Skip to main content

Brexit deal bad for the environment

Environment groups have warned that Boris Johnson withdrawal agreement would be profoundly bad for the environment. 

It would be easy enough to think Boris Johnson's deal is pretty much the same as Theresa May's apart from arrangements for the border with Northern Ireland.   As ever, the devil is in the detail.   This is not Mrs May's deal wrapped in tinsel.   It would be profoundly worse for environmental protection. 

In the struggle to avoid a catastrophic no-deal exit, we should not take our eye off the ball. Merely adding a referendum to a profoundly lousy deal would be a dangerous strategy.   

If there is to be a referendum on the current withdrawal agreement, then it will need considerable amendment as it passes through parliament.  It requires detailed scrutiny.  

Theresa May's deal had binding commitments to maintain environmental standards during the transition period.   This commitment has been stripped out from Boris Johnson's deal.  

That is no accident.  It is a deliberate move to make it easier to make trade deals with lower environmental standards. 

Craig Bennett, Friends of the Earth chief executive, has said the Withdrawal Deal is a significant threat to the environment.


"The removal of the backstop from the UK means that from December 2020 there will be nothing to ensure that vital protection for nature and people won't merely be whittled away to please big business or traded for a quick and dirty trade deal with Donald Trump.

"The government keep promising that Brexit and future trade deals won't lead to a slashing of environmental protection, but they consistently refuse to put in place the legal means to stop that happening."

The opposition must insist, not only that no-deal is taken off the table, but that environmental standards are maintained in any withdrawal agreement.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ian Duncan-Smith says he wants to make those on benefits 'better people'!

By any account, the government's austerity strategy is utilitarian. It justifies its approach by the presumed potential ends. It's objective is to cut the deficit, but it has also adopted another objective which is specifically targeted. It seeks to drive people off benefits and 'back to work'.  The two together are toxic to the poorest in society. Those least able to cope are the most affected by the cuts in benefits and the loss of services. It is the coupling of these two strategic aims that make their policies ethically questionable. For, by combining the two, slashing the value of benefits to make budget savings while also changing the benefits system, the highest burden falls on a specific group, those dependent on benefits. For the greater good of the majority, a minority group, those on benefits, are being sacrificed; sacrificed on the altar of austerity. And they are being sacrificed in part so that others may be spared. Utilitarian ethics considers the ba...

Ethical considerations of a National DNA database.

Plans for a national DNA database   will be revealed by the Prime Minister this week. This is the same proposal the Tories and Liberal Democrats opposed when presented by the Blair government because they argued it posed  a threat to civil liberties. This time it is expected to offer an 'opt-out' clause for those who do not wish their data to be stored; exactly how this would operate isn't yet clear. But does it matter and does it really pose a threat to civil liberties? When it comes to biology and ethics we tend to have a distorted view of DNA and genetics. This is for two reasons. The first is that it is thought that our genome somehow represents the individual as a code that then gets translated. This is biologically speaking wrong. DNA is a template and part of the machinery for making proteins. It isn't a code in anything like the sense of being a 'blueprint' or 'book of life'.  Although these metaphors are used often they are just that, metapho...

In praise of social housing and the welfare state

I will declare an interest. I grew up in a one-parent family on a council estate. I occasionally attended my local comprehensive school. I say occasionally because for the most part I played truant. I spent much of my time skipping school but walking and reading on the local common. It had a windmill which I loved. It later had Wombles but that is another story. I contemplated life under the sun. Like many others, I left school at 15 with no qualifications. My penultimate school report said they  'could see no reason why public money should be wasted on the attempted education of this boy'. So I declare this interest of a privileged upbringing. Social housing kept a roof over our heads at a rent mum could (barely) afford; and oh how I recall the days  when she couldn't. She worked all hours to keep that roof over our heads. In those early days of Rock-and-Roll, Bill Haley and the Comets, Adam Faith, Billy Fury, Cliff Richard (yes I was/am a fan), the estate had three c...