Last week, the U.K. took two new plunges towards purging its industrial wealth-creating capacity. On Thursday, Petroineos confirmed its plans to close the Grangemouth oil refinery. Then, on Friday, and after years of wrangling, the High Court ruled that the Whitehaven coal mine could not go ahead. The latter is more than mere negligence from the Net Zero fanatics running the country, who seem more interested in wind farms and clubbing in Ibiza than oil refineries; this is another expression of green spite.
The Whitehaven coal mine project has long been the subject of green lawfare. The hearing ultimately reached a conclusion because the new Government, in the form of Angela Rayner, decided not to continue the previous Government’s commitment to the project. Though the project to produce coal for steel production has support in an area that has a need for the jobs, has willing private investors backing it, has a domestic and international market, and had, most controversially, government backing, it was Green Blob funding of opposition organisations and legal challenges to planning decisions that took control away from democratically elected politicians in a series of hearings. The plan was incompatible with the Climate Change Act 2008 (CCA), found the judge, Justice Holgate, according to the Guardian. This echoes the point made by Peter Lilley when the legislation was being debated in Parliament (such as it was), that “the sole effect of enshrining the targets in statute will be that the Government’s policies will be open to judicial review”.
“The idea that judges should decide on policies costing billions of pounds, without being accountable to the electorate for the billions that they might decide need to be incurred, fills me with foreboding,” said Lilley.
But Blob-funded lawfare is now only half the story. The other half is now economic strangulation.
Petroineos’s announcement cites the U.K.’s projected falling demand for fossil fuels, the high cost of energy in the U.K. compared with overseas and more modern plants as reasons for the closure. Scottish secretary Ian Murray told STV that the decision had nothing to do with Net Zero. But this seems unlikely, given Petroineos’s CEO Frank Damey also told STV that “the energy transition is happening now and it is happening here”, and that “with a ban on new petrol and diesel cars due to come into force within the next decade, we foresee that the market for those fuels will shrink further”. This reflects earlier comments from Ineos founder Jim Ratcliffe that the U.K. and European chemical manufacturing sector had been destroyed by high energy prices.
Ed Miliband, meanwhile, shared his crocodile tears on Twitter, claiming “It is deeply disappointing that Petroineos have confirmed their previous decision to close Grangemouth oil refinery”. But he has been clear that Labour intends to destroy the North Sea oil and gas industry through punitive taxation and a pledge to grant no new licences for exploration. This hostility to oil and gas production has obvious consequences for sites such as Grangemouth, but may end up causing an even greater blow to British industry. Whereas the loss of the refinery causes 400 job losses, there are fears about the risk to 200,000 jobs in the sector caused by the Government’s eco-virtue-signalling – and from an unexpected source. On Monday, the BBC reported that the TUC, Unite and the GMB had all voiced concerns, although some unions reportedly claimed that “there are no jobs on a dead planet”.
This absurdly histrionic and wholly vapid rejoinder to concerns about jobs, industry and the economy highlights the broader Labour movement’s metamorphosis from representing the industrial working class to performative middle-class public-sector virtue-signalling. And it likely signals extremely serious tensions within the Labour movement caused by the Net Zero policy that have not been visible before now. As Unite’s executive council member Cliff Bowen told the BBC, the green agenda has been advanced with “false promises of green jobs which never seem to materialise”.
These problems are to be mitigated in Grangemouth with a £100 million Government grant. And similar negotiations are taking place in Port Talbot about a £500 million subsidy, conditional on £750 million of investment from Tata. But on a per-job basis, such subsidies are poor value: £250,000 and £200,000 per job in Grangemouth and Port Talbot respectively. No government is able to sustain that level of palliative care for the industries that Miliband is manifestly intent on euthanising. At such rates, supporting the oil and gas sector would cost in the order of £50 billion. The soft-handed, soft-headed faction of the Labour Party would find itself on the wrong side of industrial disputes, without a Conservative government, or a Thatcher, to blame.
Such tensions cannot be resolved with soundbites along the lines of “there are no jobs on a dead planet” because unemployment is a more real, more immediate and worse problem than climate change (aka slightly different weather). And Bowen’s warning about false promises of “green jobs” should cause deeper reflection on the consequences of unchecked green ideology crashing through Britain’s economy. Notice that whereas Lilley’s predictions have come true, the promises of “green jobs” (and “green growth” and “green industrial revolution”) that were made by the proponents of the Climate Change Act have not materialised and are not legally enforceable.
The green agenda has been sold to us on a false prospectus. As I pointed out last week, the viciousness with which it has been advanced has been epitomised by its abandoning pensioners to the winter cold. Can we take Ed Miliband’s claim, made in the wake of the Grangemouth news, that “this is a Government that stands with workers, trade unions, and businesses to fight for jobs and investment”, seriously? Even if he meant it, does he or the Labour Government have a clue about how to reconcile the manifest contradictions between commitments to green ideology and the interests of working people? Given that Miliband and his cronies lack any obvious capacity for thought, I very much doubt it.
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“The group had concluded that the present economic model was flawed and had to be replaced. Unregulated consumerism was unsustainable, and people would have to learn to make do with less. The government would have to have more control over people to enforce their austerity and the wealth of developed nations would have to be redistributed to help undeveloped nations.”
“People must use less transport, eat less red meat and buy fewer clothes if the UK is to virtually halt greenhouse gas emissions by 2050”
“We will all have to accept big lifestyle changes – travel less, eat less, consume less. But eventually some form of compulsion or rationing will be necessary”—-
I think the message is clear what Sustainable Development, net Zero and everything Green is all about. I copied those quotes from the recent book by Allan Macrae.
MACRAE, ALLAN MALCOLM. THE CLIMATE SCAM: Fifty Years of False Fears (The Cull Trilogy Book.
Thanks, I haven’t come across Allan McCrae before. I used a similar set of quotes (Club of Rome, Maurice Strong et al) in the preamble to my recent post “Debunking the climate change hoax”: https://metatron.substack.com/p/debunking-the-climate-change-hoax.
The short version is that society has to accept (post-)Marxism because the only way to avoid destroying the planet is a system where all social and economic activity is carefully regulated by experts. And that’s the political position these people started from as they were all avid Communists in the 1960s and 1970s. This means what we’re really experiencing here is a (post-)Marxist slow motion coup where the professional revolutionaries gradually took over all important political and public institutions (like the civil service, schools and universities and the BBC) and are now well on course (according to their own beliefs) to force the revolution which never cometh onto the people from above.
I’m generally optimistic about the future on the grounds that everything was already shitty in the past and hence, things are bound to get better, but I must say this is a grim prospect for the next couple of years.
That wasn’t really the “short version”. —But all true except the last bit where you say everything was “shitty in the past”. What “past” are you referring to? 100 years ago, 200 years ago, 400 years ago, or really just after the environment was hijacked in the western world by the communists masquerading as planet savers 50 years ago or so?
Most if the shitty bits was a lack of technology: not so much the lack of high speed transport, more the lack of infection control, anaesthetic and skills in surgery. The late 1950s weren’t so bad, if you didn’t live behind the Iron Curtain or in China.
You might say that I’ve missed the failure of past politics, all those wars, but I don’t think that changes much. The Cold War was ‘relatively peaceful’, and most problems occur when two ‘relatively peaceful’ land masses differ on what sort of peace they want.
To me, many of the current problems are because the young are introduced to problems that used to be pondered on by the elderly, like reorganising society, but when they thought they knew everything and knew nothing. So they don’t have the time to acquire the skills to be self supporting, like get a (productive) job, have a family and continue their culture.
The short version was
society has to accept (post-)Marxism because the only way to avoid destroying the planet is a system where all social and economic activity is carefully regulated by experts.
That’s 28 words instead of 112, a reduction by 75%.
The classic example of shitty things in the past would be: In 1987, the German band Sodom recorded a track named Bombenhagel (Hail of Bombs) for their 2nd album Persecution Mania (literal translation of the German Verfolgungswahn — paranoia). It has three stanzas with an instrumental bridge with a guitar solo after each. The third solo starts out as the melody of the German national anthem which then progressively dissolves into distorted wails until the music breaks off and one of the band members can be heard saying “Come on, let’s get pissed!” followed by laughter.
Mentally sane people would recognize this as not exactly respectful parody and maybe think of Hendrix’s Woodstock rendition of Star Spangled Banner as a possible inspiration. The effect in the Germany of that time was an outburst of frenzied horror in the wood of leaves (Blätterwald, the press) “These guys have played the German national anthem! They must be NAZIS !!!!!” Nowadays, such antics are decidely far/ fringe left the general population looks at with bewilderment, despite they haven’t abated in the slightest (each football competition in Germany invariable brings a slew of articles about dangerous Nazis with German flags – the official black-red-yellow tricolore obviously, not a real Nazi flags, but people don’t care anymore and fly them nevertheless).
Always worth a listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DGxwmP7uLI
No, no. Those weren’t promises. More like aspirations. Don’t worry though… something will turn up soon. For a start we could tax Jim Ratcliffe more – if he hadn’t moved to Monaco.
If this was a Y7 economics project, I would be sharpening my pencil ready to give it a D-
Closing down Grangemouth is evidently contrary to the idea of a competitive market as well. Look how small the number of refineries is now, thus reduced competition. In effect, quite large geographical monopolies. E.g where I live it’ll all come through the Exxon one at Fawley.
At the current rate of destruction and never mind Agenda 2030, there won’t be a Great Britain left long before 2030.
All part of the “redistribution of wealth” agenda.
When will the ExxonMobil Fawley refinery be turned into a “terminal” for products the gov’t does not want just like Grangemouth. Probably sooner that most realise as economics prevail.
What are sustainable green jobs?
Most seem to be involved with the installation of green infrastructure and insulation. These are one off or recur once every 20m to 25 years as the current infrastructure wears out, and a lot simply duplicates existing provision. The green manufacturing jobs are mainly outsourced to central and east Asia, and those that might still be left here, such as EV production, simply duplicates IC production but at lower volumes.
So now we have a new batch of economic illiterates who are driving the country toward penury and ruin.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/what-can-save-us-from-starmers-rush-to-war/
If somebody doesn’t get a grip of Kneel and his stupidity the loss of thousands of British jobs might be the least of our worries. Armageddon looms.
What T F are we doing fighting Russia in a war that Europe cannot win and why? Our real enemies lie across the pond not on the Steppes.
I would give more upticks if possible.
I have just written to my MP (the lovely Esther) to find out if the government has quantified the likely loss or jobs and to ask how many green jobs are one offs and how many will provide long term employment.
Good luck with that. I don’t even get a standard acknowledgement reply anymore.
One came yesterday.
How long the DESNZ will take is entirely another matter!
Thank you.
It’s the Russians who have been unable to win this war so far which started out as so-called special military operation and has now degenerated into stalemated trench war (most likely). And considering their unquestioning superiority in the areas of both material and manpower, this doesn’t exactly paint them as a very dangerous foe.
The nuclear sabre rattling and the not so covert threats of (aerial) mass murder by Vladi Puti & The Warcriminals have been going on for as long. They’re directed against the general population on the hope to generate enough fear among it that the NATO countries halt military support for Ukraine. The Russians wouldn’t be employing this tactic if they were capable of doing something other than sabre-rattling and if they’re weren’t genuinely worried about this support, ie, believe that it will at least stop them from winning this war for as long as it’s still ongoing.
I have absolutely no say in the matter, however, I’m personally unwilling to give in to Russian blackmail. Any success of that will only lead to more obnoxious demands next time.
The war in Ukraine is being supported by the USA and NATO but that support is a figleaf. The reality is that Ukraine is being sold off piecemeal to the usual criminals – Blackrock, Billy, Vanguard etc. Ukraine now has so much debt it cannot possibly repay what it owes. And why, because the Ukraine is the bread basket of Europe:
Control the food supply and you Control populations.
Don’t forget there is a depopulation agenda behind everything happening in the world today.
UKC covered a ‘future Ukraine in their last section. All modelled on China with the surveillance state. cashless and “digital & free”…..That seems like an oxymoron with the WEF crown and their useful idiots 2TK.
Very well said.
It is not a depopulation agenda (although the casualty list might suggest it) that lies behind Putin’s barbaric and inhuman invasion but, rather, an intent to increase Russia’s population. Putin declared the need to address population decline as “the highest national priority,” in 2006.
By adding Ukraine (40m), Moldova (2.5m), the Baltic States (6m) and Kazakhstan(20m) to the Russian Union State of Russia (144m) and Belarus (9m), he intends to create a totalitarian imperialist European superstate of 220 million people on the borders of the EU.
Would such an arrangement lead to a peaceful settlement in Europe?
That seems unlikely, given that relative peace was achieved in 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, but Russia proved once again incapable of peaceful coexistence with a capitalist democracy on its borders.
This war does not end. Putin regards the war as a war of national survival:
‘And, if you believe the forecasts and the estimates are based on actual work, the real work of people who understand this, who have devoted their whole lives to this, in 15 years, there may be 22 million fewer Russians. I ask you to think about this figure: a seventh of the country’s population. If the current trend continues, the nation’s survival will be in jeopardy.’
Putin 2000
And so does Ukraine.
The U.S. strategy of seeking to weaken Russia so that it is no longer capable of invading its neighbours is, so far, a success, expedient, but it is unlikely to provide a long term solution.
Continental Europe, supported by Britain in sensible pursuit of ‘forward defence’, will have to provide that for itself.
The feeble EU currently shows no sign of any capacity so to do, so the time bought for it, once again, by the U.S. is only too necessary.
They are also resident here in UK Parliament & Whitehall, the permanent deep state that you can never vote out!
And have been here for years.
You do say Sir Humphrey!
Do you say America is our enemy?
A remarkable argument from the Whitehaven dispute was the claim that the mine was not needed. But in a market economy, it’s not lawyers and judges who are asked to decide (in advance) which businesses are needed or not needed (shall we call them essential and not essential for a more COVID-style use a language?), as that’s for the market to determine: Businesses are producing goods or offering service and if people believe they need them, they’ll spend money on this which enables the businesses to make profits and thus, continue with whatever their commercial activies are. When people aren’t willing to spend this money, there’ll be no profits and hence, business activities will ultimatively have to cease because of this.
That’s apparently not the idea of the people behind these supposedly ‘green’ initiatives who envision themselves as high court of social necessity and who desire to limit other people’s business activites and use of their private property in line with that they believe to be necessary or not. That’s obviously rampant ‘communist’ economic theory and an attempt to establish a ‘rationally planned’ (according what self-appointed planners believe to be rational) Marxist society by the back door and the climate scam is just a figleaf for that.
“The plan was incompatible with the Climate Change Act 2008 (CCA”
Oh yes, the thing everybody voted for….Not!
Unless it is repealed fairly soon Britain as we know it will cease to exist. It is used to close our strategic industries (Steel, Coal, Oil etc) and when that is complete we will need to import everything. We then have a hugely negative balance of payments, zero new investment, and probably a massive move of capital to other countries. So far the Green lobby have completely failed to provide any alternative to this scenario, so we must assume this is what they want. As it gradually bankrupts the entire population, property of all kinds will become worthless, and Britain will become a starving disaster area, presumably similar to much of Somalia, with armed gangs taking anything they want. I now fully understand 2TStarmagedon, he will be long gone to Russia or similar with all his cash and new clothes as a neo-oligarch, and probably attempt to advise Putin, or perhaps replace him.
“highlights the broader Labour movement’s metamorphosis from representing the industrial working class to performative middle-class public-sector virtue-signalling”
Regarding the TUC & GMB, that also includes the attack of Nigel Farage at their conference.
“there are no jobs on a dead planet”
Please name and shame these pillocks.
Agreed, the planet is not going to “die”
You could back Jim Ratcliffe, multi-billionaire businessman in the energy seector who has created tens of billions of value, and tens of thousands of jobs in the UK and abroad. Or you could back Ed Milliband, who has never had a job outside the public sector. Which one is to to be? Ratcliffe has announced the closure of his Grangemeouth refinery, on the grounds that it can’t compete with low cost overseas operators, and that the mandated expansion of EV’s will further impact the demand for fuels. Despite Grangemouth making all those evil hydrocarbon products, Red Ed wants to buy it [with your money]. That wouldn’t be a political decision, would it [Labour constituency]?
does anyone understand their government. Why would any gov’t discourage jobs? The WEF and globalists have captured the Uk now, there is no getting out folks. USA next if Trump does not get elected. We will be in the same mangy boat as the UK.
Deeply depressing but unsurprising, given the intellectual abilities of our politicians, most of whom are seized by the decarbonisation delusion that the planet needs saving from run-away global boiling.
Talking with people in the Conservative Party last night I was struck by how many of them agree with me that there is no ‘climate emergency’ but that government has to go along with this so as not to rock the scientific boat. The West seems to have got itself into a philosophical rut out of which everyone is frighten to steer.
This all comes back to the Climate Change Act. It all follows from that, and without changing the law all these court cases will win. The government has set the terms and everything follows on.
My question is why, in an age of lawfare, are we the plebs who are seriously disadvantaged by all this Climate crap, not able to take Milliband to court for infringing our human rights ???
I will put £500 towards a legal action