Because of the Internal Market Bill, Scotland will have to allow the sale of genetically edited food if England decides to change its laws SCOTLAND may soon be “forced to accept the marketing, sale and free circulation” of genetically modified food as England looks to change its own laws in the area post-Brexit, the Scottish Government has warned. The UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has today launched a public consultation on the use of gene editing on both livestock and arable crops. Gene editing (GE) is slightly different from genetic modification (GM). While the latter involves inserting new genes into a DNA strand, GE involves the cutting and removing of undesirable parts of genes.