Pushback on EU ‘Green New Deal’ leads to alternative proposals.

Green blob [credit: storybird.com]

From GreenTech media

The EU is currently working through the details of a €1.85 trillion ($2.08 trillion) recovery package. Before the stimulus was signed, a leaked document by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy (DG Energy) ran through a serious of policy plans to marry the European Green Deal and the COVID-19 recovery effort.

Those plans included a possible 15-gigawatt EU-wide renewable tender designed to help make up for a shortfall in national tenders. Support for green hydrogen was also advanced as a potential item for inclusion.

But the plans have not survived a barrage of lobbying by vested interests and pushback from member states still married to a more traditional energy mix, according to multiple sources following the green recovery’s development.

Still waiting for greenhouse: No response to my last email to Roy Spencer

Before the last time I had to dive deeply into politics to defend the EU referendum result, I had an email conversation with Roy Spencer in an attempt to resolve the conflict between physicists like himself, who believe the radiative greenhouse theory is correct, but it’s effect small, and physicists like Ned Nikolov, who contend that the theory is fundamentally incorrect.

After a couple of to and fro emails I sent this response in Feb 2019, to which I never received a reply. It’s time we got this discussion back out in the open, because Boris’ green reset #netzero plan for the UK post Brexit and post pandemic is set to ruin our economy and cause untold suffering, deprivation, and death.

the lukewarmers have utterly failed to convince the fanatics that although they think their theory is correct (it isn’t, but that’s their misguided opinion), they’ve overestimated the magnitude of the effect.

It’s time they stopped supporting the fanatics by deploying false arguments against better theory which will exonerate CO2 and move the debate away from ridiculous and expensive ‘mitigation’, and forward to adaption to the effects of natural climatic change.

A Full Yorkshire Brexit

Nigel and Tallbloke chatting to stallholders on Barnsley market

Financial Times Dec 13:

“Where the Brexit party contested seats, they took more votes from Labour than the Tories, and Labour suffered greater losses on average where the Brexit party stood than where it did not.

“This was most evident in the region of Yorkshire and the Humber where the Brexit party had their best performances. For example, in the Don Valley seat, the Brexit party picked up 15 per cent of the vote as Labour’s share fell by 19 percentage points. Despite the strong showing by the Brexit party, the Conservative vote share ticked up from 42 to 43 per cent, allowing the Tories to unseat Labour’s Caroline Flint.”

#Brexit blackmail: EU extorts UK taxpayers by withholding carbon creds from UK industry

Brussels strikes again. The EU commission has decided to withhold the free carbon credits it gives to member states’ industries from the UK ‘until a Brexit withdrawal agreement is ratified’.

A UK government which had any capable negotiators would respond in kind by withholding the much bigger amount in membership fees we are still paying to Brussels every month, despite taxpayers having voted to leave the EU almost three years ago.

Taxpaying voters will get an opportunity on May 23 to let our incompetent government and the Brussels mafia know that they now support the Brexit Party which seeks a mandate to take over negotiations with the EU and leave on WTO terms in the meantime.

The Long March to #Brexit: First opportunity to boot Parliament in the ballot box.

As I mentioned in the last installment of this series, as soon as I got home from the march on Parliament from Sunderland, I began preparation to stand in the local government elections on May 2nd. This will be voters’ first opportunity to give parliament a swift kick in the ballot box since the Brexit Betrayal on March 29th.

Campaign Leaflet – front side

This is really important because a genuine electoral threat is the only thing the main parties take any notice of. They will carry on undermining our country’s democracy unless they become convinced they will lose significant numbers of seats at elections.

The Long March to #Brexit: Parliament Square Rally

The 50 core marchers strode through London with thousands of people from all over the country behind them and joined the throng in Parliament Square on March 29th. After great speeches from leavers left and right, the man himself topped the bill with a short but inspiring message to all democrats.

It took us 14 days to march from Sunderland to Westminster. This bloke has given 25 years of his life to the cause of regaining independence for the UK. Spare him 8 minutes of your time.

The Long March To #Brexit : Current analysis

I’ve been on the March To Leave for a week, and just got a day off to visit family and give my plates of meat a rest. I’m back on the march tomorrow, so no time for a big write up yet. Here is my simple summary, as delivered to ITN news two days ago, and below, some more complex analysis of the current situation from Simon Pearson on twitter

As crowds gather for the #PutItToThePeopleMarch, Leavers say Remainers need to accept the result#MarchToLeavehttps://t.co/kP3pfGyiR4 pic.twitter.com/OK0uU2vp1a

— ITV News (@itvnews) March 23, 2019

I’ve worked it out. Bear with me…

1. The EU pronouncement on extensions to 12 Apr or 22 May was conditional on the WA being either approved or rejected.
2. For the WA to be approved or rejected Parliament has to have MV3.
3. No MV3 means no approval or rejection…👇

— Nomis 169 (@169Nomis) March 24, 2019

4. Which means EU dates become irrelevant and we still leave on 29 March.
5. Unless, that is, Remainers sieze control of Govt business from the back benches and across party?
6. But can they? To stop UK leaving on 29 March requires primary legislation – it is the law if the land.

The long march to #Brexit : Part One

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  Sixer of the fox patrol bearing the Union flag in 1972

When I was a ten year old kid back in 1974 I got a first inkling that my country becoming a member of an international club might have some downsides. One evening, I overheard my Grandfather, a veteran of two world wars, and my Dad, an engineer, discussing ‘the common market’. They both had misgivings about it being ‘the thin end of the wedge’. I don’t recall many of the details, but the following year during the referendum campaign, I chose to wear an ugly yellow pin badge handed out by local Labour party campaigners which said ‘NO’ on it in black block capitals. My sister chose the pretty white badge with the flying dove carrying an olive branch on it which said ‘YES’; a much more positive message from that nice Mr Heath.

By the age of twenty, I was far too busy riding fast motorcycles, courting young ladies and climbing mountains to be interested in international politics. It wasn’t until I joined the Motorcycle Action Group [MAG] that I learned about the increasing amounts of bureaucratic regulation emanating from Brussels which was affecting our lifestyle. This reached a head in 1992 when the Brussels commissioners sent a raft of new legislation called the ‘Vehicle Multi-directive’ to the European parliament for rubber stamping.

EU steps in to halt UK energy security measures

The Daily Telegraph reports

A European Court ruling has thrown the UK’s energy security into disarray by ordering the immediate halt to a £1bn scheme designed to keep Britain’s lights on.

The cornerstone energy security scheme has come to an abrupt standstill after the European Union’s Court of Justice ruled that the UK should not be allowed to pay power plants to stay open.

The shock-ruling wiped hundreds of millions of pounds from the UK’s largest listed energy companies on Thursday and threatens to bring a return of energy market price spikes over the winter.

David Eyles: The Quiet Revolution

A rarely spotted phenomenon, sometimes acknowledged by one or two of the more astute political pundits, is that the Labour Party has moved away from its core of working-class voters. The leadership has now fully embraced the demands of its middle and upper-middle class hierarchy and has gone full-on Quinoa Marxist.

However, the Labour Party is not alone, because the Conservative Party has also moved in the same direction, albeit not quite so far. The leadership indulges in wholesale political correctness. It then signals its virtue by casual obeisance to whichever favoured minority group is flavour of the week. Accordingly, the Tories have also stepped away from their voters – most of whom are utterly bored with this infantile nonsense.

There has been some floundering recognition that the sheer nastiness of the Labour Left is causing some Labour MPs to panic and talk of forming a new centrist party. But that will only occupy the same ground that the Tories already occupy, by virtue of their own leftward manoeuvrings. Talk of a Tony Blair led centre-left party, perhaps embracing the Liberal Democrats, would be a move into an already overcrowded marketplace with decreasing numbers of voters to whom this will appeal. Tony Blair is the most toxic brand in British politics.

Jacob Rees-Mogg: It is time to chuck Chequers

When the British people voted to leave the EU over two years ago it was an act of great political courage against the prophets of doom. 17 million people voted to leave because they believed in better. They believe in Britain and the kind of country we can build.

The Government would be wrong to be fearful of Britain enjoying an independent future. Theresa May’s Chequers proposals would shackle us to the EU forever. We would be out of Europe yet still run by Europe. This is why the Prime Minister should “chuck Chequers” and instead seek an a Canada style free trade agreement with the EU to make the most of the global opportunities that lie ahead.

The United Kingdom does not need to do a deal with the EU. The EU needs to do a deal with us at all costs. No deal means no divorce bill – handing a £40 billion Brexit bonus to the Government.

The Chequers Cabinet conclusions – an assessment by Lawyers for Britain

The fix is in. UK prime minister Theresa May is on her hind legs telling us black is white and expecting us to swallow the lie. Brexit minsters David Davis and Steve Baker have resigned. Foreign secretary Boris Johnson has followed suit. Several parliamentary private secretaries have also resigned in protest at TMay’s non-brexit plan.

Lawyers for Britain chair Martin Howe has written this assessment of the ‘Chequers deal’ summary released to the press. It lays out in strong terms just how deceptive TMay is when she claims in parliament that her Chequers deal represents the Brexit the country voted for. If it was, those ministers wouldn’t have felt the need to resign their positions.

Ever wonder where the 275 billion taxpayers money went that got poured down the EU carbon trading system hole?

Talkshop readers may remember a damning report by UBS about the billions of public money lost in the ETS carbon trading system. It calculated that if the money had been invested in modernising the European power generation fleet, CO2 could have been cut by 40% (and generate a huge number of high quality jobs). EU emissions rose 1.8% last year.

Despite all the recent turmoil over the UK steel industry and meetings in Brussels today, the reality is that the European Union has actually been subsidising the Chinese steel industry for years, in payments hidden amongst its efforts to combat Climate Change.

Using complex methods of carbon credits and carbon offsets, the EU devised rules on climate change ended up paying Chinese steel manufacturers billions to upgrade their steel mills and other energy intensive industry.

According to the analysis company, European Insights, almost €1.5 billion was paid to over 90 steel plants in China with the purpose of modernising them to consume less energy, and making the plants more efficient. Taken with the downturn in Chinese trade and the need for them to reduce world market prices to sell their product, the output of these mills has flooded onto the European market making steel products artificially cheap and endangering thousands of jobs in the UK. One plant alone, Anshan Iron and Steel, received a payment of €150 million to help pay for the installation of up to date equipment and replace the old inefficient Communist era machinery.

The way forward for a #Sovereign Britain

Sovereign Party Leader Dr Teck Khong

 

There is a new forward looking pro-Brexit political party called Sovereign starting up which needs your backing and involvement so it can generate pressure and influence.

Its leader is a medical man, Dr Teck Khong, who left the Conservatives after many years (he stood as a parliamentary  candidate in my own West Yorkshire in 2005), and joined UKIP, standing for election in his home constituency in Leicester during the 2017 election. Like many others (me included), he has since left UKIP and we are now starting a new party. I have been asked to be strategy director and National Nominating Officer, liaising with the electoral commission. I’m also directing and team building for the party’s energy and industry policy.

We need more core members, donations, and plenty of shout outs on social media to bootstrap the movement and get things moving so we can make a difference. Please take a look at our website at thesovereignparty.uk and let us have your thoughts below. If you’d like to help  with the costs of registering the party with the electoral commission and furthering the campaigning, feel free to use the paypal button on the top left of the site.

Jacob Rees-Mogg: Britain Beyond Brexit

There is a great Brexit opportunity and some really obvious benefits that we can get that improve the condition of the people. This is currently at risk. The negotiations that are about to begin sound as if they aim to keep us in a similar system to the Single Market and the Customs Union. ‘Close alignment’ means de facto the Single Market, it would make the UK a rule taker like Norway, divested of even the limited influence we current have.

90% of global trade growth is expected to come from outside the EU but we would be tying ourselves to a system that seeks to protect the current, declining status quo rather than engaging with the challenge of the next generation.

Conformity with EU rules will also prevent us from making meaningful trade deals with other nations where we could secure reduction of the non-tariff barriers and regulatory distortions which are often worse than the tariffs. They impose such high regulatory burdens on importers that no-one bothers and they are not there for either safety or scientific reasons but for protectionist ones. No sensible nation would negotiate with the UK for a marginal gain when we would merely be a vassal of the EU.

Rupert Darwall: Green Welly Tories dig #Brexit industrial policy black hole.

The May government’s greenwashing is classic displacement activity. Productivity numbers released by the Office for National Statistics earlier this month should be front and centre of every government policy. Normally productivity growth falls in a recession but then bounces back to the previous trend, the ONS says. This time it didn’t. If productivity had returned to its pre-downturn trend, output per hour would have been very nearly 19.8 per cent higher. Imagine – workers’ pre-tax incomes one fifth higher; a fast-disappearing budget deficit; a government able to cut taxes and provide more resources for the NHS – taxing plastic cups won’t solve the NHS winter crisis – and more money for schools. A strong economy would sail through Brexit and not have ministers quivering in their boots. Instead the conversation is about disposable cups and plastic waste.

Ben Somervell: “No deal is better than a bad deal” is still true for #Brexit

Ben Somervell | @bensomervell1 Originally published on Student Voices

Since the Conservative Party lost of its parliamentary majority, the line ‘no [Brexit] deal is better than a bad deal’ has come under attack. Conservative MP Anna Soubry suggested that the line is a ‘nonsense’ and Labour MP Hillary Benn stated that the idea of leaving the EU with no deal is ‘dead in the water’. The Chancellor, Philip Hammond, recently said on the “Andrew Marr Show” that no deal would be a ‘very, very bad’ outcome for the UK and, in doing so, wrongly and unwisely undermined his Government’s own negotiating position as so clearly laid out in the Lancaster House speech, the Brexit White Paper, the letter invoking Article 50 and the Conservatives’ 2017 General Election manifesto.

However a couple of days ago, I was very pleased to hear the news that the Government has asked businesses to prepare for a no deal outcome in case the EU refuses to back down on the £87.7bn (€100bn) so-called Brexit “divorce bill” some EU figures are citing. This is despite the fact that the figure produced by the Institute for Economic Affairs’ (IEA) Brexit Unit is just £26bn and despite the fact that the European Commission’s own lawyers have admitted that a €100bn “divorce bill” would be ‘legally impossible’ to enforce.

Viv Forbes: Signs of Sanity shock the Green World with US #Clexit

Coming soon after the UK Brexit which rejected the EU green octopus, the US Clexit will encourage Clexit efforts in places like central Europe, Canada and even in the decaying green swamp-lands in Germany and France. UK may even get the courage to “cut the green crap”.

This US Clexit follows the first step taken in 2010 when the canny Japanese refused to extend the Kyoto Protocol. And then Tony Abbott killed off Australia’s Carbon Tax.

The final step will be UN-CLEXIT – withdrawal from all UN climate agreements and obligations, and defunding the government climate “research” and propaganda industry.

Environment, Energy and Climate policy forum presentation.

On Sunday I gave a 10 minute presentation at a UKIP policy forum on climate and energy policy. This was well received and in the break-out group sessions during the afternoon, I found myself volunteered to chair the discussion and write-up our deliberations.

Forgive the wobbly video near the start. My cameraman decided to head round the other side of the room so I wasn’t blocking the view of the screen.

Clexit is Winning: East European states fight back against Paris Accord

H/T to GWPF for the heads-up on this story from Climate Change News by Arthur Neslen in Brussels

East European EU states are mounting a behind-the-scenes revolt against the Paris Agreement, blocking key measures needed to deliver the pledge that they signed up to 18 months ago.

Under the climate accord, Europe promised to shave 40% off its emissions by 2030, mostly by revising existing climate laws on renewables, energy efficiency and its flagship Emissions Trading System (ETS).

But documents seen by Climate Home show that Visegrad countries are trying to gut, block or water down all of these efforts, in a rearguard manoeuvre that mirrors president Donald Trump’s rollback of climate policy in Washington.

Energy efficiency is supposed to make up around half of Europe’s emissions reductions by 2030, but a Czech proposal could cut energy saving obligations from a headline 1.5% a year figure to just 0.35% in practice.