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The government today took the historic - and possibly irreversible - decision to allow commercial GM crops to be grown in Britain for the first time.
The environment secretary, Margaret Beckett, announced to MPs that one variety of GM maize has been given the go-ahead, despite the opposition of large sections of the public, former environment minister Michael Meacher, the environment select committee, the Soil Association, organic farmers and many concerned scientists.
Although Ms Beckett ruled out GM beet and oilseed rape, and said she did not expect any commercial planting of GM maize before spring 2005, she was immediately warned that her decision was "probably irreversible".
The government's announcement today comes a few weeks after a leaked cabinet minute in the Guardian approving GM maize, but delaying the announcement to "prepare the ground with key MPs, particularly those with an interest in science and food security".
The Conservatives embarrassed Ms Beckett by quoting this back at her in the Commons - and demanded to know what had been the point of public consultations, which came out strongly against GM.
Last week the Commons' own environmental audit committee argued that the tests which green-lighted the GM maize were invalid, as the comparison with conventional crops was tainted by the ordinary maize being sprayed with a now-banned insecticide.
Today Ms Beckett said the GM issue had been "bedevilled by confusion" and the right way of proceeding was to adopt a "precautionary, evidence-based" approach.
"But equally there is no scientific case for a blanket ban on the use of GM," she said.
Much will depend now depend on whether the government insists GM firms are liable for any compensation to other farmers for cross-pollination, the project could be commercially unviable.
But there was no immediate queue of supportive Labour MPs to back Ms Beckett in the Commons, as she faced uniform hostility from the Tories and Liberal Democrats.
The Liberal Democrats' food and rural affairs spokesman, Andrew George, accused the government of branding all opponents of GM food "Green luddites", and told her today's decision was "probably irreversible".
Mr Meacher, who ordered the original farm-sized trials of the three GM crops, said GM crops were neither driven by science, nor demand, nor public opinion, but the profits of multinational biotech companies at the behest of the White House.
He demanded to know who would insure GM firms against liability.
Ms Beckett said restrictions should be put on the existing EU marketing consent, which expires in October 2006, so crops "can only be grown and managed as in the trials or under such conditions as will not result in adverse effects on the environment".
Consent holders will also be required to carry out further scientific analysis and submit new evidence if they seek to renew the marketing consent in 2006, she said.
Earlier today Patrick Holden, director of organic food pressure group the Soil Association, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Our prediction is that we will look back in 10 or 15 years' time and think 'What were we doing? Why didn't we learn the lessons of BSE?'
"Our fear is that this technology - which is living and irreversible - will be a threat of a similar scale and if something goes wrong it will be impossible to reverse it."
But a spokesman for industry body Scimac, Bob Fiddaman, rejected the idea that GM technology posed great risks.
He told the programme: "Never has a form of technology been so tested and checked by scientists before it is allowed to be fully developed."
The Commons environmental audit committee last week published a hard-hitting report warning the government must not give the go-ahead to commercial planting of GM maize after the recently completed three-year crop trials.
The MPs said more research is needed because atrazine, one of the pesticides used on conventional crops during the tests, is about to be banned.
Critics claim this means the trials were invalidated because the effect of GM crops on the environment and wildlife was not being compared with conventional crops grown using a less powerful pesticide.
A spokesman for the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "The field scale evaluations were not invalidated by the banning of atrazine.
"It is disingenuous to claim they were. The validity of the trials was full endorsed by the scientific steering committee and the publishing journal."
Peter Melchett, the Soil Association's policy director, said: "This is a black day for British agriculture. The government is jeopardising the future integrity, safety and economic viability of British farming and food."
But the government received a boost when the British Medical Association came out in favour of commercial GM planting.
Sir David Carter, chairman of the BMA's board of science, said it was necessary to "move away from the hysteria that has so often been associated with GM foods".
Asked if he would be 100% behind a decision to allow GM maize for animal feed, he said: "I would say so."
As recently as 1999 the BMA called for an open-ended moratorium on all commercial planting of GM crops until more was known about their effects on human health.
In an updated report today it said that rather than a blanket ban it now wanted individual crops to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
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