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.
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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.
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“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?
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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.
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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.
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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.