THE famous Thwaites dray horses appeared outside Westminster yesterday as the Blackburn-based brewery joined a protest to try and stop Britain's beer trade being destroyed by cheap foreign imports.

It is estimated that more than 1.1 million pints a day are coming across the English Channel.

The beer is being sold on at car boot sales, markets and from private houses...and the British brewery and pub trades are taking a hammering.

Only recently an East Lancashire pub and club chain found itself in serious trouble.

British beer is the best in the world. But if the present trend continues there will be precious little of it left by the beginning of the next century.

For British beer is also one of the most heavily taxed in the world. When drinkers are offered an alternative that is virtually duty free they are going to take it. The government earns millions in duty but that is now being being eroded as imports increase.

Jobs in breweries and throughout the pub trade are on the line.

In other countries drinkers pay a fraction of the duty paid on British beer.

It is high time the government grasped the nettle and set duty at a more sensible level, so that there would be no need to bring in van load after van load of foreign froth.

If things continue a pint of good British beer will be as scarce as a British-built motor-cycle.

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