However, I think it would be of great value to have a chat. The whole area of multi-faith intercourse has been my subject for many years. It seems to me that it is essential when dealing with religious matters that the spokesman is properly briefed and I regret that, I think you were left slightly on a limb over the Halal/kosher issue. What you have sent me today is a great relief and exactly the right approach to take!

I was invited to speak in a Mosque a few weeks ago, before I was selected and so now that invitation is under review by my slightly anxious hosts: I am not sure now whether they want to invite me to another venue or they may postpone the talk until after the election. Certainly, they are very worried about this issue in particular and about UKIP’s attitude towards Islam in general, which I have assured them and would assure them is not a problem at all.

I spent my first few years teaching in a Hassidic school in Stamford hill where I was accepted as part of the community because my mother is Jewish. Again, I understand at first hand what the issues are regarding religious observance and I have a friend who is in fact a Jewish shochet/butcher. We have already obliged Judaism to modify the method of ritual slaughter in the UK- animals are elsewhere slaughtered on their backs. One of the points, however, that Jewish butchers would make is that the animals are slaughtered individually and so no other animal witnesses the death of its kind: this will always be presented as primary evidence of the care taken and respect to animal welfare.

My own investigations regarding stunning in the regular meat process is fairly similar to yours- a marginal number of larger animals are not properly stunned (I would put the percentage slightly higher than 1%, but not much- the animal rights’ people have some fairly horrific photographs and reference, but it is, as you say, marginal), but there is a more serious issue with the electrocution and plucking of chickens which I think could benefit from further investigation, and seems to me to show signs that the animals are pretty routinely stressed.

Some of the Kosher meat that is on the wider market is meat that is quite edible by gentiles but that could not be eaten by Jews without the removal of the sciatic nerve – this removal has not been done in the UK within living memory, I gather- I see no problem with this getting into the ordinary meat market provided it is properly labelled. There is no question about either religion using non-religious butchers for the slaughter. In both traditions, this would render the meat unclean anyway. In addition, in the halal tradition, specific prayers are required to be said at the point of slaughter

UKIP is, however, not alone is uneasiness about slaughter that goes ahead without pre-stunning. There was some government sponsored research in 2003 by the Farm Animal Welfare Council and in New Zealand, Halal meat is routinely pre-stunned while kosher butchers post-stun seconds after cutting the throat.

More evidence would need to be assembled before we could mount any campaign against black-market meat from muslim farmers. This is a fairly recent law (1999) and there should be some evidence of transgression- are there police records or prosecutions? I can find no evidence. I think unless we have specific examples and rely only on hearsay, this would whip up an unnecessary storm and, with apologies for the mixed metaphor, we could well end up with egg on our faces!

Regarding my own religious background, I was brought up as a Catholic, briefly became a monk and have subsequently adopted Greek Orthodoxy having spent alot of time in both Greece and Russia. My godmother is a Russian nun who still lives on a remote island in the Shetlands!

Beyond this, I should add that I was brought up among the farms and horticultural industries of the fens, so again, there are points of reference that may be of use.

I look forward to talking.

Sincerely, TW