ABSTRACT
The mad cow disease issue was described by the Prime Minister of Britain (April 1996) as “the worst crisis a British Government has faced since the Falklands [War]”. Even this rhetoric hardly did justice to the magnitude of the calamity. It was not just a £550-million-a-year export industry which had been lost (perhaps never to be regained). It was not just the many thousands of jobs that had been lost, and the corresponding misery caused to farmers, slaughterhouse workers, butchers, and other work groups. It was the damage caused to European Union (EU) relations, which some commentators say will lead to the EC’s (European Community’s) eventual break-up, or at least Britain’s withdrawal from its Continental trading partners.
