Will Labour Stand Up to Big Dairy?

Let’s start with the obvious: cow’s milk is sugary. Not just the strawberry-flavoured, whipped-cream-topped dessert drinks parading as “milkshakes,” but plain old milk from a cow. Unflavoured. Unsweetened. The stuff people still insist is a “health food.”

Per 100ml, cow’s milk contains around 4.8g of sugar, similar to the soft drink formerly known as Lilt. That’s more than the 4g per 100ml threshold proposed under the UK government’s new plans to tighten the sugar tax. Under the logic of this tax, cow’s milk should already qualify. And under any honest logic, it should’ve qualified a long time ago.

But of course, it hasn’t. Until now, dairy drinks have enjoyed a cushy exemption from the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL), supposedly to protect children’s calcium intake. Never mind that most kids get their calcium from food, not sugary drinks. Never mind that only 3.5% of young people’s calcium comes from flavoured milks and milkshakes. That fig leaf has finally withered.

Now, the Treasury is consulting on ending this ridiculous exemption, and good. Because the idea that dairy is automatically “healthier” than its non-dairy alternatives is a relic. It’s propped up by lobbyists, not science.

The dairy industry is desperate to keep its halo on straight.

But that halo is a lie.

Cow’s milk is full of naturally occurring sugar, and then—if you're drinking the flavoured stuff—more is dumped in. Chocolate milk often contains more sugar than Coca-Cola. The sugar in milk might be lactose instead of high-fructose corn syrup, but the pancreas doesn’t care. Excess sugar is excess sugar. The human body doesn’t award points for origin stories.

And that’s just the nutritional side. Let’s talk about where milk really comes from.

It doesn’t just appear in the fridge like a magic white liquid of health. Milk comes from exploitation. Always. No exceptions.

Cows don’t give milk. It’s not a gift. They’re mammals. They produce milk after pregnancy. Which means in the dairy industry, cows are forcibly impregnated—routinely, repeatedly—so their bodies stay in a permanent cycle of pregnancy and lactation. Their babies are taken away within hours. Mothers bellow. Babies cry. They are separated because the milk isn’t for the calf. It’s for the market.

That alone should be enough to end the conversation.

But we live in a world where profits matter more than principles, and so the cycle continues. Until her body gives up—usually after about five years—the average dairy cow is pushed past her biological limits. Then she’s sent to slaughter. Her spent body becomes cheap meat.

Let’s stop pretending this is some wholesome process.

There is nothing wholesome about reproductive control, infant removal, confinement, and early death.

If this were being done to dogs, the public would riot. But cows? We brand it as breakfast.

And what do we get in return? A nutrient cocktail designed to turn a newborn calf into a half tonne cow in weeks. A drink linked to early puberty, obesity, and reproductive cancers.

Everything people claim to need from milk is already available without enslaving anyone.

Calcium? Available in leafy greens, fortified plant milks, tofu, tahini.

Protein? There’s no shortage in beans, nuts, seeds, legumes, soy.

Vitamin B12? Most people—including meat eaters—get it from fortified sources or supplements.

Iodine? Seaweed, iodised salt, and again, fortified plant milks.

The dairy industry has always relied on two things: misinformation and exemption.

It markets itself as essential, natural, even compassionate. It positions itself as the humble underdog, while pulling in billions in subsidies, PR campaigns, and political favours.

Now, with the sugar tax under review, dairy will cry foul. But what is it actually fighting for? The right to sell sugary drinks to children without scrutiny. The right to avoid reformulation. The right to keep profiting from a lie.

Let’s call it what it is: hypocrisy.

The moment oat and rice drinks entered the conversation, the industry flipped. Suddenly, we need to “protect consumer choice” and “avoid punishing families.” But where was that energy when it came to taxing cola? Or taxing fruit juice? Those products were fair game.

This isn’t about sugar. It’s about clinging to a dying reputation.

If cow’s milk came onto the market today as a brand-new product, it would never be approved. A bodily fluid extracted from pregnant animals. With significant sugar. With cholesterol and saturated fat. Linked to acne, cancers, and heart disease. Packaged as a must-have for kids. It would be laughed out of the room.

But history gives it a pass. And nostalgia keeps it in our fridges.

Meanwhile, the very drinks that offer an escape—plant-based milks, often fortified, free from cholesterol, free from forced breeding—are taxed, scrutinised, or mocked. It's backwards.

Tax them for their sugar. Tax them for their dishonesty. Tax them for hiding behind outdated ideas of health. If plant-based drinks are being held to account, then dairy must be too. Fair is fair. But don’t stop there.

Challenge the entire myth that dairy is necessary. Expose the cruelty it depends on. Condemn the idea that anyone needs to be enslaved, impregnated, and killed just so humans can drink a glass of something sweet.

Cow’s milk isn’t magical. It’s not essential. And it’s certainly not ethical. So yes, tax the milkshakes. But let’s not forget: the real problem isn’t how much sugar is in them. It’s how they were made in the first place.