Bore da / Good morning!
We haven't talked about animal slaughter & religion for a while.
This thread has some details, not too graphic for most but be aware, of my own experience at a 50% Halal abattoir.
Let's get our facts straight...

In the mid noughties, as part of my degree, I spent 2 weeks working at an abattoir that handled sheep & cattle. I mainly worked with the sheep, so that's what I'll focus on.
Oh, & I'd been a vegetarian since age 6...

The first part of an abattoir is called lairage. This is where the sheep hang out in pens, in a sort of queue. I was surprised to see how calm they were. Some even got a final shag in!
A long journey to get there would suck, but lairage was ok. There they'd get vet checked...

...to ensure no infectious diseases & no welfare concerns.
Then, on to a conveyor belt. This 6ish(?) metre ramp took them up to the stun/slaughter area.
If you eat meat, this is how it's made.

Electrical stunning was done by touching 2 prongs either side of the neck, & passing a current through them. Loss of consciousness was immediate. The slaughterer then took the sheep off the belt & onto a table, where the main blood vessels were cut.

For transparency, stunning can go wrong. The stunner & slaughterer had to be sure it had worked. The 2 weeks I was there, I saw 1 sheep have to be re-stunned before slaughter.

There were 2 slaughterers. That's the person who makes the cut. That's their whole job & they have to be very precise to be licensed.
My first day, the OV explained how 50% of the lamb was Halal. (The OV is the state-appointed vet who oversees the abattoir)

Of the 2 slaughterers, 1 was Muslim. He'd been granted permission to give a blessing to the animals he slaughtered, and so he did, for each one.
Each animal slaughtered by him was Halal as a result. All were stunned before slaughter.

"slaughter" means to kill by exsanguination (blood loss). It's how most UK meat animals are killed, but that wasn't always the case.
There was a time when less humane methods were common. Halal & Kosher meat was designed as the least painful way to kill an animal at that time.

An added benefit was that meat keeps longer when exsanguinated, so was considered cleaner.
Reading into it, it seems clear to me that minimising animal suffering was important, & stunning would have been welcomed

The method of death is the same. An electrically stunned animal will recover in under a minute if left. This meat is absolutely Halal. And it is absolutely the same meat you can buy in your supermarket.
I asked if there was much demand for it...

I was told that very little of the meat produced by the abattoir was sold as Halal. The label puts more people off than it entices, I was told. Bear in mind many Muslims are & were vegetarian.
So what's the deal with non-stun meat?

I've never been to a non-stun abattoir. I know enough physiology to know it shouldn't be legal. Those who practice it are misguided to say the least.
But I am sick & tired of hearing non-stun being conflated with Halal by those who should know better.

We'll over 80% of the UK's Halal meat is stunned. Of course it should be 100%.
I can't tell you how to feel about how meat is slaughtered. I will say if you're not a vegetarian & you care about animal welfare, consider that your meat spent far more of its time living than dying

Non-stun slaughter is wrong. Intensive livestock farming is inexcusable.
What good is a painless death preceded by weeks of overcrowding & stress?
Pigs & chickens tend to have it worse than sheep & beef in the UK. & UK meat has it better than most.

All this is to say:
Call out racism when you hear "Halal" used instead of "non-stun" by someone eating chicken nuggets of unknown provenance.
Brexit is a welfare catastrophe.
No-one is morally infallible.
This biltong is delicious. I can tell you what farm the bullock was from.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halal  https://www.change.org/p/george-eustice-mp-future-trade-deals-must-not-compromise-uk-farm-animal-welfare-and-public-health-standards

Addendum-
Poultry are stunned with gas (somewhat noxious) or electric bath (stressful restraint). Argument for non-stun decapitation? This sciency paper discusses the challenges of knowing how others experience death, & some possible options https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4693211/