our children want to eat because of this, it's the very opposite. And this has a knock-on effect that when you try and persuade children to take school lunches, for example (which are generally very good quality) they say: 'Well, don't like 'em - they don't look much like McDonalds.' as though good food equals something you get in a hamburger restaurant, and I find that very sad.

What do you think specifically about McDonald's use of the libel laws?

Well they're obsessed with Libel, and they've always thought that because that they're big and because they're powerful and because they can hire the best lawyers in the world, they only have to scream 'Libel' at somebody and they'll back away and apologise, and indeed, most people have. What's different is that this time they didn't back away and they didn't apologise - they stuck - and I think we have this really quite remarkable legal history of Dave and Helen standing up against QCs getting sort of telephone number salaries and telephone number fees in order to state a principal which Dave and Helen very strongly believe in, and millions of us actually support them.

Going back to McDonalds own argument.....they would say they're simply defending their reputation of their company ... what would you say to this?

Well they have the power to defend themselves. Noone else has the power to criticise them because of the costs involved. Now if..if you went to libel in the normal way then you risk everything, because there's no legal aid for Libel ,and if you lose you risk the lot, in other words you lose your home, you lose your job, you lose the lot. Everything. Now Dave and Helen have been prepared to take it on , possibly because they are both unemployed - or were both unemployed at that time - and therefore had nothing to lose in that sense, and also had time to persue the case and I think they've done something for the good of anybody because what they've managed to do is to bring in the arguments globally of the power of McDonalds.

[ houses of parliament ] McDonalds claim they don't sell beef used from ex-rainforest land - they clearly do, they claim they don't use intensively reared chicken and beef -they clearly do, they have very...very great difficulty defending themselves on the arguments about food additives and everything else. But then when one starts to look at health in a wider sense around the world- look at levels of obesity, look at levels of heart disease, and look at levels of cancer of the large intestine you find those that have highly processed high-meat diets there's a much greater prevalence of that than there is in, traditional societies that have a slightly different level.

For example, the East End of London often had a very low levels of heart disease....heart disease and other illnesses because they had an oily fish diet, like wise in Japan whereas in Scotland you've very high levels of heart disease and obesity because of the very fatty diet that is a...a sort of tradition in Scotland, and there are many other examples like that around the world. What I find sad is that McDonalds can use their power of advertising, and the power -if you like, the image - of the United States to move into a place like India and start selling burgers of some sort or the other - again, with this whole high-pressure stuff, and it seems to be just wrong that this degree of pressure should be used on young people, and the incredible waste surrounding the cooking, the packaging, selling and all the rest of it. Advertising is not a productive industry, it's actually an industry that relies on somebody else to do something, likewise packaging.

A big corporation like McDonalds, knowing that in Britain, the libel laws were wholly min favour of the rich and the powerful really just say 'Libel' and people tend to back away, because if you're a trade union and you get involved in a Libel case you could bankrupt the union, and you've then possibly lost that union protection for thousands, if not more than a million members of a particular union.

Why can't Governments and their agencies use Libel whereas others can?

As I pointed out in the motion I put to the House of Commons, Government offices and agencies can't use Libel law in their own defence. I suppose the thinking behind that is partly that it's political criticism, but then often it's...it's not political in the party political sense it's political in the sense of one believes an organisation has been negligent or done something wrong - you might be concerned about health standards, health and safety, protection, all those kind of things - and they have to deal with it in the sense of meeting the criticism. A big corporation like McDonalds, knowing that in Britain, the libel laws were wholly in favour of the rich and the powerful really just say 'Libel' and people tend to back away, because if you're a trade union and you get involved in a Libel case you could bankrupt the union, and you've then possibly lost that union protection for thousands, if not more than a million members of a particular union. So I don't criticise a trade union for backing away from getting involved in a Libel case because they've got so much to lose, and so it often does fall, historically, to the individual to stand up for justice - and I think Dave and Helen have done that.

....the contrast of Dave and Helen in court with the QCs for the other side on their salaries is really quite remarkable and I think that every corporation will have learnt a lesson from this....

So you would say this was an historic case in that sense?

Absolutely historic case in that I've never known two people defend themselves in such a lengthy trial before - there are cases of people defending themselves, and that's a traditional right, but never in such a long and complex trial as this, or so effectively and so ably, and be able to truly humble an enormous organisation - and the contrast of Dave and Helen in court with the QCs for the other side on their salaries is really quite remarkable and I think that every corporation will have learnt a lesson from this - but I also think we should all be learning a lesson from this about the use of the law of Libel and access to legal aid for libel because why should it be that Libel should only be a matter that affects the rich and powerful.

How would you like to see the Libel laws changed in this country?

Well, I think that if someone has been libelled and one is poor then one should be able to defend oneself at the public expense through legal aid. It also ought to be easier to get a case into court for libel if you believe that to be the case, at the moment it's not - you used to have to put quite a large bond in that to me would be a start, but also the question of the right of reply in newspapers, because most libel cases emanate from a newspaper saying something about an individual -often untrue or grossly exaggerated- and they can't do anything about it because they don't feel in a strong enough position to do it. Politicians usually equate libel law with attacks on themselves and have gone for this idea of a privacy law. I have doubts about a privacy law actually because I think at the end of the day a privacy law would probably end up protecting people who are quite capable of protecting themselves and actually being misused by very powerful people, for example Maxwell when the case of his misuse of the pension fund came up it was very obvious that he'd put a lot of money into private companies. He may well have been able to construct an argument but that was in fact his private business - for example.

IF you just wanted to do one thing to try and improve the libel situation in this country what would it be?

Legal aid for poor defendants so that there wouldn't be....libel wouldn't be solely the preserve of the rich.

If Dave and Helen win, that's fantastic - they've proved a point. If they don't win and the leaflets are still distributed the whole argument goes on, and what are McDonalds going to do about it then? Are McDonalds then going to ask to have police on every shop? .... And so at the end of the day the emperor has no clothes, and I think that's what Dave and Helen have proved.

If Helen and Dave lose they have said that they will continue to hand out leaflets ... does this make whole process meaningless ... does it remind you of other people's movements in recent years?

Yes, there's many popular movements that have just stood up and said 'Well, we're carrying on regardless of what you say'. the sort of 'History will absolve me' argument, if you like. If Dave and Helen win, that's fantastic - they've proved a point. If they don't win and the leaflets are still distributed the whole argument goes on, and what are McDonalds going to do about it then? Are McDonalds then going to ask to have police on every shop? Are they going to have security staff on every shop to stop people saying to people going in there to possibly buy a McDonalds that possibly they should think twice about their own health and that of their children before they go in there? And so at the end of the day the emperor has no clothes, and I think that's what Dave and Helen have proved.

Can you see a particular parallel to the Poll Tax (the Anti-Poll Tax) movement?

Yes, in Britain there has been a whole history of struggle over many centuries on lots of different things. That building over there -we're told- is the Mother of Parliaments. Well the far end of it is fairly democratic in that it's elected, the middle part is not democratic, that's appointed or hereditary - the House of Lords - the top end where the Queen goes is totally hereditary and from that comes the High Court judges and all the rest of it. There's nothing very democratic about at least two thirds of the British constitution. We only have the democratic powers because people protesting there was an English Civil War. We only have the right to vote because people protested and demanded the right to vote and died for it. Women only have the right to vote because they chained themselves to railings around this building, brought Government to a standstill, and won. The Poll Tax...it's a very interesting history, Britain has never learnt this; there was the Poll Tax in 1381 which led to the peasant's revolt which ended up with the death of Watt Tyler in Smithfield market - killed by the Fishmongers' Company. The Poll Tax was tried again as a 'hut tax' in various colonies particularly in what was then Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe and destroyed there because of the protest to it. Mrs Thatcher reintroduced a Poll Tax in this country which led to the most massive disturbances against it, all the voices of the Establishment and all the parties roundly condemned the protest and the demonstrations, the refusal to pay and everything else. Eventually the Government had to give in because it was an expensive tax, it was uncollectable, it was deeply unpopular, and they recognised they'd have to get rid of it. When they got rid of it all the Establishment figures who'd had some minor criticisms of it claimed the credit for getting rid of the Poll Tax. The real reason the Poll Tax was got rid of was because 250,000 people marched into Trafalgar Square and didn't want to leave - that's why. Another bit of history.

250,000 people marched into Trafalgar Square and weren't very keen to leave there, and as a result of that we got rid of the Poll Tax. In the case of the campaign ...., the McDonalds libel trial -whatever the result- the case will go on and this has been a high water point for promoting those arguments about sustainable agriculture, sustainable development and safe food to eat. That campaign will go on irrespective of the result.

What relationship does this have to the McLibel trial?

250,000 people marched into Trafalgar Square and weren't very keen to leave there, and as a result of that we got rid of the Poll Tax. In the case of the campaign concerning the health and safety of all of us and the intensive agricultural methods, the McDonalds libel trial -whatever the result- the case will go on and this has been a high water point for promoting those arguments about sustainable agriculture, sustainable development and safe food to eat. That campaign will go on irrespective of the result.

What would you say the implications are for free speech then, after this libel case that McDonalds have brought?

I think they've terrorised a lot of people into not criticising and not protesting. Now anyone that might have concerns about food safety and might seriously be concerned about McDonalds products will take one look at their use of libel and the way they've used it to silence people in the past and think 'Well hang on, I can't drag my institution/ my newspaper/ my magazine into all this, so they go and look at something else. That's not good, and that's not healthy. Likewise, their massive advertising power and their massive advertising budget t they can have a big influence - if not totally make or break -newspapers, television channels and commercial radio channels by their withdrawal of advertising if they so choose to do. And I must say I'm very concerned that a lot of journalists have chosen not to report the McLibel trial despite the vast amount of public interest that's obviously in it and the fact that there's journalists in the High Court every day anyway to cover one trial or the other and I'm just concerned that we have this sort of massive corporation that nobody dare speak out against.

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