Guest essay by Eric Worrall
British academics are worried that the British People might choose to de-prioritise climate policy, if they are allowed to make their own choices instead of being shackled to the EU bureaucracy.
What will Brexit mean for the climate? (Clue: it doesn’t look good)
Research Fellow, SPRU (Science Policy Research Unit), University of Sussex
Project Manager: TRANSrisk, University of Sussex
December 1, 2017 8.05pm AEDT
With Brexit negotiations stuck on divorce bills and borders, complex issues such as climate change barely receive a mention. Yet the UK has agreements with the EU around emissions targets and technology transfer, and Brexit represents a significant threat to the UK’s progress on cutting carbon emissions.
The UK’s recent clean growth strategy document devotes scant attention to Brexit, providing only a single page on “leaving the European Union”. Yet, other public institutions, as well as the mainstream media, have raised questions concerning climate change, Brexit and the UK government’s attitude.
After Brexit, the UK will need to establish up its own position within the UNFCCC as an independent member. It will have to ratify the Paris Agreement on its own, and produce its individual NDC. Whilst this is achievable, time, space and resources will be required. The delay could possibly leave the UK behind compared to other international actors.
Exiting the EU-ETS is another serious issue. It is the world’s oldest and largest emissions trading scheme and is the primary joint tool adopted by the EU to reduce carbon. The scheme allocates free and/or auctioned allowances to operators, and creates a market for those who wish to purchase or sell allowances. A shrinking cap for allowances reduces emissions over time, directing efforts to where emission cuts are most cost effective. The EU-ETS has also triggered growth in climate-related financial services.
The UK may establish its own national ETS, but there is huge uncertainty over timing, size, shape and effectiveness. This is highly detrimental for UK companies subject to the EU-ETS that will lose access to the system from January 2018, hence facing significant cost increases for their emissions reductions. In addition, London may lose its leading position in climate related-financial services.
…
Read more: http://theconversation.com/what-will-brexit-mean-for-the-climate-clue-it-doesnt-look-good-87476
I blame the EU for this situation.
Despite substantial grumbling, the UK still overwhelmingly supports politicians who embrace renewables, who advocate aggressive emissions reduction policies.
When Britain first voted Brexit, the British government hoped for an amicable separation. But the EU is making Brexit very difficult for Britain. According to German academic Professor Thorsten Polleit, this intransigence is deliberate – Professor Polleit thinks the EU is deliberately punishing Britain for voting Brexit. Professor Polleit is not alone in making that accusation.
The EU are currently demanding a Brexit “divorce bill” of £50 billion (USD $67 billion) to agree to discuss favourable post Brexit trade terms – an obscene demand which has caused public outrage in Britain.
Britain are not prioritising climate change because they are trying to avoid 100s of thousands of job losses. In my opinion the EU leaders are acting like spoiled children, they don’t seem to care about the environment. They seem to be having way too much fun taunting people worried about their future with outrageous demands for cash. Until this school yard bullying subsides, neither side is going to prioritise problems which might happen decades from now over very real problems which are happening right now.
Sussex University has been a hot bed of left wing propaganda and activism since it was set up in the 60s. It is no doubt full of remoaners and greens.
This description applies to all universities in the UK. They are however relatively right-wing compared to the murderously fanatical caliphate leftism of the US higher education political culture.
Hold your horses, some Anglo-US rivalry here, I’m backing UK academics to be more extreme. C’mon guys/gals/others, we in the UK can win this competition, think of it as a kind of academic Ryder Cup.
Easy victory: I bid University [sic] of East Anglia
” the murderously fanatical caliphate leftism of the US higher education political culture”? Calm down.
Wow
I kinda like that description because it “fits them to a T” …… as the ole saying goes.
Which should not be “SURPRISING” to anyone given the literal fact that during the past 30 years or so, most every US institution of higher education has morphed into a money-making business of “selling Degrees and Diplomas”.
And most of the Public Schools have followed suite ……. simply because the graduates of the afore stated institutions are now in charge of and “calling-the-shots” for the Public School’s curriculum.
Not so fast Capell. We’ve got “any university where Michael Mann is”.
One solution is to start a new University based solely on private individuals who want to do research in areas easily accessible to public research like climate.
I’ve looked into it and there is very little stopping anyone proceeding except the will, the people wanting to do the research and those willing to supervise – with the hardest problem likely to be finding enough supervisors.
MIT News, May 20, 2016
‘MIT joins Carbon Pricing Coalition’
“Led by World Bank and IMF, coalition seeks to price emissions to tackle climate change”
Yale is also a member of the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC).
http://news.mit.edu/2016/mit-joins-carbon-pricing-leadership-coalition-world-bank-imf-0520
Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC)
CPLC is an international organization. Launched at COP21 November 29/30, 2015. Promotes carbon pricing.
http://www.carbonpricingleadership.org
Yale News, March 15, 2016
‘Yale becomes first university to join Global Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition’
More information at:
https://news.yale.edu/2016/03/15/yale-becomes-first-university-join-global-carbon-pricing-leadership-coalition
MIT CEEPR, May 10, 2016
MIT conference
Re: GHG emissions and carbon pricing/trading.
‘Emissions Trading in North America and Beyond’
Conference information includes international attendees.
http://ceepr.mit.edu/news/67
The World Bank, May 4, 2017
‘CPLC Nurtures Leadership on Carbon Pricing’
Re: World Bank, IMF and CPLC
Feature article:
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2017/05/04/cplc-nurtures-leadership-on-carbon-pricing
UNFCCC
Re: CPLC, World Bank and other organizations.
http://newsroom.unfccc.int/lpaa/business/united-nations-global-compact-business-leadership-criteria-on-carbon-pricing
UN Environment / Climate Initiatives Platform
‘Climate Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC)
Starting year: 2015
More information on the UN Environment CPLC platform at:
http://climateinitiativesplatform.org/index.php/Carbon_Pricing_Leadership_Coalition
I wonder how the EU would feel about a Tariff free trade agreement between the USA and GB. The U.S. market could certainly offset the EU threatened slack in British imports. This could be a win win for both countries and the EU could go Pound Salt regarding their £50 billion (USD $67 billion) Divorce Bill. Could be another Feather in Trumps Hat.
British Exports as well
World Bank Blogs
World Bank Blogs include: Jerry Brown, Governor of California.
https://blogs.worldbank.org/team/jerry-brown
Yale / Center for Business and Environment
‘Internal Carbon Pricing: Practical Experiences from the Private Sector’
Note: People and Partners at Yale Center for Business and Environment.
http://cbey.yale.edu/programs-research/internal-carbon-pricing-practical-experiences-from-the-private-sector
Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC)
‘High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices’
Accepted to chair new high-level commission on carbon prices:
Joseph Stiglitz and Lord Nicholas Stern
CPLC article at:
http://carbonpricingleadership.org/highlevel-economic-commission-1
Potsdam Institute for Climate Research, Germany, May 29, 2017
‘Carbon Pricing Report launched by leading economists’
Webpage also has a link to the full Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC) report along with other information.
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/in-short/carbon-pricing-report-launched-by-leading-economists
UN Global Compact
‘Put a price on carbon’
Re: Carbon pricing and shifting investments.
http://www.unglobalcompact.org/take-action/action/carbon
I was recently at a lunch & at our table was a ‘green’ political activist who informed us that –
“The Arctic was now totally free of ice in summer.
“CO2 is now more than 60% of the atmosphere.
“CO2 is mainly in band above 35,000ft & is so thick planes cant fly through it
“Polar bears & penguins ARE going extinct & all other info about them is fake news.
“Global temperatures are rising 1°C every 10yrs.
“Sea levels are rising 1 foot / yr.
“He’d been to the Great Barrier Reef & it was 90% dead.
“That last year there were 2million climate refuges (& its only going to get worse) that’s why we need Brexet to keep them out.
My wife & I let him keep digging himself in & asked ‘helpful questions (:-))’, to get him to quantify his claims.
We asked him about fuels & plastics & he said “they should all be kept in the ground as renewables are now capable of providing all the power we need”.
I pointed out that he was being hypocritical as he used as much plastic & fuel as the rest of us in – his iphone, his plastic bottle of spring water, his clothes (including knicker elastic) & shoes, flights to Australia…
Then I listed the actual climate data; his reply “you’re a (the D word)” & he left (I was cut to the quick) … leaving his desert & coffee.
That instantly converted 5 MSM BS accepters into questioners.
hope you ate his dessert.
“That instantly converted 5 MSM BS accepters into questioners.”
It appears you had a very productive lunch. 🙂
“I’m backing UK academics to be more extreme.”
You lose; American nutcakes are unsurpassed.
Here an American professor who predicts the extinction of mankind within ten years. This prediction was made a year ago so it follows that we humans have but nine years left.
Party on.
“hope you ate his dessert.”
Oooooow. Cooties.
So did you grab his desert ??
g
Ha ha … CO2 at 60% of the atmosphere vs the real figure of 0.0004 % = close enough for government work 😉
Ah, the hissy fit. The ultimate argument of all true enviros.
“they (oil, gas, and other hydrocarbons) should all be kept in the ground as renewables are now capable of providing all the power we need”.
That statement is every bit as ridiculous as his other fallacious statements, but that fallacy is accepted generally by so many.
“That instantly converted 5 MSM BS accepters into questioners.”
Until they got back to the office and were told by their editors to toe the line of “consensus”.
Was this serious? I mean, as that an actual word for word accounting of what he said? And as for the 5 new questioners, what were their remarks about the exchange?
“hope you ate his dessert.”
No….but the wife did, I had his coffee !!!!
@ McLovin’
Yes, that’s what he told us + this gem “water has little or no effect on the climate” & of course all backed up by 97%.
We were all surprised when he upped & left & the other people at the table said I’d been a bit hard on him, but after a short discussion they all took details of my website http://www.use-due-diligence-on-climate.org/ & WUWT, so we may get a few more readers.
Over the years, I’ve had numerous letters published in newspapers challenging the ‘warmists’, and a short correspondence with my then Member of the European Parliament. I’ve also had numerous conversations about the supposed dangerous man-made global warming.
Not one ‘warmist’ or predictor of doom has ever produced any figures whatsoever to back up their views. My point are typically avoided, usually with the words “what about”, which are used to try and change what is an uncomfortable subject for them.
Typically they also have great faith in what they call ‘the science’, but none seem to have ever bothered to question the story and look into it more deeply. They don’t have a clue, yet spout their cause fiercely and aggressively.
A challenge to Guy McPherson.
If humans aren’t extinct in 10 years You must extend an apology and admit you were and are wrong. You must immediately decist from further predicting the demise of human existance and preaching about the evils of CO2.
If you are correct and humans do go extinct in 10 years, I will join your crusade against CO2 on Dec 4 2027 (in 10 years)
Up around Spokane in Washington State, there’s a mysterious big hole in the ground that is bottomless. It is called Mel’s Hole, because the chap Mel who bought the property, tried to find the bottom of the hole with reels and reels of nylon fishing line.
He never ever reached the bottom.
So people drop old refrigerators and all sorts of stuff, even dead cows, so they disappear forever.
Mel’s hole is where ALL of my WUWT posts can be found if you want to climb down that far.
Dunno what I did for that but, I guess I should just save my breath and stop wasting my time here.
G and g too !
Mel’s Hole is at least a 3 hour drive on I-90 west of Spokane. Fact.
Mel’s Hole
I guess Mel’s hole is quite deep, and he tried to drop a nylon line down to the bottom using at least one pound spools of line, which he claims to have run out of more thn several spools.
What Mel missed is that there was enough line weight just in the line from top to bottom, that you could drop line forever and never get to a zero line tension situation.
But he evidently did get a passage to Australia out of the deal.
Art Bell had quite a radio show for a while.
It is not generally known that Art Bell had a hand in writing the movie script for the scary movie : “The Day after Tomorrow. ”
Best part of his show was the bumper music for the Sunday segment.
G
@ george e. smith – December 3, 2017 at 10:51 am
Actually, it is not a waste of your time …… because you not only provide enjoyable commentary for reading, …… but also common sense reasoning and intelligently educated verbiage that explains, defines, justifies and/or proves many aspects of subjects being discussed hereon.
Cheers, Sam C
The bullying won’t subside. It’s working.
From what I can tell, bullying doesn’t just “subside”. It goes away when you punch the bully, though…
UK will have to think about other things than climate change after Brexit, first of all how to deal with being outside the EEA.
http://www.eureferendum.com/default.aspx
Henning Nielsen
The Irish border isn’t the UK’s problem, it’s the EU’s. Let them spend the money to establish and run border controls between the two countries. Let them carry the can for any troubles, of which I believe the Irish are sick of anyway, and there’s no US money to fund the IRA any longer anyway.
If the UK simply ignored the problem, it would be the EU under threat from N. Ireland becoming the port of choice for every country wanting to get goods into the EU by driving it over the border, why should we worry about it?
HotScot; good luck with that!
Henning Nielsen
And the alternative is? The UK spending shedloads of money securing the 300 odd roads that pass between N and S Ireland?
Why should we? What benefit does it serve us?
“What benefit does it serve us?”
Wasn’t Brexit supposed to be about immigration control?
Stokes
Was that your narrow minded perspective of it?
Nick Stokes. No Brexit was about freeing the UK from the undemocratic, corrupt and inefficient EU (commonly referred to as the EUSSR) which is run by a cabal of unelected commissioners (known as commissars) and other unelected and overpaid bureaucrats who consist mainly of failed politicians.
“The Irish border isn’t the UK’s problem, it’s the EU’s.”
If the UK sets up border controls as strict as those Canada has set up, then the UK border with the Irish Republic will not be the same for citizens of the UK and Ireland.
Under UK law citizens of the Irish Republic can cross the borders both ways unrestricted. However, citizens of the UK will be subject to EU border control when entering the Irish Republic/
Frederick Colbourne
That’s no different to what we will have with France, Germany, Italy etc. when we leave.
I don’t see the problem. If S. Ireland want to remain in the EU and shoulder the cost of creating and maintaining borders, then fine. It’s their restrictive trading conditions their protecting, why should we pay for their benefit?
And if the IRA have a beef, it’ll be with the EU, not the UK. Brussels can endure the bombings the UK did in the 70’s and 80’s. They can sort out the street riots and have their troops murdered.
Perhaps Mrs. May should take a leaf from Trumps book and tell the EU that if they want a wall, they can build, and pay for it. It’ll make a huge dent in the £50Bn we’re offering them.
Philip Bratby,
right on !! one Southern German CONmissonAIRE spent 9 hours clocked into the EU in 5 years, now on a Euro 10,000 plus pension a month
Good day HotScot – my very best to you and yours. A few thoughts:
On Britain:
Jeremy Corbin should listen to his older and more intelligent brother Piers Corbin, an astrophysicist who has a good predictive track record, and is NOT a warmist imbecile like Jeremy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Corbyn
On Green Energy:
“Green energy” is not green and provides little useful energy. It IS that simple, due to intermittency. The wind does not blow all the time, nor does the Sun shine all the time. This obvious reality is too complicated for idiot politicians worldwide.
The “Heat or Eat” crisis that is especially harming the elderly and the poor of Britain AND Europe is also completely obvious to any thinking person, although the millennials, who still live with their moms and don’t pay the power bills, are oblivious to this very serious crisis.
On Europe:
Britain and the Magna Carta countries (the British Empire/ Commonwealth and the USA) sacrificed the best of our youth to rescue Europe during two World Wars. I have a great-uncle buried in France, killed in the last days of WW1, and an uncle who was the only surviving officer of his unit at the Dieppe raid during WW2, where he rescued the only ten surviving enlisted men – of the 110 who landed on the beach.
We owe Europe nothing, and I would never support another rescue mission, which appears increasingly likely. Europe is failing due to imbecilic leftist politics, and does not deserve to be rescued again.
I just returned from Thailand, where I met a French citizen. We spoke all evening at a party where everyone else spoke Thai and/or English. He said he was completely finished with Europe, and will move overseas as soon as he can. He spoke of the creeping takeover of France by radical Muslims and their violence against civilians and the authorities. I ventured that Europe was failing, and in mere decades would become little more than a museum due to its foolish leftist politics – and he enthusiastically agreed.
On Brexit:
Britain will be vastly better-off out of the EU. The economic future of Britain should reside in a new Free Trade Agreement with the USA and the Commonwealth – as we leave Europe to fail under its imbecilic leftist / green energy policies.
Best, Allan
Allan
as usual, a pleasure to catch up, and with the Christmas season fast approaching, the very best to you family.
I agree with everything you say, including about Piers Corbyn, one of the good guys. 🙂
Interesting comments from your French acquaintance. It a feeling common amongst many and when I retire in a few years, I’m very tempted to get out of the UK altogether.
time for the 6 counties to ignore a border that should not exist.
lol, Brexit will change nothing of consequence for me to travel from Dublin to Belfast.
This is not even worth mentioning, there will be realtively no difference, maybe if flying you have to go through non EU border control instead of within EU border control.
The border itself, will not have to be fortified!! LMAO!
Nothing will change bar bureaucratic processes
Mark – Helsinki
I’m inclined to agree with you however, if the EU wants to maintain it’s border there, they will have to provide a customs presence over 300 roads into and out of the south.
If the EU doesn’t want to do it, fine, problem gone.
Ireland’s problem won’t be keeping Briton’s out, it will be keeping it’s own people in.
Brexit is about National Sovereignty.
If that includes preserving Britain’s long history of a struggle for individual freedom, from a johny come lately primitive culture of institutionalized barbarism, in the form of alien laws; then so be it.
Here in the USA, we also need to be defending OUR Constitutional Law against ALL enemies; domestic and foreign.
G
Nick
No it wasn’t. It was about the Democratic deficit, a swipe at the elites and third on the list it was about immigration.
The EU are wanting to punish us for daring to want to leave their gang and also to send a message to others that they should not follow us or they will be punished as well
tonyb
Allen, There are quite a few French living in London, in excess of 120,000 and between 300,000 and 400,000 in the UK. They aren’t going home soon, they don’t want to.
Sparky
I don’t doubt your numbers, but I have lived and worked in London for 30 years. I can’t recall having met one resident French person. The very few (fingers of one hand) I have met are just passing through.
Re Nick Stokes
December 3, 2017 at 2:13 am
“What benefit does it serve us?”
‘Wasn’t Brexit supposed to be about immigration control?’.
In effect, partly yes. A large minority of the English electorate, perhaps 30% to 40% of those who actually take part in elections, were always going to vote for Brexit because they dislike, or at least mistrust, everything that is not English-speaking and Anglo-Saxon. Mostly they are well-off and tend to live in rural areas or small towns. They don’t like the EU, they don’t like courts which can overrule British courts, although they like NATO and the white bits of the British commonwealth This group has always voted Conservative (‘Tory’ in English parlance). That doesn’t mean that they are racist or anti-minority or even anti-immigrant. They are by-and-large decent people. But on its own this group was unlikely ever to win in a winner-takes-all contest like a referendum on leaving the EU. But then came along the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP). Its much-reviled leader Nigel Farage saw an opening, if the ant-EU movement could extend its support to the working classes. From the financial crisis of 2007-8 onwards the less-well off parts of the English workforce, especially away from the main conurbations, have been subjected to austerity measures which have kept incomes down and cut public services. It has been easy to deflect their resentment away from the successive governments which have actually been responsible for the austerity and to place the blame on the large numbers of foreigners who are seen be taking jobs away from English-born workers. In parts of England & Wales most of the food shops on small town high streets (apart from the big supermarket chains) are Polish-owned, and stock goods which are unfamiliar to local-born locals. In the 2015 general election about 12% of the vote went to UKIP and much of that 12% came from disaffected working-class types, who would previously have voted Labour. Added to the 30 to 40%.of permanent Tory voters who would always have voted anti-EU no matter what, that was almost enough to win a referendum for Brexit. It only took some creative campaigning by the ‘Leave’ leadership and complacency on the part of the ‘Remain’ leadership to push the Brexit vote over 50%, which is what happened. So yes, it was immigration, particularly from eastern Europe, that was decisive on the day.
That didn’t take long, the standard leftwing response. The those who disagree with us are ignorant racists, line.
Come on, give Nick his due. He is close to the truth for a change for surely immigration control was a big part of it.
Ron Long
No, that was the rhetoric of remain, not Brexiters. UKIP made a big thing of it and the remainers tarred everyone with that brush.
Immigration was a small part of numerous complex issues the British public have with the EU. Not the least being that in the 70’s we were promised that the Common Market would never turn into a political union.
So who was lied to. I voted to stay in the Common Market in the 70’s, all I did by voting Brexit was reversing a very bad mistake.
The ‘knowledgeable’ youth of the UK are almost unanimously against leaving, and for some reason are being listened to whilst the knowledge and wisdom of their elders is being racist.
The only reason our youth don’t want toe leave Europe is their fear of change, it’s all they have ever known, so what do they know? They’re all voting for Corbyn, who wants to renationalise everything, which is precisely why we were the sick man of Europe in the 60’s and 70’s, nationalisation was strangling the country. But our youth see this as somehow a socialist nirvana, like I said, what do they know?
Hotscot
With you all the way in this. I voted to stay in ’75 and regretted it ever since. But now, the glorious dichotomy that Britain’s pro-EU and pro-Corbyn youth face is that if they had their way and managed to keep us in the EU – and they got a Corbyn government (spit) – Corbyn would not be able to get his Marxist plans to renationalise everything through because that is against EU law – and nation states of the EU have to be subservient to it.
We just want May to walk away – and get us our country back (Which may be no big thing for Stokes but is very important to some of us).
No Nick is wrong as usual. HotScot is correct as usual.
I suggest our US ‘cousins’ consider what their position would be if Nafta became a political organisation , ruled from Mexico City.
Yeah, I concur with the exiters. Us oldies know what it was like before joining, and what it was like after joining. Youngies only know the latter, and leaving puts them outside of their comfort zone.
The vast majority of oldies wanna leave. It’s not rocket science.
“like I said, what do they know?”
Everything they’ve been fed for decades in globalist-run state schools. Freedom is Slavery, etc, etc.
Why did Brits vote to leave the EU?
On July 4th 1776, a declaration was made which began with the words:
‘When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them … ‘
These words resonated with 17,410,742 British voters on June 23rd 2016
I’m not going to get involved in an off topic debate on brexit here, but I will say, yes, delusion runs deep in the UK presently.
Many people don’t understand it is EEA (single market )and customs union which currently provide tariff free trade without customs checks and paperwork and expect the EU to give UK a ‘free trade deal’ which of course only sign up to SM and CU can provide. (UK govt expressly rejected these)
I predict a riot.
If the choice is trading with the EEA or trading with the rest of the world, the EEA loses.
AS I recall, joining the EU in the first place required of the British that they abrogate long existing trade pacts they had with the Commonwealth Countries, in favor of buying from the likes of the French instead.
This was (at the time) quite injurious to the trade interests of particularly Australia and New Zealand.
So the EU is eminently replaceable as a trading partner.
G
I understand you are not from these (UK) parts, Griff. That being the case, may I suggest, that when it comes to Brexit, you select trunk, and retract.
@george e. smith December 3,2017 at 8:09 am
That is correct and it was indeed most injurious to both Australia and NZ – especially NZ – BUT we sucked it up and are thriving out of the greater UK trading arrangement with trade deals all around the world. So the UK aught to simply grow a pair and get on with it.
Let us see what happens when financial services move to Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Paris. These services constitute a sizeable chunk of UK revenues. The British are welcome to revel in their newfound freedom, but they must also pay the price for it. To imagine that there is no price to be paid, is hopelessly naive.
“Let us see what happens when financial services move to Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Paris.”
Maybe Britain will develop some real companies again, rather than sending many of its smartest young people to the City to waste their lives figuring out how to take a slightly larger cut of the money they shift from one account to another.
“Henning Nielsen December 3, 2017 at 1:50 pm
Let us see what happens when financial services move to Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Paris. These services constitute a sizeable chunk of UK revenues. The British are welcome to revel in their newfound freedom, but they must also pay the price for it. To imagine that there is no price to be paid, is hopelessly naive.”
Given modern banking as we know it originated in England 300+ years ago, I don’t see that changing any time soon. Thatcher focused on the financial sector in favour of industry and she paid for it in the 80’s.
Heathrow is the busiest airport in the world hence building a new runway, it also connects Europe and the US to the financial hub that is London. Gatwick at capacity. Stanstead at capacity. Even Biggin Hill serves London. Unless you move the airport, the “Square Mile” will always be in London, NOT FRankfurt, Amsterdam or Paris. Mind you, there has been talk of expanding Frankfurt as there is no room in the South East England to expand airports after the new runway at Heathrow. IMO, it’s not going to happen in a long long time.
“MarkG December 3, 2017 at 5:19 pm
Maybe Britain will develop some real companies again, rather than sending many of its smartest young people to the City to waste their lives figuring out how to take a slightly larger cut of the money they shift from one account to another.”
That pretty much sums it up. Moving money around in computers and taking a “cut” for doing, effectively, nothing. This was called “invisible earnings” in the Thatcher years.
As ever Griff you are wrong. The EEA is not the single market or customs union. The EEA is the European Economic Area. Norway for example is not in the EU, but is in the EEA. Many countries outside the EUSSR have trade deals with the EUSSR but they don’t need to sign up to the Single Market or Customs Union. The EUSSR is a protection racket that locks out people like African Farmers by either imposing enormous tariffs or paying them peanuts. Moreover their percentage of world trade is dropping and has been for the last 10 years. Youth unemployment in southern Europe is over 40% and in some place over 50%
For US/Canadian readers – To put this EU lark into context for you. It would mean the US and Canada being a member of say the Pan-American union where the capital is Lima, your parliament or Congress is in Cuba,
You have 5 presidents (Commission, Council, Finance, Parliament and council of ministers). None of them are elected by the people. They would be in your case, Brazilian, Cuban, Panamanian, Mexican and Peruvian. Your laws are made by an unelected commission over which you have no control, and any attempt to change this ends in defeat either by straightforward being outvoted or by what is known as qualified majority voting. People from all over the American continent have unrestricted access to the US/Canada and access to your welfare system which they have not paid into. They can also send their welfare cheques back to their home country. You have no control over your border. Also, all your agriculture and fisheries are controlled by Common Policies – usually to your detriment and their is nothing you can do about it. Lastly the US and Canada will be the largest contributors to a central fund over which you have no control, which is open to widespread fraud and which hasn’t had a successful audit in 20 years.
On a sunny June day in 2016, you are asked if you want to continue with this travesty.
Now you know why 17,410,742 of us voted the get the f**k outta there!
Why would banking services leave? London is where all the experts are.
If you believe that banking services is merely moving money around, then no wonder you have to rely on others for your income.
“Many people don’t understand…”
Utter rubbish as usual, Grifter, you’re just another sad, whiny Remoaner loser is all.
All 17.4 million of us who voted to leave understood very well indeed what we voted for, we were bombarded with ‘Project Fear’ propaganda from all sides, including the £9.3 million pamphlet that Cameron caused to be delivered to every home in the country and 24/7 Remainer BS from the BBC and the EU-supporting MSM in genreal, not to mention Bath House Barry Obama’s patronising threats about the UK going to the back of the queue if we applied to the US for a trade deal.
So knock it off with your “Brexit voters were too thick to understand the issues” schtick, you patronising, condescending little twerp.
Now go and apologise to Dr. Crockford for maliciously lying about her professional qualifications in a malicious attempt to damage her scientific credibility.
“Let us see what happens when financial services move to Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Paris.”
Not going to happen, rather the opposite in fact.
Deutsche Bank signs lease for new London headquarters
German bank confirms commitment to city despite plans to move some staff after Brexit
Deutsche Bank has signed a lease for a new London headquarters, confirming its commitment to the capital despite plans to move some staff to Frankfurt following the UK’s vote to leave the EU.
Landsec, the property company, said on Tuesday it had signed an agreement for Deutsche Bank to take at least 469,000 square feet at 21 Moorfields, a site under construction in the City of London financial district.
https://www.ft.com/content/4319409e-768d-11e7-a3e8-60495fe6ca71
Plus, one of the bankers remarked that Frankfurt was “like a wet Wednesday in Huddersfield”
“first of all how to deal with being outside the EEA.”
Like the rest of the world?
Yeah, the rest of the world…except 27 EU members, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland 🙂 (The three last don’t count much, but the 27 first do) How fun it will be to see British merchant missionsaries desperately trying to export Christmas puddings to China.
Henning, you seem to suffer from the delusion that Europe matters.
Here is why we need to leave the EU and make our own trade deals with the RoW – which we cannot do while we remain in the single market.
Eric
whilst not specifically addressing climate, this article by Matt Ridley is illuminating for anyone wanting a concise incite into the EU’s attitude to the UK.
Personally, I suspect a lot of UK climate policy is on the back burner, subsidies are being cut until 2025 in certain areas, and I suspect they won’t ever reappear after Brexit.
I also suspect the whole climate con will be flushed at the slightest hint of the ‘pause’ re emerging as the money wasted on the scam is enormous, and with the predictions of Brexit financial Armageddon popular amongst the Brexit alarmists (remoaners) we can’t afford the luxury of chasing the climate phantom.
“BRITAIN SHOULD GIVE THE EU £20 BILLION EXTRA AS AN ACT OF CHARITY”
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/britain-should-give-the-eu-20-billion-extra-as-an-act-of-charity/
I think the interpretation is optimistic: all three parties arefully signed up to the tax and control that AGW is used to justify. The political elite do not have the electorate’s interests at heart and a dearth of bravery should any politician make a sceptical stand.
All the fuss in the British media about this winter being the coldest winter ever is because the British media follow the global warming paradigm and they would be able to claim that the reduced sea ice extent was leading to colder winters rather than the other way round which is more likely to be true. It would allow the global warmers to put forward the idea that colder winters have nothing to do with climate unlike warm summers(minimum temperatures mostly). I think we will see a slower decline in winter temperatures over the next decade and it is a change in climate.
That story runs every year -especially in the Daily Express.
It is virtually the only story they run other than ‘Duke of Edinburgh killed Diana’
Most papers in UK now bought by OAPs and the papers seem to like to terrify them
“Griff December 3, 2017 at 5:14 am
Most papers in UK now bought by OAPs…”
To burn to keep warm. Not much news and nutrition in UK papers, maybe the ink.
And you’re not even allowed to wrap fish and chips in them any more. Wasn’t that another EU regulation?
“MarkG December 3, 2017 at 5:24 pm
Wasn’t that another EU regulation?”
Sure was.
“Most papers in UK now bought by OAPs and the papers seem to like to terrify them”
More contemptuous ageism, Grifter?
What a profoundly unpleasant, hateful little creature you are.
It is total nonsense to say that the EU is “punishing” Britain. This view must be a result of hopeless illusions on the British side. The issue is very simple; the union has no interest in giving special treatment to a country who leaves it. The British government has shown shockingly bad judgment in this extremely important matter, and it will be interesting to follow the development inside Britain after March 19th 2019.
Its not just British throwing accusations that the EU is trying to punish Britain. Professor Polleit whom I quoted is a substantial figure in Germany – according to Wikipedia he is chief economist of Degussa Goldhandel, partner of Polleit & Riechert Investment Management LLP, president of the German department of the libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute (Ludwig von Mises Institute Germany) and honorary professor at the University of Bayreuth.
Worrall; well, well, “refer to authority”? A well-known tactic. Now, I wish the British all the best of luck. I love them. But they have not -in my humble opinion- prepared themselves at all for Brexit. But it all makes for an interesting development, with the British government as hostages of the hard-liners in DUP, maybe the result will be a united island of Ireland after all.
Citing expert commentary on a political situation is hardly an unusual thing to do. But I agree the British did not prepare for Brexit – the establishment thought the Brexit vote would fail, they completely underestimated the anger of Britains being governed by unelected officials.
Eric
Not only did the Uk fail to prepare for Brexit, the Europeans also failed to prepare for it.
The whole deal is as new to them as it is to the UK, the difference being, There is one UK Government Vs 27 European governments who struggle to make decisions between themselves at the best of times.
Indeed, the fact is, the UK government is battling a small number of narrow minded bureaucrats who, when Brexit rolls out, will have to explain themselves to the other 27 governments.
This is a big deal. They are going to upset some of those governments over the handling of Brexit which will harden the resolve of some to leave. Italy and Spain have been teetering for a while now (and the Catalan situation isn’t helping particularly as Scotland helped stoke that) and the former Eastern Bloc countries have formed an alliance to protect their rights.
There could be much merde hitting the fan in Europe over the coming years which will make Brexit look like a cakewalk.
Henning Nielsen
by holding trade talks to a ransom demand of £50Bn (at least), I think that’s not only vindictive but short sighted. The EU would engender a great degree of trust from British voters if it moved forward on trade talks whilst discussing the divorce bill as a separate issue.
The biggest fear the EU have is that the UK does well in the years following Brexit. If it does, there will be a queue of countries clutching section 50’s, at the door of Brussels. The EU will do anything to ensure the UK’s failure because if they don’t, and the UK flourishes, the EU is a dead duck.
This may indeed be the the most important point of brexit. The previous attempt at a common currency in Europe in the 19th century failed spectacularly, because Franch and Germany wouldn’t pay for all the rest. History repeats.
As someone said (I forgot who), those who do not study history are condemned to repeat it.
HotScot; yes, let us see how “glorious isolation ” suits Britain in the 21st century.
Henning Nielsen
“yes, let us see how “glorious isolation ” suits Britain in the 21st century.”
It’s a familiar concept to countries throughout history, around the world, including the UK.
Why should we fear it? Personally, I embrace it as a challenge.
The UK has a new direction and change brings with it opportunity.
Were man not a courageous creature, we would all still be living in a swamp.
Embrace change, embrace progress, embrace the differences between us.
We are where we are now as a human race because of one simple underlying characteristic, optimism.
Try it sometime.
Leaving Europe and joining with the rest of the world is “isolation”?
Really weird take on reality you got there mate.
Henning sweetie,
We are not seeking special treatment; WTO will suit most leavers. We will consider a trade deal to ease problems for the EUSSR but otherwise WTO will suit us
john, i will second that. considering youth unemployment in the southern eu states the fact the eu cares not a jot for its own citizens suggests anyone expecting preferential treatment for a country that has seen the light and decided to leave may be disappointed.
I agree, we can easily pay the substantial tariffs on any exported goods. people will give their right arms just for the honour of trading with the UK. There may be a problem with services which attract far higher tariffs, but we need to just refuse to pay them. No WTO country will dare contradict us if we refuse to pay, and if they do, well, we will leave the WTO. The rest of the world needs us far more than we need them.
“The rest of the world needs us far more than we need them.”
The EU certainly does. It only exists because it takes money from rich countries and uses it to bribe poor countries to remain. With the UK gone, that whole scam falls apart, unless Germans are willing to pay tens of billions more every year to keep the Greeks and Poles in the EU.
Which is why they’re acting like a bunch of petulant children. Everything they’ve fought and dreamed for for the last hundred years is about to be consigned to the dustbin of history.
Dear John; it seems to me you are living in a dream-world. But time will tell. I recommend this comment:
“The EU correctly explains that, by choosing to leave not just the single market but also the wider European Economic Area (EEA) to become a “third country”, it is automatic under the rules that we will face the “hard border” that applies to every other third country, with all the physical infrastructure, inspections and delays that this implies.”
http://www.eureferendum.com/default.aspx
Henning Nielsen
“Dear John; it seems to me you are living in a dream-world. But time will tell. I recommend this comment:”
So we are to join the USA, China, India, Brazil, Australia, Canada etc. as a “third country”.
What incredible arrogance. A major contributor to the EU decides to leave and join the rest of the world in free trade, and EU officials describe us in derogatory terms as a ‘third country’.
In which case, it’s long overdue the UK left this appalling organisation.
Henning Nielsen
With respect we have ample evidence that Britain is being punished for daring to leave what was supposed to be a Free trade organisation but, without our permission, has turned into something else completely
Read quotes in full for context :
“There must be a threat, there must be a risk, there must be a price, otherwise we will be in negotiations that will not end well and, inevitably, will have economic and human consequences,” the French president said.oct 2016
Lack of consequences risks other countries wanting to leave EU ‘to enjoy supposed benefits without downsides’
——–
Mr Henkel, (German mEP) who also serves as the vice chairman of the EU’s Industry, Research and Energy Committee, ……’But he said Mr Barnier and Mr Verhofstadt simply want to “make a mess” of the negotiations in order to discourage other nations from leaving the EU. july 2017
Also
“As they consider this matter, I would urge them not to listen to Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s Brexit co-ordinator, or even Michel Barnier, Europe’s chief negotiator, who I am afraid want to make a mess out of this whole unhappy situation.”
Mr Henkel said Mr Verhofstadt is an “ambitious politician who wants to achieve a United States of Europe” and “punish the British, full stop”.
“My impression is that Mr Barnier wants to do the same,” he said.
“The reason is simple. They would seek to make sure that Brexit is such a catastrophe that no country dares to take the step of leaving the EU again.”
We have also had disparaging quotes from Tusk and Barnier.
Tonyb
Tony; with respect; the EU (European Union) has since day 1 aspired to be more than a trade organisation. If the UK has not discovered this in its decades long period of membership, the blinders must have been very tight indeed. Now, let us see which other nations will long for “freedom”. As a Norwegian, who is outside of the EU, but inside the EEA, I can assure you that there is no such thing as being “liberated ” from EU rules and regulations if you wish to have a viable trade exchange with Europe.
Henning
The EU is a trading organisation. It aspires to being something much more but that remains its brief. The attempts to institutionalise ‘ever closer union’ meaning a federal entity dreamt of by the founders , were shot down by the French at the treaty of Trieste in 1955 as the ESCC was getting under way.
Undoubtedly some people want the EU to become a much closer federated Body but that is not what we signed up for in 1975 when I and some 65 percent of my countrymen and women voted to join the EEC.
There has been substantial mission creep since then but as the Dutch prime minister said just yesterday, there is no appetite in holland for much closer integration.
If junckers wants that as an aim he needs to put it to the voters.
Tonyb
Henning Nielsen
“Tony; with respect; the EU (European Union) has since day 1 aspired to be more than a trade organisation.”
Then thankfully we are leaving. The British electorate were promised the Common Market we joined in the 70’s would not become a political union.
As Norwegians, you are a country comfortable with paying hand over fist because of your historic, prudent oil investments which have brought great benefit to your country. And I applaud you for that. My fellow Scot’s were not as fortunate, but then we are part of the UK and our oil money was spent in a different way, to provide for a far greater population.
However, I don’t see Norway, France, Poland, or Holland etc. rallying round and thanking the UK, far less paying the UK for their liberation from Germany during WW2. Meanwhile, the UK willingly paid America for all the massive resources that went into liberating Europe, only to be sneered at by the likes of you.
You make a very poor case for your fellow Norwegians.
“climatereason December 3, 2017 at 2:43 pm
Undoubtedly some people want the EU to become a much closer federated Body but that is not what we signed up for in 1975 when I and some 65 percent of my countrymen and women voted to join the EEC.”
No we didn’t vote to join the common market (Not EEC then) in 1975. The decision was made by Heath in 1973, effective Jan 1st 1974 *WITHOUT* a mandate or vote. I always maintain the British public were royally rubber ducked.
In 1975 the vote was to remain or leave. The vote to remain was unanimous. And we did, for better or worse. Seems the Brits have had enough. I migrated to New Zealand in 1995, so none of this affects me any more.
Glorious isolation? Are you for real Henning?
Britain has the world’s fifth largest economy, We are members of NATO, G7, G8 and G20, We are permanent members of the UN security council. We have one of the most respected Armed Forces in the world and we are a nuclear power. We are leaders of the British Commonwealth which comprises some 53 or so countries – usually ex colonies – but who willingly joined and lastly we are owners of one of the worlds most widely spoken language.
. . . and you’re telling me we’re heading for glorious isolation. Really!
“It is total nonsense to say that the EU is “punishing” Britain.”
No, it is nothing of the sort.
Aside from being threatened with – and I quote – a “punishment beating” by one or other of the Brussels apparatchiks, try these:
“Brussels chiefs want to punish Britain, says top German MEP Hans-Olaf Henkel”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/brussels-chiefs-like-michel-barnier-andguy-verhofstadt-want-to-punish-britain-says-top-german-mep-hans-olaf-henkel-ww8c6ctfn
‘EU doesn’t want Brexit to succeed’ Professor rages at Brussels club in explosive tirade
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/837507/Brexit-news-Brussels-UK-European-Union-latest-exit-Theresa-May-Jean-Claude-Juncker
Revealed: How Jean-Claude Juncker’s ‘monster’ is plotting to punish Britain for Brexit
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/02/revealed-jean-claude-junckers-monster-plotting-punish-britain/
Lots of other countries are lining up to complete trade deals directly with the UK. The sooner the UK gets out of the suffocating embrace of the EU the better off it will be. The USA, most of Asia, and most of the old Commonwealth (British Empire) will welcome reciprocal trade arrangements. But the Brits need to be aware that the deal will need to be less one-sided than it was in pre-EU days.
Most of those other countries now have little to no trade protection allowed anymore they dismantled them under free trade agreements. It’s actually the UK that will struggle because it is still having trade protection under the control of the EU.
There is also some funny thing you will have to work out like if the UK is going to stay with the CE certification system for electrical goods or make it’s own. There isn’t much point in keeping the CE standard as it wont be recognized inside the EU. You will go thru the same situation all other countries sending electronic goods to the EU have to do which is to get the importer that has an EU office bearer to be the compliance holder.
LdB
“There isn’t much point in keeping the CE standard as it wont be recognized inside the EU.”
What’s the point of CE certification then?. One either complies, or one doesn’t.
If compliance is demanded, and met, then rejection is merely a political ruse.
Baseless, meaningless argument designed to frighten the masses via media.
My electrical training, qualification and experience matters not in Australia even though it’s the same stuff that comes out of the wall socket, ~240V/AC 50Hz, albeit 3amps less than the UK for domestic supply.
You simply aren’t understanding what you are talking about HotScot, the EU won’t recognize the UK compliance houses. Australia has C-Tick, USA has FCC etc each country has there own standard. I am stating the facts !!!!!
https://www.conformance.co.uk/adirectives/doku.php?id=brexit
They spell it out you have to keep compliance while you have a single market once you brexit this comes into effect
As I told you you can’t create EU compliance from outside the EU you have to make a TF and supply it to someone to a citizen/company of the EU. These are facts and how we in Australia sell to the EU … it’s not scare mongering but how it will work.
LdB
“You simply aren’t understanding what you are talking about HotScot”
I understand far better than you do. Technical issues are subject to political will. Just because a document states something, it doesn’t mean it will be enforced.
How do you think German and French car manufacturers will react when the UK compiles it’s own Technical File and, sadly, German and French cars don’t qualify. As one of the biggest markets they have, don’t you imagine Mercedes, BMW, VW, Renault and Citroen will be tearing down the doors of Brussels to agree a deal over technical compliance? Never mind industries such as Bosch and Siemens. The Japanese, Koreans and Chinese would be rubbing their hands with glee if a deal wasn’t formulated.
EU didn’t budge with the USA and recognition of FCC rules and you want to believe in the toothfairy and the EU is going to change the rules just for the UK an exiting partner is actually really funny.
You will not accept common sense and even what your own government is saying so lets have this discussion in 2 years, post brexit and see who was right 🙂
“There isn’t much point in keeping the CE standard as it wont be recognized inside the EU.”
You really are totally clueless, aren’t you?
The CE standard IS the standard for products sold within the EU single market notwithstanding the country of origin, even goods from China and Japan have it on them.
The letters ‘CE’ appear on many products traded on the extended Single Market in the European Economic Area (EEA). They signify that products sold in the EEA have been assessed to meet high safety, health, and environmental protection requirements. When you buy a new phone, a teddy bear, or a TV within the EEA, you can find the CE mark on them. CE marking also supports fair competition by holding all companies accountable to the same rules.
https://ec.europa.eu/growth/single-market/ce-marking_en
If Britain’s Brexit delegitimised ‘Climate Change’ and Liberated British from the deathly grasp of Warmista Climate hysteria, then that alone would justify all the pain inflicted by the EU on the Brexit Process. All the rest of the political liberation and removal of EU bureaucratic strangulation would be a bonus.
Three weeks after the Brexit referendum, the House of Commons voted almost unanimously for the Fifth Carbon Budget. Last month’s Green Growth Strategy was similarly received with acclamation. The only party in favour of less stringent climate policy is UKIP, who have zero MPs and are down in the polls.
The UK will not abandon climate policy.
Nor will the EU. The climate package for the period 2021-2030 is now fixed, thanks in no small part to the UK.
Oh, and Stua misquotes me: The UK gov’t would lose the right to grant ETS permits, but UK companies would still be in the EU ETS. That issue has now been resolved.
But at least the UK will avoid fines when it fails to meet EU targets, unlike the Irish:
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/energy-and-resources/state-faces-inevitable-eu-climate-change-fines-from-2020-1.3014868
There are no fines for missing EU targets. That is a myth that only exists in the Irish media.
You sound happy about it. Why?
Even if Europe hits all its CO2 goals China and India will continue pumping out massive amounts of “carbon”. Making your efforts totally empty gestures. But at least you’ll feel good about yourself, right?
Leftist imbeciles approve of policies that “feel good” – but rarely “do good”.
The latest UK Budget put a stop on all new renewable subsidies until at least 2025. Its the first small step in unwinding the mess that the green blob and incompetent politicians have made of UK energy policy. Mr Tol, your ‘religion’ is under dire threat.
Richard, in reality, Trump has ended the climate deal. Oh, there is all manner of soldiering-on nonsense and big US companies with foreign markets still virtue signaling, but, without the US, the international deal is dead. Period.
Europe will have its head in the sand for a while, like they have with the demographic/ cultural time bomb that can’t be named or you would face jail time over there. Indeed, let me forecast that the Europe of 2050 will have completely different priorities that also can’t be named and climate won’t be ever mentioned.
The US is too big and too needed by the world to punish. They are self sufficient in the world’s cheapest energy and have a big enough domestic market to weather anything. Any country that saddles it self with the cost of neomarxbrothers policies won’t be able to compete. ETS permits and other such stuff will be like the Monopoly™ board game, fun but irrelevant to reality. There is some money to be made by the foxy.
Gary: Trump did not end the Paris Agreement; it remains in force. Trump walked away from a treaty that posed no material obligation on the USA. Trump’s plan to leave the Paris Agreement a month after the next presidential election only reveals how unprepared and uncurious his administration is.
Richard,
“Gary: Trump did not end the Paris Agreement; it remains in force.”
What force? If it’s “a treaty that posed no material obligation on the USA”, then what are you talking about being “in force”?
Do you not understand what the word force means? Or are you just messing with us?;
But we’ve repeatedly been told the ‘Paris Agreement’ is NOT a treaty, because, if it was a treaty, it would have to be voted on in the Senate. Therefore it’s merely an agreement with President Osama, and irrelevant now Trump is in the White House.
John: Gary seemed to claim that the Paris Agreement collapsed because President Trump announced that the USA will walk away. The Paris Agreement has not collapsed. It remains in force, even though its force is very weak.
Mark: I’m not a lawyer. I guess President Obama reckoned that, since Paris puts no new obligations on the USA, it need not be ratified by the Senate. That said, any president is bound by decisions his predecessors make. The USA is therefore a party to the Paris Agreement until 4 Nov 2020, assuming that notification is given on the first possible opportunity, which is 4 Nov 2019.
Richard,
I took Gary’s descriptive statement as a personal assessment/judgment call, partly based on the weak force nature of the “accord”, akin to a prediction (or projection, in some vernaculars ; ) I’m not sure where you got the idea that Presidents are bound by just any ol’ thing a previous President signed, but I assure you they are not. Sure, there is a need to appear considerate of what another has endorsed . . but a simple utterance about “national security” wipes the board the clean, so to speak. (There’s no weak force nature to that elected position ; )
John: In this case, President Trump feels indeed bound by President Obama’s signature. Trump will not walk away from the Paris Agreement, but rather leave the Paris Agreement according to the rules laid down in that agreement (if Trump will still be president on 4 Nov 2019).
Richard,
“President Trump feels indeed bound by President Obama’s signature.”
He’s not bound, that’s my point. (You can believe he “feels” bound by President Obama’s signature, but I’m hesitant to believe you are a heart-knower ; )
Politics is complex, and sometimes it makes political sense to not “walk away” from such an agreement for reasons other than one “feels bound” by it. Not just walking away does not necessarily indicate one feels one can’t just walk away . . ya know?
John: Whatevs. As I write this, the USA is a party to the Paris Agreement; and the President has announced that the USA will stay a party until 4 Nov 2020 or later.
“There are no fines for missing EU targets. That is a myth that only exists in the Irish media.”
But of course the media is telling the truth about climate change.
Make up your mind.
My mind is made up: People speak the truth sometimes, tell inadvertant untruths at other times, and occassionally lie.
Richard
But only when it suits a particular narrative, like climate change. Then anything negative writ on the subject becomes gospel as far as alarmist’s are concerned, truthful or otherwise.
The fundamental issue is that no-one believes in global warming outside of a tiny number of activists in the US, UK Germany and Australia. And even they, when you push it, do not seem to show any real evidence of committed belief.
The Chinese don’t – just look at their ongoing contruction of coal plants all around the world, and at their recent increases in emissions. This is relevant to assessing the activists’ real views because they cannot seriously believe in a coming emission fuelled catastrophe if they are unwilling to demand that the world’s largest emitter make real tonnage reductions. Instead they change the subject to justifying the moral righteousness of the Chinese in emitting at these levels, and ignore the fact that if the activists are right, they are single handedly destroying human civilization.
In their own countries, the activists consistently refuse to advocate measures which would lower their own emissions. You do not, for instance, find any of them proposing to lower the number of cars on the roads, closing down the car industry. They will not propose closing down the car industry worldwide either of course.
Instead they advocate doing things which have little or no effect on their own emissions, like building wind farms, or, if they are as far north as humans live, installing vast solar arrays. None of which, when you account for the backup required and the carbon cost of erecting the things, produces declines in emissions.
This, and not the verbal commitments to the Paris or other agreements is the fundamental issue. As for Paris, this too was evidence of total lack of belief – just look at who has made hard commitments and how large a percentage of global emissions this subjects to real commitments to reduce. Probably 15%? And those commitments are not even being lived up to.
Its a hugely expensive farce in which people give vast sums to Siemens and others in the alternative energy lobby not to generate any electricity. Meanwhile, even if wind and solar did reduce emissions by a bit, they are not the real target, electricity only accounts for about one third of global emissions. So even if you do knock 30% off it, which would be going, you are only knocking 10% off the supposed problem, at huge expense.
Meanwhile in Britain this winter, as in all winters, you will have a rise in the death rate, particularly among the old who depend on electricity for heating. There really are people in Britain who, to fund this madness, are thinking hard before boiling water for a cup of tea, and having to choose between their cup of tea and a hot water bottle.
Self righteous wickedness of the Guardianistas.
It is a cluster, a nexus, of multiple inter-connected issues.
~500 years of contention in Ireland involving violations of property rights, movements of people of very similar and greatly different cultures
Socialist illfare states depending on a particular range of demographic profiles to have enough producers of value to support the others
Pseudo-free trade, technology transfer (Russia, France, North Korea, India, Pakistan, Syria, Iran, USA, Red China, Palestine=Gaza, Israel…), transferring materials, equipment, parts, designs, intellectual property, and the “doing nothing” UN, UNESCO, WTO, etc. forcing consolidation, forcing tolerance of rape and other initiations of force and fraud
It is not only borders, not only refuge or asylum, not only trade in cakes and toys, not only power-mad watermelon climate wannabe dictators. The many connected sub-issues are difficult to list, let alone debate properly (especially, as now, when house-pets are climbing into my face and bumping my arms).
September 2018, the end of the Greek bailouts.
With the Greek problem now fixed! shouldn’t be a problem, Should it?
You might like to ask the Greeks whether the end of bailouts has solved the problem from their perspective. I suspect that it will be a final solution from the German perspective. Not so much from theirs.
I think perhaps the words “final solution” is tasteless and offensive in this context.
rapscallion
Seconded.
“Despite substantial grumbling, the UK still overwhelmingly supports politicians who embrace renewables, who advocate aggressive emissions reduction policies”.
The overwhelming majority of Politicians do not understand the first thing about the so called AGW meme and have tamely acquiesced to whatever their Party activists demand. What is happening in the South Australia renewable energy paradise should be a salutary lesson for our supine and inept Politicians, that is if any of them are interested in reality instead of the fantasy of “green” energy. However, there are a few, one of whom I regularly correspond with, that make the effort to understand and have come to the realisation how destructive the meme of AGW is for the UK.
Likewise the majority of the population have absolutely no interest in AGW and want to get on with their lives and just follow the lead of our inept Politicians for an easy life.
Until our Politicians wake up to reality and repeal the ill conceived Climate Change Act the false impression of the opening quote will prevail.
Not just Australia
http://notrickszone.com/2017/12/01/germanys-national-power-grid-mess-country-seeing-whopping-172000-power-outages-annually/#sthash.o27HDl52.dpbs
Thank you mwhite.
An excellent article posted by Pierre Gosselin.
Germany’s National Power Grid Mess…Country Seeing Whopping 172,000 Power Outages Annually!
http://notrickszone.com/2017/12/01/germanys-national-power-grid-mess-country-seeing-whopping-172000-power-outages-annually/#sthash.o27HDl52.dpbs
I recall Griff repeatedly saying the Germany’s grid was highly reliable. Not so. Where is he anyway – did he suddenly get a dose of reality, or did someone stop paying him to post warmist nonsense?
Well that looks like utter nonsense to me.
I will investigate.
Germany didn’t even have problems in winter of 2011/12 when they had switched off nearly 505 of the nukes in the May without any advance plan for compensating for that over the winter
The whole German Government is in a mess, they still don’t have an actual government and now we are back to Merkel hoping to get the SPD to join her in coalition.
Griff, please fly into the new BER airport and report back after you investigate.
Griff
very good, we look forward to your informed analysis.
Thanks for the reference to Pierre Gosselin’s article. That’s what can happen when politicians, working with environmentalists, think they know better than the engineers. I’m actually amazed since German engineering has always had such a great reputation. Those two projects must be a total, complete and worldwide embarrassment. They could actually be the death knell for the overseas market for German engineering, which if I remember correctly use to be huge.
“Despite substantial grumbling, the UK still overwhelmingly supports politicians who embrace renewables, who advocate aggressive emissions reduction policies.”
“Britain are not prioritising climate change because they are trying to avoid 100s of thousands of job losses.”
Which is it?
Both. The politicians are that dumb. They haven’t a clue about the science, the renwables, cost or effectiveness. They’re all a bunch of day dreamers.
+10, Tiny.
Tiny,
“They’re all a bunch of day dreamers.”
I doubt that very much . . To me, it seems far more . . down to earth (and simple); The corporate mass media attacks/smears anyone who does not support the CAGW, and you get nothing but CAGW supporters elected.
The biggest issue will be can the UK still trade with the EU post divorce and that won’t be answered for some time yet. There is some Billion UK has to pay first and then work out the status of citizens who have immigrated between the two parties need to be sorted before trade negotiations.
LdB December 3, 2017 at 5:41 am,
The biggest issue will be can the UK still trade with the EU post divorce and that won’t be answered for some time yet.
No, that is not an issue. The UK doesn’t need a trade deal to trade with the EU under WTO rules. A trade deal might be preferable, but that is another matter. In fact many Brexiters favoured leaving the EU without a trade deal, anticipating the kind of difficulties we are now having in reaching an agreement.
LdB
There is no reason on earth anyone on the planet can’t trade with the EU assuming they conform to the standards and tariffs set by the EU. Which is, of course, protectionism. The very thing the EU is accusing Trump of.
For many, it’s just not worth the effort, so they don’t, there’s no mystery here.
One of the problems between the UK and the EU is that there is massive trade between the two, so it’s a two way street, and if the UK imposes it’s own standards and tariffs on imported EU goods and services, there will be an awful lot of hacked off Europeans.
Bear in mind that those hacked off Europeans will be seeking new markets for their goods and they just aren’t set up to sell outwith Europe. Many of them are small to medium businesses whose are, if not totally reliant on the UK, certainly a large part reliant.
But whilst the UK has probably the biggest Embassy presence around the world, right now, negotiating deals, who in the EU is out in the real world fighting for their SME’s?
I venture to suggest, very few, if any at all simply because with their protectionist philosophy, they have cut their nose off to spite their face, and will continue to do so. Why would any country outside the EU take up the slack lost when the UK leaves, when they must jump through hoops to sell their goods into the EU?
I sort of expect a two fold reaction with brexit, there will be companies in the EU positioned to take EU market share from UK companies. There will also be the reverse UK companies seeking to take UK market share from EU companies.
You forget as Australians we have seen all this before when the UK joined the EU we know what happens and what it looks like. Here is our trade history with the UK in a nutshell
https://dfat.gov.au/about-us/publications/Documents/fifty-years-of-Australias-trade.pdf
Trade to UK in 1963 23.5% of our GDP
Trade to UK in 2013 1.4% of our GDP
There will be winners and losers but in general trading with EU countries is very difficult, not impossible but much harder.
“The biggest issue will be can the UK still trade with the EU post divorce “
Do you think the Germans are going to be happy to lose 12% – 20% of their car exports?
How about the French farmers and the Mediterranean tourist trade?
We’re the EU’s biggest export market, you muppet.
You really haven’t the first clue what you’re wittering about have you?
“LdB December 3, 2017 at 5:41 am
The biggest issue will be can the UK still trade with the EU post divorce…”
EU, population ~350mil? Rest of world, ~7bil? UK, not so worried! We ruled the world once.
Reading comprehension is your friend Nick.
The British politicians are still supporting anti-CO2 policies. It’s how to deal with the climate policies as affected by Brexit that are not being prioritized.
UK has the choice to leave EU without negotiation but it seems some of those negotiating hope other things….
Read following article (English translation available in print mode by click on the top left corner flags)
http://souverainete-france.org/fr/print.php?item=9999982&id=europe
The reality is that the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the ocewans over which mankind has no control. There may be many good reasons to be conserving on the use of fossil fuels but climate change is not one of them. It is all a matter of science.
The UK is in some ways more warmist than the EU. Britain followed France in mandating only electric cars after 2040. But no other EU country has followed. The EU, under strong influence of auto-makers, has issued a much milder demand, of 30% efficiency improvement by 2030. This would have happened anyway with engine improvements in the pipeline, so it means nothing. For that reason, it is actually very sensible.
So the danger to the UK is the opposite, of out-of-control self destructive AGW virtue signalling, cut of from the moderating common-sense influence of the EU.
once we have left the eu we can then hold the feet of our own bureaucrats to the fire once the “because eu” excuse has gone. interesting times ahead. anyone that fails to grasp brexit is just the start is in for a surprise 🙂
Might need to do some double checking, but sat/stood/wandering about ontop The Nottinghamshire Coalfield, I see lots of power stations chuffing merrily away. Ones that previously weren’t.
I also see, via Interwebz Magik, that 2GW (full grunt) is being stuffed into the French Interconnector almost constantly.
Must surely give somebody somewhere some leverage…….
😀
UK grid – http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
French grid – http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/
The winter has just started & everything to the north & east of us is below zero°C
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=temp/orthographic=5.48,68.86,274/loc=2.014,45.991
The engineers are doing wonders. Let’s hope nothing breaks. The coal, gas and nukes were flat out on Friday evening.
JF
We simply have no option. All the major political parties & two of the minor ones who get votes (Greens & Lib Dems) are wedded to the scam to some degree.
‘But the EU is making Brexit very difficult for Britain.’
Only Britain can make it difficult for Britain.
“Dear EU,
We’re out.
Love,
Theresa May”
Make Great Britain great again.
When was it “Great” ? what stage of our development would you like to emulate and return to ?
Gareth
We were ‘Great’ at every stage in our development.
But then that perspective rather depends, on one’s own outlook, optimist, or pessimist.
I would have supported the decision to stay in the EU as enthusiastically as I support Brexit.
But what I like most is change, because it brings great opportunity. A pessimist might think it a threat.
Which are you Gareth? And ‘realist’ is not an acceptable answer, it’s a cop out because I’m a realist as well.
“When was it “Great” ?”
Mmm, let’s see? When it ran a quarter of the world, controlled the oceans, ended slavery, and was the planet’s technological power-house?
So that would be pretty much the entire period from the Middle Ages until the country was sold down the river by its politicians after WWII, then.
MarkG
Here Hear!
Great Britain is, of course, the name of the island – the ‘mainland’ of England Scotland and Wales, excluding the Isle of Wight, Anglesey [Ynys Mon, I think] plus the Hebrides, Shetlands etc.
I guess a fall in sea level will make it – err – Greater.
And if levels fall enough, we would have a land border with Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium perhaps.
Customs controls in Doggerland?
Auto
What Auto said…
I suggest that we have a referendum on the climate change act because no one voted for it , it is being imposed on us by interest groups influencing government policies so called experts.
EXACTLY Donald.
Such is the economic cost of dealing with it that the whole AGW story is arguably at least as important an economic issue for Britain’s future as Brexit. The abysmal Climate Change Act, as the main instrument of torture, could thus be in the same league as Article 50 in terms of the magnitude of its long-term implications.
I would love to be able to vote on it, and indeed campaign for its repeal.
We’ve known that global warming alarmism was false nonsense since 1985, and published against this multi-trillion dollar sc@m since 2002. Here is a post from 2009. Look up Douiglas Hoyt.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/27/new-paper-global-dimming-and-brightening-a-review/#comment-151040
Allan MacRae (03:23:07) 28/06/2009 [excerpt]
FABRICATION OF AEROSOL DATA USED FOR CLIMATE MODELS:
Douglas Hoyt:
The pyrheliometric ratioing technique is very insensitive to any changes in calibration of the instruments and very sensitive to aerosol changes.
Here are three papers using the technique:
Hoyt, D. V. and C. Frohlich, 1983. Atmospheric transmission at Davos, Switzerland, 1909-1979. Climatic Change, 5, 61-72.
Hoyt, D. V., C. P. Turner, and R. D. Evans, 1980. Trends in atmospheric transmission at three locations in the United States from 1940 to 1977. Mon. Wea. Rev., 108, 1430-1439.
Hoyt, D. V., 1979. Pyrheliometric and circumsolar sky radiation measurements by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory from 1923 to 1954. Tellus, 31, 217-229.
In none of these studies were any long-term trends found in aerosols, although volcanic events show up quite clearly. There are other studies from Belgium, Ireland, and Hawaii that reach the same conclusions. It is significant that Davos shows no trend whereas the IPCC models show it in the area where the greatest changes in aerosols were occurring.
There are earlier aerosol studies by Hand and Marvin in Monthly Weather Review going back to the 1880s and these studies also show no trends.
___________________________
Allan:
Repeating: “In none of these studies were any long-term trends found in aerosols, although volcanic events show up quite clearly.”
___________________________
Here is an email just received from Douglas Hoyt [my comments in square brackets]:
It [aerosol numbers used in climate models] comes from the modelling work of Charlson where total aerosol optical depth is modeled as being proportional to industrial activity.
[For example, the 1992 paper in Science by Charlson, Hansen et al]
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/255/5043/423
or [the 2000 letter report to James Baker from Hansen and Ramaswamy]
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:DjVCJ3s0PeYJ:www-nacip.ucsd.edu/Ltr-Baker.pdf+%22aerosol+optical+depth%22+time+dependence&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
where it says [para 2 of covering letter] “aerosols are not measured with an accuracy that allows determination of even the sign of annual or decadal trends of aerosol climate forcing.”
Let’s turn the question on its head and ask to see the raw measurements of atmospheric transmission that support Charlson.
Hint: There aren’t any, as the statement from the workshop above confirms.
__________________________
IN SUMMARY
There are actual measurements by Hoyt and others that show NO trends in atmospheric aerosols, but volcanic events are clearly evident.
So Charlson, Hansen et al ignored these inconvenient aerosol measurements and “cooked up” (fabricated) aerosol data that forced their climate models to better conform to the global cooling that was observed pre~1975.
Voila! Their models could hindcast (model the past) better using this fabricated aerosol data, and therefore must predict the future with accuracy. (NOT)
That is the evidence of fabrication of the aerosol data used in climate models that (falsely) predict catastrophic humanmade global warming.
And we are going to spend trillions and cripple our Western economies based on this fabrication of false data, this model cooking, this nonsense?
*************************************************
I don’t think their is any chance of all cars in the UK being electric by 2040 nor is it being mandated by the Government . This was a statement by an out of control Michael Gove; it was not a manifesto commitment by the Conservative party. It was noticeable that in his recent budget the Chancellor did not attempt any punitive tax raid on cars.
In fact lets make the referendum global and see how many people in the world agree with the things climate activists ,scientist, are forcing us to do in order to save the planet.
A worldwide referendum? To paraphrase someone (whose name escapes me) “never underestimate the stupidity of the average man”.
Most people don’t take the time to actually learn about the issues, and just accept what their “betters” tell them. If we had the educated populous a referendum requires we wouldn’t need it in the first place.
So Tony Blair’s 50% university education play is not working out then?
There’s a surprise!
roger
One of my biggest gripes.
Media studies, amongst many other barmy degrees. No wonder the BBC and the Guardian are swamped with barely literate, left wing, former students………………
It is working out. It keeps the youth unemployment figures down by encouraging kids to borrow lots of money to take worthless degrees, instead of living on the dole.
Modern day indentured servitude.
Britain has no EU commitments to emissions.
Only to ‘renewable energy’
And that is enshrined in UK law right now.
We can but hope it gets repealed.
In the 1990s the province of Ontario, Canada, amalgamated municipalities to save money on municipal services. The theory was that one big Fire Department would be more efficient than five small ones. There’s some debate as to whether that worked. link What seems more obvious to me is that it was bad for democracy.
When Podunky Heights controlled its own zoning it could forbid certain things. If it wanted to restrict buildings to three stories to keep with the historical nature of the town, it could do that. Its collection of 1800s buildings attracted lots of tourists to local businesses.
Once Podunky Heights was amalgamated into the municipality of Greater Black Water, the representatives from Podunky Heights could easily be out-voted. That allowed developers to change the character of the town and destroy its tourist business.
It seems to me that the EU suffered from the same problem. Eurocrats would overrule the duly elected governments of countries and regions, no matter what the local population wanted. That has to be bad for civic engagement and democracy.
This is exactly what happened in the case of the Grenfell fire that caused 70 deaths , according to a comment from “ROM” in a recent JoNova thread, quoting an article by Christopher Booker at GWPF.
Because I think that is very relevant both to CommieBob’ s comment , but because it goes to the heart of the Brexit debate , as seen from within the UK , I have taken the liberty of copying it in full:
-“In 1989, after a fire in an 11-storey block in Knowsley, the [ UK ] Building Research Establishment was asked to devise a means that could have prevented it.
It found that this should be a new “whole system test” covering all the materials used on the outside of buildings to see how they interacted when installed together.
But in 1994 the European Commission called for a new EU-wide fire test which was exactly what the BRE had found so inadequate with existing practice: a “single burn” test applied only to each material separately.
But after 2000, when a Commons committee investigated a high-rise fire in Scotland, MPs recommended that the BRE’s “whole system test” should be adopted as the British standard, BS8414.
By 2002, however, the EU had adopted its inadequate test, incorporating it in a European standard using EN 13501.
Under EU law, this became mandatory, leaving the UK’s BS 8414 as only a voluntary option.
The EU had also become obsessed with the need for better insulation of buildings to combat global warming, which became its only priority.
All that mattered was the “thermal efficiency” of materials used for insulation, for which none was to prove better than the polyisocyanurate used in Celotex, the plastic chosen in 2014 for Grenfell.
Fire experts across Europe have pointed out that the lack of a proper whole system test was ignoring the risk of insulation fires, not least in Germany, where there have been more than 100.
Strangely, the maker of Celotex has stated on its website that the material used in Grenfell has been tested by the BRE as meeting fire safety requirements.
But the BRE has tartly responded that this test referred to a different installation; and that “Celotex should not be claiming that their insulation product can be used generically in any other cladding system”.
Had the Grenfell installation been properly tested under BS 8414 it would not have met the standard, and thus the fire could not have happened.
The ultimate irony is that China and Dubai are now adopting mandatory systems based on BS 8414.
They can do this because they are not in the EU.
But, because Britain is still in the EU, it cannot legally enforce the very standard which would have prevented that disaster.”-
It used to be said that Westminster civil servants would take legislation from the EU and “gold-plate” to make it even more cumbersome and costly in the UK . In this case the reverse happened and there was nothing that we could do because we are not masters in our own household .
Hopefully that will change , but my expectation is that a combination of the BBC and financial interests will succeed in stopping Brexit , as the appalling Tony Blair has promised .
mikewaite
Thank you for that. I heard the EU had superseded regulations that might have prevented the Grenfel fire, but never had a source to confirm it.
However, I think your last sentence is wrong. The BBC and financial interests can wail and bleat all they want, but there would be a mass uprising if Brexit was stopped. And I suspect there would be an awful lot of remainers who value democracy joining that uprising.
And I sincerely hope Blair has the arrogance, and ability to usurp Corbyn. There would then be a landslide vote for the Conservatives, even if Wee Jimmy Cranky were leader, or me for that matter.
Mike Waite 3 Dec: thank you for this explanation. But if BS8414 was ‘voluntary’ for EU member countries what was there to stop the UK govt applyimg and enforcing its own higher standards while still an EU member?
“That has to be bad for civic engagement and democracy.”
It absolutely is Bob. But it’s more than that too. The European countries and cultures have evolved over thousands of years. You cannot simply mash them into one under a bunch of communist Stasi thugs. Ain’t never gonna work. From my perspective here in the UK it is akin to being the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia under direct rule of the Nazis commanded by Reinhard Heydrich.
cephus0
Great point.
We are by nature a tribal world. European tribes, for all their political posturing, are still fiercely so.
It actually upsets me that this valuable cultural difference is being erased by faceless bureaucrats.
The UK is different, we are a pain in the backside, to everyone.
long may it continue.
It was worse than that. If politicians in one country couldn’t get a law passed because the voters would oppose it, they could get the EU to pass the law, then shrug, say ‘sorry, it’s the EU’ and pass exactly the law they originally wanted.
And one of the reasons the British politicians are floundering so badly is that most have spent their lives as EU bureaucrats, rubber-stamping whatever the EU sent to them. Now they suddenly have a country to run, and few of them are up to the job. Certainly not May.
MarkG
I can’t disagree with you entirely but, by inference, you suggest the EU officials are much better than UK officials. But in fact, they have not had to deal with a Brexit before either. They are floundering just as much. Hence the dogged demands for money before negotiations.
How about we want to buy a car and the sales spiv says ‘I’ll negotiate a deal, but you have to give me the money first’. Yea right!
The important thing is, they have no more an idea of what they’re doing than the UK does, and they have 27 countries who don’t know what they’re doing, to deal with, before they make a decision, on what they don’t know about.
Encouraging?
The whole “EU” and its unelected bureaucrats is an invitation and encouragement to leave asap.
“Despite substantial grumbling, the UK still overwhelmingly supports politicians who embrace renewables, who advocate aggressive emissions reduction policies. ”
Reminds me of what Monty Python’s skit on the Black Death “Bring out your dead?” would be if updated – “Bring out your frozen” with a sequel “Bring out your starved”.
The reality is the conservative party is in power and supporting the climate act and renewables – and will still likely be there after brexit (or even the Corbynites aren’t going to mess with the Climate Act)
Prominent brexiteer Gove is behind renewables and the climate act.
The active UK pipeline on offshore wind and the firm closedown date for all coal plants of 2025 ensure the UK will continue to go renewable/reduce CO2
Or maybe they’ve finally realised that the way you play this game is to make outrageously stupid green claims while getting on with business? You know, like the Germans cancelling green nuclear while burning, more dirty brown coal thereby increasing their emissions while pointing their hypocritical fingers at the US who actually are reducing their emissions on a massive scale.
“Prominent brexiteer Gove is behind renewables and the climate act.”
Well there’s reliability for you then Griff. Forget wind, about the only thing Mr Gove is behind is Mrs Gove at the Daily Flail, give or take the odd well established beech hedge. The guy has the integrity of a block of wet flower arranger’s oasis in a force ten gale. As for ‘prominent Brexiteer’, give me a break. Gove will blow hard in whatever direction 22 isobars dictate and switch direction in a trice. The only renewable is the guy’s ability to muster enough gall to pull it off on a repeat basis at short notice. In that respect the man is a veritable power house of servile rectitude and uncertainty – a class act in a climate of whether and knot.
Which brings up the question “what the hell is a European conservative?” Leftist lite?
Which brings up the question “what the hell is a European conservative?” Leftist lite?
Gove is an interesting character in UK politics;
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/07/24/has-britains-michael-gove-joined-the-green-squishies/
The [unelected] EU Commission is going to make an example of the UK.
Something to make any other member state think long and hard before trying to leave.
If the UK were effective negotiators they’d play the walk away card, ‘This much
and no more or we walk, no sweat, and that’ll set a precedent you won’t like.’
There is a local club that I used to belong to, but I resigned because I thought I should not have to pay the fee to remain in the club. They have now stopped me using their facilities, it’s outrageous. They also want me to pay my bar bill for the last 3 years and for the goods I had ordered through their purchase schemes.
What is the world coming to?
Gareth, the difference is, at your local club, they won’t charge you extra because you are a better member, a longer serving member, a richer member or just use the facilities more than the other members. What you did do is agree to various services that you’re now expected to pay for, even if they won’t let you still use those services. The EU isn’t a club, it’s an extortion racket. The only government in the EU that expanded during the recession was the EU itself. It intends to be not just a club but a country. It already messes with its member states more than the US does. The Americans would never put up with what the EU does now, let alone what it has planned.
+10 TinyCO2! The hardcore socialists will never recognize the truth of your words, though….
Gareth is a typical dumb remainiac with his completely screwed-up analogy. The actual club analogy is more like: you join a club which has a leaving policy stating clearly that when you decide to leave there is a mechanism for so doing with no attached financial implications. When you attempt to actually use this mechanism the club officials tell you “Ah, but we were kind of expecting you’d stay forever you see and you are one of our biggest membership payers after all and we’ve made all kind of plans for stuff using your money a long way into the future so you can’t leave without paying us years and years of membership fees so we can still do our stuff. You don’t get anything for this payment or benefit from it any way but that’s just how it is because you decided to leave us and can’t have any say in the stuff we have planned – like building an army to force you to stay forever – but you have to pay our illegal demands anyway or we can make life very, very difficult for you. Nice little country you got there. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to it. Capisce? Oh, and by the way, the rest of our club members are allowed to come and live in your property any time they choose and will do so under our rules – not yours. Ah, and nearly forgot, you and your family will live under club regulations for the rest of your lives even though you have officially left the club. Everything clear now? Good – well that’s all settled then.”
That’s about the size of it, ceph.
cephus0
Comment of the day.
I’ve been aware for a few years that climate change sceptics (or skeptics for our US friends) tend to want to leave the EU. It must be something to do with the way we analyse the subjects.
Those who believe all the alarmist hype tend to think the EU is the best option for the UK. Perhaps they are more likely to believe authority and experts.
Those who love the EU tend to be public sector and academia – who because they hate (or certainly don’t love) the private sector, they’re instinctively against oil, heavy engineering, motor cars – none of which fall within their kingdoms of control.
In other words, you can more or less predict which side of the fence people sit on a large range of issues, simply by knowing who they work for.
Scottish Sceptic
Funny that, imagine Blair encouraging 50% of school leavers into university, and Corbyn wanting nationalisation.
More cannon fodder for the left, rather than employment and freedom of choice for people with minds of their own.
We aren’t leaving the EU. Theresa May is a full-blown traitor. She has done everything in her power to stall leaving. She has now acquiesced to every single mafia-esque extortion demand from the EU without even so much as securing any kind of deal on trade. She is working towards ‘transitionary periods’ lasting years into the future during which we will still be completely under EU control including the courts. I presume we will continue to pay the EU during this period even after coughing up the £50 billion in ransom. Years down the road when the ‘transitionary period’ is supposed to be ending they will just change the wording so it continues indefinitely under a different name – like they did with the rejected EU constitution which they rebranded as the Lisbon Treaty and shoved it in through the back door.
The EU cannot afford to let Britain leave. They need the cash and if we fare well after leaving that would be the end of them. They are doomed anyway as Europe moves ever further to the right – driven in large part by the migrant crisis directly resulting from Merkel’s catastrophic immigration policies – and collapse is certain at some point fairly soon. All of this is of course why they are pushing flat-out for an EU army. That is actually pretty funny. They really think they can keep 500 million Europeans in chains with some ragtag army comprised of many different nationalities. God luck with that!
Meanwhile May continues to import hundreds of thousands of immigrants each year. There are hundreds of thousands still pouring onto this island every year who all need housing and welfare benefits while old British people freeze in the winter because they can’t afford the extortionate green energy prices and can’t get a doctor’s appointment. Theresa May is more concerned with stiffing the voices of those who object to their country becoming an Islamic Caliphate under Sharia law via. the creation of bogus ‘hate speech’ laws. Theresa May is the leering face of Globalist ev!l.
No, we aren’t leaving the EU. Well not without revolution and civil war. That referendum was never meant to happen. it was forced by UKIP but Camoron and the rest of the Globalists thought there was no chance whatsoever of an actual leave campaign win. They were wrong but they will never allow this to go ahead. Merkel’s advisers tell her that Brexit *must* be stopped at all costs. The Tories are going to renege on every promise they made – as they always do but this time I believe in the process they will sink themselves for a generation at least – even if the party fragments into two as it looks like doing. Of course it really won’t matter who is in control of Parliament because it will have no teeth, being completely controlled from Brussels anyway.
A fair and reasonable assessment.
Only Farage leading a new party can save us from the traitors in Westminster.
Perhaps May is playing a long game. I.E., waiting for the next German election to displace Merkel as PM, for the Central European countries to coalesce into an anti-EU bloc, for Draghi to run out of money-printing ability, for Greece et al. to collapse, for a new financial crisis to occur, etc.
:). Somewhat reminds me of the ‘Danegeld’,of about 1000years ago
You need to take some time out to go and re-inforce your tin foil hat.
Seriously, you have a peculiar view of the EU, the UK and how the world works.
You need to take some time out and remove your vacuous head from your colon.
Yep she showed her true colours by condemning Trump’s tweets concerning the ‘Islamic Caliphate’ and the ‘hate speech’ laws.
?w=640
cephus0
I can’t entirely disagree with your first paragraph.
Your second paragraph is great other than Germany does army’s pretty well. I can’t think of anything worse than Germany with another army, I don’t think AH was a flash in the pan.
I can’t wholly disagree with your third paragraph other than to say I see lots of immigrants working a lot harder than our indigenous population, generalising of course. And to be fair, we must have numbers on this site to back up claims that immigrants are sponging, Vs immigrants that are paying their way.
Sadly, I suspect you’re spot on with your analysis of the Conservatives.
Thankfully I abandoned that ‘lite’ left organisation and now support the UK Libertarian Party. Fledgling, clumsy, no representation, but at least they value personal freedom.
To be honest, 5 years down the line from the completion of Brexit, climate change will be the least of our worries. One person will be fine though. Mr.Farage says he has absolutely no qualms about claiming his £78,000 pounds per year pension from the EU. Lucky him !
If Farage isn’t given a knighthood – the Tories will know why they lost the next election.
Let’s start with an OBE. More to come.
Gareth
5 years down the line from the completion of Brexit, climate change won’t be a worry at all.
And so what if Farage is drawing a pension from the EU, he deserves it for having the guts to stand up to them. And it’s probably minute in comparison to many EU pensions.
And I have to laugh, the Uk moans about politicians who won’t speak out, stand their ground and be honest in their opinions. One comes along and what happens? He’s branded a racist and a fool.
He’s such a fool that he influenced an entire country to do the unthinkable.
Good for him, like him or loath him.
We asked for him, we got him.
Five years down the line from the completion of Brexit, it is unlikely the EU will still exist – at least in its current form.
In fact, one question is, if the negotiations drag on as it is possible the EU would prefer, if there will still be an EU to Brexit from.
It is all about ego and absolute power. “How DARE you defy me?”
The hard left in the UK have been trying to promote Brexit for many years. In an unlikely co-alition between the hard right and hard left they have now achieved their aim. The hard left have managed to take over the previously middle of the road, slightly left of centre Labour party, and are leading in the polls.
So the current forecast is a hard Brexit, trading under WTO rules with a hard left government in charge. The hope is that a trade deal will be made with Trump, which paints an interesting scenario given that Trump does not like trading blocs and deals, believes the US should be the main beneficiary of any deal, and the UK is likely to be trading with a government who are opposed to much of the issues Trump stands for.
And you you reckon we will have the time to worry about climate change issues?
A year ago we led the G10 in economic performance. In the 18 months since the Brexit vote we are now near the bottom of the league. There is a long way to fall yet.
Remember, Labour used to be anti-EU and the Tories pro-EU. Labour could see what the economic impact would be on the British working-class, and opposed it for that reason.
Then they figured out they could get fat jobs in the EU pushing their left-wing agenda, and their opinion suddenly reversed.
There’s a reason most of the support for Brexit came from the working class, not the academics and government employees.
Strangely enough, the blackmail demands of the EU (About £700 per person) is not that dissimilar from the scurrilous demands of the wind industry. So when we leave the EU, we can almost immediately recover the costs by dropping the support the global warming idiocy.
Your comments Eric are ignorant drivel and show that you have ventured into an area you know nothing about. That does put in the same class as the UK legacy media, the UK government and the vast majority of the UK population. The number of people who fully understand this is very small.
The EU is not punishing the UK but the UK government is about to punish the UK economy by taking the wrong route out of the EU. Inside sources have confirmed that the disastrous decision to leave the Single Market was made by Theresa May and the departed advisor Nick Timothy alone. It is this that will do 95% of the damage to our economy and is also responsible for the Irish border problem.
There is NO amount of money being demanded by the EU. The EU is requesting the UK agree to meet the financial commitments it has agreed to as a member and to pay what is required under Rester a Liquide – the budget period overspend. But since you have never heard of Rester a Liquide you would not understand that the final is not known until the budget period ends which is why the EU have never set a figure. All figures are made up by the press and media.
If – and it is if because as yet nothing is set in stone and sources in Westminster indicate that there is a move towards a sensible exit strategy – May & Co continue on their chosen path then it is correct that worrying about something as pointless as climate change will not even be on the agenda. Companies will be laying off staff in their thousands, trade will be plummeting as some industries cease altogether, government tax income will be crashing while welfare payments are soaring, the shelves will be bare of certain food and there will be hundreds of things to try to sort out. This is not Project Fear – this is the reality of leaving the Single Market. The damage control will depend on how relations are with the EU. With agreement likely on the finance side, there is less chance of the idiotic ‘just walk away’ option happening so a dialogue can take place to sort out issues such as air travel, passports, driving licences, vehicle insurance, car exports, petro-chemical exports, the aerospace industry, pharmaceuticals, food exports, anything covered by notified bodies etc. Action on climate change will be something we won’t be able to afford.
My concern is that if some sort of trade deal is put together then the EU will want to see environmental measures included in it. This has already been alluded to by Barnier in referring to the ‘European Model’ of regulation. They can see that free of the EU climate change rules, we might free ourselves of all the costs that are pushing our electricity prices up and become a sought after manufacturing location – assuming it will be possible to make and export goods to the EU. Remaining in the Single Market would mean that if we scrap all the green taxes there is nothing the EU can do about it as the trading rules are in place and as the UK will no longer be a member, the EU Directives on climate change will not apply.
Lol. Gerry, England = Guy, Belgium.
Gerry, England
“Inside sources have confirmed”
Oh Gerry, you have our ear.
Pompous ass.
So you do consider yourself as a member of the chosen few people and call Eric an ignorant. Interesting. You’d better talk about it with your psychiatrist.
“Your comments Eric are ignorant drivel”
No Gerry, that would be yours actually.
You haven’t the first clue what you’re rabbiting about.
Why oh why did Nigel Farrage retire from this exercise? I know the Conservatives were in power (past tense deliberate) but they were reluctant Brexit negotiators. Nigel should have kept up the campaign knowing the conflicted Соиs were going to waffle the whole enterprise away.
Permit me to advise: When you have an ugly divorce like this. Take the initiative, chop things off quickly – yes its complex and there are dependencies and players who will be hurt, but there is no way to keep any love between you or even kindness. An amputation will heal. If the other side throws every impediment in your way, then do it completely unilaterally at cost and bear up to the screaming. It will go away. They have a bigger incentive than you to make things nice afterwards. You can buy better Camembert and Brie in Quebec (I kid you not) and lovely soft blue (green) cheese, etc. Not only that, you will grow the cojones back that you had when you ruled the waves. The current admin has no heart for it and that is problem No. 1.
“The current admin has no heart for it”
Neither does Gerry, (not) England. He apparently surgically removed his cojones and made Brussels pate out of them.
cephus; comments like yours really makes me worried about the future of Britain (if you are British). There is this total ignorance of reality which is truly scary, a jingoism that belongs to an earlier century, or two. I fear reality will hit the UK like a thousand crashing windmills.
Henning; you’re more worried about my comments than the mathematical certainty that if the UK continues along its current demographic trajectory it will be Muslim majority and probably under Sharia law within a short generation or so? Really? Since you are fond of reality – that is what it is.
And you babble on about my “ignorance of reality” without even stating which part of my presumed reality you in fact disagree with? What ‘jingoism’ are you talking about? You think I’m flying toy spitfires around in mental blue skies over the white cliffs of Dover or something?
I don’t like the EU. Millions of us don’t and in ever increasing numbers. No one ever voted for political union under a Commission. All of it has been inflicted upon the populations of Europe by stealth. It is a ghastly, creeping, anti-democratic, endlessly power-hungry dictatorship every bit as bad as the former Soviet Union.
You worry me.
cephus0
+++++ Comment.
cephus0,
Spot on!
Hot Scot wrote re immigration:
“No, that was the rhetoric of remain, not Brexiters. UKIP made a big thing of it and the remainers tarred everyone with that brush. “
As someone who campaigned vigorously for Leave (and a couple of other leave umbrella organisations) in East Anglia I can only assume that you didn’t do much work on the doorstep. The topic which came up most often was immigration. Upping the UK’s population by hundreds of thousands a year affects mostly the poor, the struggling, the disadvantaged while making life easier for the rich and the comfortable. I knocked on hundreds of doors, delivered thousands of leaflets and manned half a dozen market stalls and that’s what people were saying. Where was your experience of the vox pop of those who were more concerned with other things? Inside the M25? In the large conurbations but not in the crowded parts thereof? Immigration came first, often expressed as taking back control of our borders: after that there was the wish to take back control of our wimpish, gutless and lily-livered politicians.
Brexiters were not tarred with the racist brush, even though the MSM to a man tried it on. Only those committed to remain who receive all their thought instructions from the Guardian believe that. The neat tag summing up the general attitude was ‘it’s space not race’.
JF
Julian Flood
I’m not sure if you got the wrong end of the stick, which seems the case judging by your comment.
Whilst many people have concerns about immigration, when one drills down into the real reason for resenting immigration, the people I have spoken to don’t mind immigrants, they don’t even grudge them jobs as they know they can travel across Europe themselves for jobs. It’s the politicians and their insane policies that led to unfettered immigration, largely caused by Germany who, because of their post WW2 industrial success, is desperate for cheap labour they mind.
And I’m sorry, but Brexiters did not say “we’re racist thugs”, the remain PR campaign saw that as an effective slur to keep people from defecting to the the Brexit camp. A snowflake couldn’t possibly be branded a racist, that would never do.
And yes, in answer to your puerile assertion that being within the M25 suddenly makes one somehow politically illiterate, I live in Dartford, on the M25, 18 miles from the centre of London. Immigration is a big deal here as it’s almost the first stop off point from Dover.
I suspect East Anglia believe they have an immigration problem, but down here we live cheek by jowl with immigrants, most of them thoroughly decent people. So people in the south east are not entranced by the nonsense of immigration, they generally get past that and look at the real issues surrounding EU membership.
Perhaps you might want to explain to your doorstep punters that immigration is the symptom, not the condition.
“Despite substantial grumbling, the UK still overwhelmingly supports politicians who embrace renewables, who advocate aggressive emissions reduction policies.”
If the public knew how ignorant their politicians are they might have second thoughts. I campaigned twice against the man who was the Minister for Energy. he will deny it, but when I pointed out that solar would only be a worthwhile contributor to the energy mix if surplus energy could be stored he was taken aback. A man with a first from Oxford and he didn’t know that you either store electricity or use it, it doesn’t just hang around.
Our energy policy is being made by idiots. They will end up killing people.
JF
Julian,
They ARE killing people, now.
Old and cold – Heat or Eat.
I know that – and I’m sure that you do too.
Auto
“Our energy policy is being made by idiots.”
If only it was only energy policy being made by idiots. In reality, idiotic politicians are making policy in pretty much every area of modern life, most of which they know next to nothing about.
Just another reason for getting away from the bloated EU bureaucracy.
Julian Flood
“If the public knew how ignorant their politicians are they might have second thoughts.”
And it seems you were campaigning to be one, beaten by an ignoramus as well.
Rad what you just wrote, then reflect on why people resent politicians.
Politicians.
The only job in the world, that I know of, for which the qualification to run an entire country, is that one needs no qualifications whatsoever. Other than, of course, having the characteristics of a psychopath.
The EU will not be successful in extorting £50 Billion from the UK as punishment for Brexit.
It’s tyrannical extortion ploys like this which justifies Brexit.
With the US out of the Paris Accord and the UK out of the EU, the remaining EU schlubs must decide how the insane and completely unnecessary costs of Climate Change will be allocated. Since Germany is the only country with a relatively strong economy, they’re it, however, since Germany is already overextended in trying to keep all the other EU members from going bankrupt, Germans can’t also take on the added burden of paying for CAGW..
CAGW will soon have to be abandoned—not from the preponderance of disconfirming evidence, but rather from preponderance of debt…
Sniff, sniff… Smell that? That’s fear and desperation…
Last one out, turn off the lights..
You mean “blow out the candle”
May Britain cut CO2 emissions as it deems fit – it doesn’t matter. CO2 isn’t a driving force. We are still well within the range of natural variation. So, if the UK doesn’t meet the “Brussels standards”, nothing will happen. It’s time to skip that GWBS once and for good.
When I read the majority of comments here on Brexit I really have to pinch myself and ask am I right to be a skeptic about CAGW. The ignorance, arrogance and nationalistic stupidity on display in this comment thread is extraordinary. I feel sorry for the English as, unlike the Germans or French, 20th century history has ill prepared them for the 21st century. The world wars hammered French and German nationalism for different reasons but stoked and inflated English nationalism resulting in the English unable to accept harsh new economic and political realities. Many English today believe that English military prowess, resolve and bravery resulted in them winning both wars and that the EU is emasculating that spirit. England would have been invaded and conquered by the Nazis just like the French only for the channel which saved them. Both the first and second world wars were won by the same three factors: American finance, American armaments and American men. It really had little to with English resolve, pluckiness or fighting spirit. You were lucky to be on the same side as the Americans – that’s all (far from assured in the 1st given the hostility to England amongst many in the US in the early years of that war). As an Irishman I also note, with much anger, the droves of Brits applying now for Irish passports where previously their ‘Irishness’ never cost them a thought. Even the former British Ambassador to Ireland has taken one out. I hope Ireland will respond by taxing such ‘plastic paddies’ as a fee for the convenience we are granting them. So much for English confidence in ‘Splendid Isolation’. I expect Britain will be reapplying to join within a few decades. Acceptance of that application will be far from assured. It would appear deGaulle read the English well when he blocked their first application to join. I’m not sure the same mistake will be made again.
Wow. Just wow. You could have usefully left it at “I hate the English”. Enjoy your rabid xenophobia.
Wow wow and thrice wow!
No one should doubt after reading hoplite why we need to leave the continent and it’s adherents.
Actually, I couldn’t have as I don’t hate the English. Like most Irish people I have an interest in and admiration for English culture and history. Apart from language, we Irish also share some other cultural aspects with our neighbours. What annoys Irish people about the English, however, is when they don’t respect us Irish (which unfortunately is too often).
I can understand that you are offended at my attribution of victory in both wars to the Americans, but it doesn’t surprise me that you are largely unaware of how important American input was to your cause. The Churchillian narrative on English history has largely supplanted all other narratives and as he played a major role for some months early in WW2 it copperfastened his take on British history and appears to be the only one kids in English schools learn today. If you ever bothered to study some Irish history, for example, you’d get a very different take on things and, who knows, you might even be a little embarrassed at your forefathers’ treatment of the Irish and the apartheid regime you ran for centuries here (called the Penal Laws). To you English, Cromwell is a hero – to us Irish, he has the same significance as Hitler does to Jews (his hatred was no less intense but he didn’t have the industrial means to put it into effect – lucky us!).
Hoplite; you may be right; perhaps UK will apply for renewed membership some time in the future. But then, there is hardly any chance of the opt-outs previously granted to them. If Brexit may be hard, the Brin will be harder. But it may be a necessary lesson to learn.
Dream on Henning.
We offer to leave in friendship and cooperation where sovereignty is unaffected.
You offer nothing in return.
Goodbye, good luck, and enjoy the German hegemony.
You really aren’t paying attention Henning. The EU is already fragmenting. The disaster of the economic collapse of the Mediterranean countries. The sheer lunacy of ever imagining you could tie a rustic culture of tourism plus olive oil and the West German industrial giant into the same currency. The insane demands that every previously sovereign country participates in the impossible integration of millions of foreign people from fundamentally hostile cultures at population replacement levels as required by the immigration policies of the truly insane Angela Merkel. The endless Islamic expansionism with concomitant terrorism, murder and rape of the host population while the welfare costs to support it all are being borne by the European populations. Oh yes, who wouldn’t be simply gagging to sign up for more of that in the future?
Henning, you’re a dreaming idiot of truly deep profundity.
“I feel sorry for the English as, unlike the Germans or French, 20th century history has ill prepared them for the 21st century.”
The ‘Progressive’ belief that they are the Vanguard of History is becoming quite hilarious. They’re unable to see reality, because they just KNOW that there’s only one way Progress can go, and that’s to the happy, fluffy, unified, Star Trek world of The Future.
Meanwhile, outside in reality, nationalist and tribalism are rising everywhere, because big, centralized government is a liability in a post-industrial world. In the industrial era, the biggest state with the biggest factories had the most power. Hence we got the ‘United States of Europe’ to compete with the United States of America, by being even bigger with even bigger factories.
But the great dream isn’t even complete yet, and it’s becoming not just irrelevant, but actively harmful. There’s no benefit to being told what to do by people thousands of miles away if you can make everything you want within a few miles of your home (or get it shipped to you from China, which is pretty much the same thing).
“England would have been invaded and conquered by the Nazis just like the French only for the channel which saved them.”
And the Soviet Union would have been conquered had the harsh Russian winter not stopped the Nazis in their tracks. So what’s your point? Britain had a moat; it saved them in 1940 just as it saved them in 1588.
++++
“American finance, American armaments and American men. It really had little to with English resolve, pluckiness or fighting spirit.”
And if Britain had been beaten in 1940, where would that American finance flowed, where would those American armaments have been deployed and where would the American men have been launched against Germany?
++++
World War II in Europe was fought between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. By the time the D-Day landings occurred, the Soviets were in the ascendancy. For every German soldier facing the Allies in the west, three were on the Eastern Front, getting the snot kicked out of them. Getting ashore in Normandy was tough but once the bridgehead was established, the result was never in doubt. And by the way, more British troops went ashore on D-Day than did American troops.
No D-Day landings, the Soviets would have thrashed Germany and kept pushing until they reached the English Channel. The Allies saved Western Europe from Communism, not from Nazism.
++++
Meanwhile, what were the Irish, under de Valera, doing? Sending birthday greetings to Hitler and denying Britain the use of Irish ports, among other things.
++++
My maternal grandfather left Northern Ireland in 1926. He held de Valera and his cronies in contempt. His eldest son, the guy I’m named for, died in North Africa in November 1941, fighting in the Eighth Army as part of 2NZEF. As for passports, the Irish government, in what struck me as a money-making exercise, got in touch with my family some years back, offering us Irish passports as our mother had been born before partition. I ignored their offer; my preferred response would have been “Shove it up your arse!”
“The Churchillian narrative on English history has largely supplanted all other narratives and as he played a major role for some months early in WW2 it copperfastened his take on British history . . .”
Nothing unusual there. The Yanks have for the past seventy years been teaching their kids that World War II was fought between themselves on one side with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan on the other. Oh, and by the way, there were a few early skirmishes that we didn’t bother with and the Russians fought a few battles against the Nazis too.
The Russians call the conflict the Great Patriotic War and pretty much dismiss every other anti-Nazi effort — not too surprising as they suffered 20+ million casualties compared to the half-million each by the Yanks and Brits and the Eastern Front was the Superbowl of the whole shebang.
I’ve no idea how the French teach WW2 history; probably that they were let down by perfidious Albion in 1940 but the Resistance and the glorious forces under De Gaulle liberated France, with a bit of American help, in 1944.
The Italians no doubt claim they were led into it by that madman Mussolini and then used atrociously by the Germans while the Irish mutter among themselves that they were certain the Germans were going to win and if they had their time over that’s the horse they’d put their money on once more. And anyway, a British defeat would make up for the way Cromwell’s men raped and plundered Ireland just the other day 400 years ago. And the potato famine.
As for Cromwell being an English hero, are you kidding? There might be a few English who look favourably upon him but my take is that from 1660 on the Commonwealth has been regarded as a terrible mistake that must never be repeated.
Finally, Hoplite, while we’re on the subject of Ireland and WW2, give us your opinion of the treatment meted out by their government to Irish soldiers who fought against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. How has that piece of history been taught in Irish schools?
What’s funny about this is the Trump effect. While the Donald forges ahead making the US energy independent and dropping corporate taxes and energy costs the US economy will inevitably surge. Meanwhile the climate will blithely carry on its own sweet way with nothing much of anything happening. We’ll still have nut bars like Oreskes and co. careering around the planet chasing perfectly ordinary weather events with their failed models and using them for bogus ‘attribution’ studies but is anyone seriously paying any attention to that bonkers crew?
The rest of the deluded West are still desperately doing their utmost to cripple their economies on the alter of climate change but with Trump’s US steaming resolutely in the opposite direction they are very soon going to look very, very stupid indeed. They must know this and the hysterical pressure to force Trump into conforming to their barking insanity is truly delightful to witness. They must also know with a certain sinking feeling by now that Trump isn’t going to bow to anyone – even if he stands alone against the entire planet.
So here we are coming into winter 2017 and it’s already hitting double digit sub-zeroes (°C) in the UK and I understand much of the rest of the NH is looking pretty chilly too. Now I know you can’t say anything climatically significant about that but what you can say is that the half century of stridently bellowed claims of runaway global warming accompanying rising co2 is most certainly untrue. Everyone with a functioning brain cell must know this and to be driven into energy poverty by lunatic greens and Globalist mad people while India, China, Russia, South East Asia and the US get to enjoy the bountiful fruits of fossil fuels is going to drive people more firmly into voting these whackos out.
The unelected, unaccountable and undeposable EU Commission of course was intending to make an end of anybody in Europe voting for anything ever again and Trump could well wind up being the catalyst which dashes that particular cup of joy from their puckered totalitarian lips. Close. But no coconut this time around guys.
Cephus0
“The unelected, unaccountable and undeposable EU Commission….”
If only you knew how the EU works……….
Tin foil hat time.
If only you would stop stalking me handing out ad homs with zero other content.
“Steven Swinden December 3, 2017 at 12:36 pm”
In all the time I lived in the UK since entry to the “EU” I was never asked to elect a MEP. Never! And yet there are thousands of MEP’s I never heard of who (Used to) represent me. I actually lived in Belgium, Brussels and near the EU parliament.
“The unelected, unaccountable and undeposable EU Commission….”
Which is precisely how the EU works, in fact.
Stop trying to deny reality.
Cephus0
Couldn’t agree more. The “EU” ist the most recent of the Biblical Plagues, yet the worst of all.
As a mixed race Brit I can say without prejudice that the UK universities are more extreme particularly east Anglia but in the main they do so in a more gentlemanly way with their attacks on non believers.
East Anglia has a superb creative writing course though it is now a subsidiary of the climate department in creativity versus factual content.
The two plonkers did not even seem to realise that the UK ratified the Paris agreement – see my comment at the Conversation
“How do average Europeans feel about Muslim immigration.”
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2017/11/22/w-o-o-d-20-nov-2017/#comment-89067
Cephus0
Couldn’t agree more. The “EU” ist the most recent of the Biblical Plagues, yet the worst of all.
Another Ian
It’s a 3M feeling. Merkels Messy Madness.
Eric,
I’d literally tell the EU control freaks to ef off, and give them zip . . if I were King of your forest ; )
There Must Be 50 Ways to Brexit The EU Blunder
Just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free!
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free!
Even after Brexit the UK government still has the Climate Change Act, whose deadlines for phasing out carbon it is obliged to follow. Its environmental policy won’t change.
There’s no chance that the UK will abandon its position on climate change post-Brexit. The political parties are all committed to the standard climate nonsense, and no debate on the subject is permitted thanks to the BBC and other media organisations – so there’s very little opportunity for anyone to change their mind.
Gareth (December 3, 2017 at 7:05 am),
To be honest, 5 years down the line from the completion of Brexit, climate change will be the least of our worries. One person will be fine though. Mr.Farage says he has absolutely no qualms about claiming his £78,000 pounds per year pension from the EU. Lucky him !
That’s extraordinary! Farage serves as an MEP for eighteen years despite facing mockery, slander, intimidation and death threats against his family, and then he expects to receive his pension! What a nerve!
Scottish Sceptic (December 3, 2017 at 7:25 am),
If Farage isn’t given a knighthood – the Tories will know why they lost the next election.
Farage has done a lot for the country, but he has no chance of a knighthood, since his judgement on some matters is questionable. E.g. he should have had the sense not to give a talk to an AfD campaign rally a few weeks ago.
I have tried searching for a clip of a comedy TV show, maybe it was Not The Nine O’Clock News, from the early 80’s and have been unsuccessful. As far as I can recall it featured Rowan Atkinson discussing monetary contributions to the Common Market (EU) by country. He eventually got down to France and he says something like… “…a string of onions and one cravat.” (The contribution France makes). Hilariously funny, wish I could find it for readers.
Personally I was hopping for enough warming to bring back dinosaurs.
I grew up in N.E England.We had the central heating on for 10 months per year.I Emigrated to Australia to see the sun once in a while.Does anyone who lives in England seriously believe it is too hot?