Dr Richard North has airbrushed himself out of his leading role in the disaster called Brexit unfolding in front of our eyes. Apparently dissatisfied with crippling the nation with one catastrophe he is now working his way towards the promotion of another. He has become a climate change denier with a petition being organised (they’re very easy to set up) to call for a referendum on whether or not we should scrap the 2050 net zero target.
Anyone who suggests we need to urgently clean our environment is mercilessly attacked in the way that only Dr North can. As with Brexit, I am no climate expert but those who seem to know what they’re talking about are convinced the climate is in a spiral towards an unparalleled disaster unless we take action now.
The sceptics like him are all worried about the cost, although they didn't seem at all worried about the £billions or even £trillions that Brexit is going to costs us on good authority (the OBR).
I noted a cartoon recently, with someone asking an environmentalist (I paraphrase), "What if we spend all that money to create a cleaner world for nothing." Looked at like that the climate change deniers look a bit daft don't they?
Yesterday North was lamenting that his petition wasn’t going very well, stuck on 19,330, which is hardly surprising, at the end of a long rambling piece which seemed to be mostly about him having nothing to write about.
I don’t check his blog every day but it seems a long time since Brexit got a mention at all. This is very strange since it appears to me that things on that front are going just about as badly as they could be. It is far from ‘done’ and I say that for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, the European movement launched a campaign yesterday (which SfE didn’t join in by the way), with many pro EU groups up and down the country running street stalls with the slogan “Brexit isn’t working.”
The results were surprisingly encouraging. As you can see below:
Glad to have joined on the national European Movement @euromove #BrexitIsNotWorking action day and met inspiring, determined volunteers. Looking at this #Brexitometer, it is clear what residents think. #BrexitHasFailed. It’s time to #Rejoin 🇬🇧🇪🇺 pic.twitter.com/yXXpZBKRQc
— Florian Chevoppe-Verdier 🇪🇺 (@FlorianCheVerdi) November 20, 2021
Some boards were even more heavily weighted towards the pro-EU angle. Of course, we all had similar boards in 2018 and 2019 and it wasn't that hard to attract supporters back then but I do think the opposition is easing and pro-Brexit voters much less likely to come forward. They can hardly claim that it's going well can they? And we don't need to speculate now, we can see the results all around us.
The national polls seem to support that view and as I have argued ever since this blog began back in 2017, there is no sign of support or enthusiasm for Brexit growing. It has never risen from the 52% achieved in June 2016 and has fallen back to 46-47% at best - and it will continue to fall.
The second reason I wouldn’t take much notice of Dr North on climate change is that in his previous incarnation, he thought he had answers to everything on Brexit and managed to produce a 400 page plan which failed to recognise the biggest problem of all, the Irish border, which is still rumbling ominously along in the background.
The Frost/Sefcovic meeting took place on Friday with the usual bland press releases about making a little progress but not enough for Lord Frost and with Sefcovic urging him to make a move towards the EU.
On the ground, I think the EU are winning the hearts and minds battle since they always sound placatory while Frost is forever making threats. Most commentators now believe the triggering of A16 is off the menu until the new year at least. Johnson has enough on his plate with the sleaze scandal and his betrayal of the north with his cutting back of HS2.
The nation seems to have started to see through the charlatan, certainly the DUP have.
For what it's worth I don't believe A16 will ever be triggered. The political and legal hurdles are far too high but I can see why the government wants to bring NI closer to GB economically. It is a ready made 'control group' for Brexit being both in the single market and the UK internal market. In essence it is the UK as it was without Brexit and an ideal testing ground.
There are plenty of signs that life in the province is quickly reorganising itself after Brexit and things are starting to point more southwards. Trade with the republic is surging as this article in The Irish Times suggests (added emphasis):
"Meanwhile, imports from Northern Ireland continue to soar this year. In the first three quarters of 2021, they are up by more than €1 billion, a 60 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2020, at just above €2.8 billion.
"Exports from the Republic to the North are also booming, up 48 per cent or €835 million at €2.58 billion for the first nine months."
This must be worrying to the government since people in NI are presumably less inclined to want to join us in having shortages of stuff and it provides a ready made comparison with us on the mainland.
In other words, it is a daily reminder of the worth of the EU single market. The better things are in NI the worse they will look in GB. Plus it makes a border poll at some future date harder for the unionist to win
Finally, back to Dr North. He was keen to 'take back control' but we see that he is now remorselessly attacking Johnson and the Tory government. In taking back control (assuming we ever really lost it) he has handed the reins over to a gang of utter incompetents. Brussels may have got things wrong but at least they try to behave rationally on the big issues. At the moment we are are at the mercy of an inept, authoritarian regime edging closer to the far right with every passing day.
I worry that Brexit will ultimately show that we have literally become unable to govern ourselves.
