Article 50: "causing dissent" Sunday 29 July 2012  We saw some of the arguments in my earlier piece, but what is interesting is groupescule attitude to our original assertion that the best way to quit the EU is to invoke Article 50. But even to assert this, it would appear, is wrong. By stating my view, say some members of this faction, Richard North is causing us to fall out and "is going out of his way to undermine UKIP and their leader over this, causing dissent". Thus we are told: The only possible reason we could put forward is that Richard, after 18 months sharing the same desk as Nigel Farage, has turned against anything that Nigel puts forward … Regrettably these schisms, which so often occur within the anti-EU movement, are what holds back a united front against the EUSSR.It seems, therefore, that one must not offer views which differ from those promulgated by the Great Leader, otherwise this causes "dissent". To call the discussion on Article 50 a "debate", therefore, is perhaps being too kind. The attitude seems to mirror exactly the authoritarianism of the EU that the groupescule so detests. It makes ex cathdra statements and then re-states the same points without conceding anything which contradicts the received wisdom, demanding conformity with the "line". An example of the technique comes with yet another intervention from Ashley Mote. He continues to argue that, following the UK's notification of withdrawal, what follows are "so-called negotiations" over a period of two years. This is starting point from which it is impossible to progress. If the negotiations mandated by Article 50 are not seen as genuine, then one can go no further. And indeed, according to Idris Francis, they are unlikely to be so as the "colleagues" are "liars, cheats and scum". And with that, the groupescule consensus is that Article 50 is "a trap". No one, of course, is prepared to substantiate this assertion – it remains a raw expression of prejudice with nothing whatsoever to support it. On the other hand, there is every reason to believe that the withdrawal clause is entirely genuine. First introduced in 2003 by the European Convention on the Future of Europe, it actually goes back further, to the Italian Communist and latterly MEP, Alterio Spinelli, author of the draft treaty of the European Union. His work was later to form the basis of the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty and, even then – according to his political strategist, Richard Balfe – he was a strong advocate of including a withdrawal clause in the treaties. As a Communist, Spinelli was very well aware of Lenin's condemnation of the Romanov empire as a "prison of nations" and was determined that the EU should not be likewise tainted. He felt strongly that the EU should be a voluntary association of nations, and not a trap for unwilling members. Spinelli was by no means alone, although some favoured a withdrawal clause for other reasons – specifically, after decades of what they saw as Britain as a "reluctant partner", they very much wanted to give her an opportunity to leave, in the hope that they might the British government take it up. Either way, Article 50 stands as the only measure within the EU treaties that enables member states, as of right, to demand negotiations. This, of course, is not good enough for the likes of Ashley Mote, who maintains his standard doomsday scenario, unchanged. Once the "so-called negotiations" start, his scenario is that the EU would mount a huge and sustained PR campaign in the UK to "warn" us of the terrible consequences of leaving. In order to invoke Article 50, though, the UK would have to lodge formally its intention to withdraw – the decision to leave would already have been made. Despite this, our own taxpayer's money would be used against us in a sustained campaign to undermine the then UK government's objective. Every incident, problem, crisis would be "sold" to the BBC and the other pro-EU media as being the direct and inescapable result of the UK's decision to leave. Then develops the Mote fantasy: Any and every EU regulation and directive which has been passed into UK law would be nit-picked over and reinforced with threats of fines and prosecution in the European Court of Justice … Any interim activity planned by the British government would also be examined microscopically for any apparent unlawful activity, and again policed with threats. It would be a logistical and administrative nightmare for the then UK government.We raised this before, but stopped short of shredding it. But this is truly fantasy of the most bizarre kind. It takes anything up to five years for the EU to take infringement proceedings through to the ECJ. Over the two-year time span of Article 50 negotiations, there is simply not enough time for the Mote scenario to take effect. We could go further, but there is no great point. Speaking for the groupescules, Idris Francis betrays a deeper prejudice. He tells us that the Harrogate Agenda project is seen as "a wrecking device intended to disrupt if not wreck UKIP's chances", not least because of "personal issues and vengeance". In other words, says Idris, "hatred of UKIP that has become more important to those involved than their hatred of the EU or desire to leave it". Idris, incidentally, conveys almost with a sense of pride, the fact that he does not read the EU Ref blog. Had he lowered himself to do so, he would have realised how mad his claim actually is. Needless to say, Idris does not make it to my face. That might cause dissent, and that is not allowed. With those sort of "eurosceptics", you cannot have any debate. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 29/07/2012 |
Celebrating our decline Sunday 29 July 2012  As with the Jubilee celebrations, the opening ceremony of this East London event was supposed to be a celebration of "Britishness". But how bizarre it is that, as the politicians have sold our birthright to the Eurocrats of Brussels and their tranzie friends in the UN, the establishment devotes more and more energy and treasure to these London-based "bread and circus" spectaculars. One wonders though whether the population is at all gulled by the patriotic exhibitions, or whether they are just going along for the ride. However, it is puzzling that so many people will indulge in theseersatz celebrations, while expending little or no effort in the political battle to restore our nationhood and return our independence. The "Olympic fever" though brings to mind - via Booker's Seven Basic Plots - a quotation by D H Lawrence, who roundly declared: Never was any age more sentimental, more devoid of real feeling, more exaggerated in false feeling than our own … the radio and the film are mere counterfeit emotion. They lap it up, they live in it and on it … and at times they seem to get on very well with it all. And then, more and more, they break down. They go to pieces.And thus are we reminded of Sir John Glubb, who wrote in 1978: "The heroes of declining nations are always the same – the athlete, the single or the actor. The word "celebrity" today is used to designate a comedian or a football player, not a statesman, a general or a literary genius. Over this next fortnight then, in a grotesquely disproportionate media-fest, we celebrate not our greatness as a nation but our decline. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 29/07/2012 |
Booker: the law is not the law Sunday 29 July 2012  The law we are talking about is the Climate Change Act. Although this sets specific, mandatory targets aimed at reducing emissions, these have now become aspirational, with no realistic prospect of the government achieving them. What Booker has found though is that the government it is intending to commit this very serious breach of the law – it is doing so in such opaque fashion that it hopes no one will notice. The detail is buried in last week's statement by Ed Davey, secretary of state for energy and climate change, which reveals just what a catastrophic shambles he is making of Britain’s energy policy. As always though, the legacy media missed the point. The headlines that greeted this document focused on the "victory" of Mr Davey over George Osborne, in managing to preserve the subsidy given to onshore wind turbines at 90 percent, rather than the 75 percent the Treasury supposedly wanted. The reports dutifully echoed DECC's claim that this would bring "£25 billion of investment into the UK economy", while Davey was allowed by the Today programme to get away with the risible claim that this would "create hundreds of thousands of green jobs". Everything about this statement, Booker writes, betrayed the fact that Davey and his officials have begun to realise that they are impaled on two wholly irreconcilable hooks. On one hand, they are under two legal obligations: a commitment to the EU that we will generate 32 percent of our electricity from "renewables" by 2020; and, under the Climate Change Act, that we will cut our "carbon emissions" by 80 percent within 40 years. On the other hand, it is their duty to ensure that we produce enough electricity to keep our lights on. Hidden in the small print of Davey's statement are two passages of particular significance. One, so obscurely phrased that it seems to have passed everyone by, is that by 2017 we hope to be generating "79 terawatt hours" (TWh) of electricity a year from renewables, rising by 2020 to the "108 TWh needed to meet the UK’s 2020 renewable energy target". To make sense of this, one must look at the section of DECC's website showing that, in 2010, the last year for which we have figures, we used 378 TWh of electricity, of which only 10 TWh, or 2.6 per cent, came from wind. Slightly more than this came from other renewables, such as hydro. But to meet that 32 per cent target within eight years, almost all the increase would have to come from new wind turbines. If 3,000-odd turbines produced 2.6 per cent in 2010, then to meet the EU target would require something like the "32,000 turbines" mentioned by Davey's predecessor Chris Huhne just before he resigned. This would require us to build about 10 giant turbines every day for the next eight years. Regardless of how many billions of pounds of subsidy might be thrown at this, in practical terms it is quite out of the question. The first thing we might thus learn from Davey's statement is that we will miss that legal target by a country mile. An even more revealing passage, however, is one that concedes that we are going to need more gas-fired power stations. Gas, says Davey, will remain "an important part of the energy mix", not just to provide back-up for all those wind turbines when the wind isn't blowing, but also to meet our "everyday demands" to 2030 and beyond. It is all very well for Davey to throw in limp references to how this will “meet our carbon budget” with the aid of "carbon capture and storage"; but as he and his officials well know, piping off CO2 from power stations to bury it under the North Sea is just a pipe-dream. It is still an "unproven technology", as Davey admits, for the simple reason that it can never be made to work. So what we see emerging here for the first time is an official admission that, in order to keep our lights on and our economy running, we have no alternative but to rely massively on fossil-fuel gas, which will drive a coach and horses through the Climate Change Act's target of an 80 per cent emissions cut. Of course, the politicians will deny this, but they can only do so on the basis of wishful thinking. They are not going to get their "carbon capture" or their 32,000 wind turbines, let alone those "hundreds of thousands of green jobs". In all directions they are screwed. And not the least telling feature of last week's statement was that it made no reference to the shale gas revolution which has already halved US gas prices in five years, and which could solve our own energy problems by providing cheap gas for centuries. One day, concludes Booker, we will have our shale gas and we will see the Climate Change Act repealed. These things will happen because the penny is finally dropping that the only alternative is economic suicide. But as yet, our politicians are unable to admit openly the enormity of the mess they have landed us in. COMMENT THREAD Richard North 29/07/2012 |
Posts
