BREXIT -4 days in

Well what effect will Brexit have on the wind turbines? Well they won’t turn any faster, that’s for sure. It is a fact that the EU is the architect of all the legislations that have closed fossil fuel power stations and encouraged wind development. That we are in a muckle has little to do with Brexit and has much to do with career politicians who are using this as an opportunity to promote their own interests. The Parliamentary Labour Party hated Corbyn as they see a future Labour Party as being unelectable and their futures destroyed by ‘The People’. And you thought Labour was for the working man. I think Schulz comment would fine favour with most Labour MPs. Now I don’t support Corbyn’s Politics and one might suggest he is the guarantee of Conservative supremacy for a generation. However as in the referendum it is the will of the people. So let’s consider the Conservatives. In a period which craves stability, Cameron has picked up his tiddly winks and gone off in a huff. Hunt, after making a pigs ear of the Junior Doctor’s strike suggests that he is the Statesman for PM  and Osborne after attempting to stabilise the market has reverted to Project Fear. They really couldn’t run a booze up in a brewery. Boris quite understandably (?) went off to play cricket. Well what else would a quintessentially Englishman do? Except of course he has been spending the last ten days telling us that he is actually the progeny of Turkish immigrants. Now the rest of us might suggest that what we need is stable leadership and statesman like qualities from our leaders. I simply fail to understand the Glasgie Fishwife and the SNP. The logic of wanting independence but then wanting to give it away to a European Super State leaves me and many others lost for words. What we are left with  is a political void.

So what of the future as to wind farms. Well in that we are as unsure as the rest. A new administration with a new PM is uncertain. We have Amber Rudd, a keen Remainer, and Andrea Leatham, a Brexiter. In the event of a Brexit PM we might suggest that Amber Rudd will be back to the back benches and Andrea could look forward to high office. But where does that leave Energy. We didn’t like Fergus Ewing as Minister for Energy, amongst other things, in Scotland but his replacement in the form of Keith Brown and Paul Wheelhouse leaves us much worse off. The only consolation is that Westminster have canned the subsidy for onshore wind. However with Hinckley Point in the ‘gift’ of the French Government owned Electricite de France and already mired in complex boardroom disagreement a quick fix by an inexperienced and poorly advised but enthusiastically lobbied new Secretary of State could bode ill for those ‘hosting’ wind.

Negotiations with the EU on trade will without doubt be influenced by the multi billion euro deals of companies like Seimens, Vesta and Dong. To lose the energy business of the UK to China, the US, Canada or India would be a disaster for northern Europe manufacture. As we buy far more from Europe than we sell them and sell far more to the US the cards are in our hand. Problem is are those holding the cards in Whitehall and Westminster capable of playing a good hand or just twist and fold. In the end Commerce should dictate the future as it is the man of commerce that can lead us to the promised land, not here today gone tomorrow politicians. Let us hope that it does not end up as a tit for tat game of import levies. I think we would all agree that there are more questions than answers at the moment and what we need is a period of calm and careful consideration. As Europe staggers to a more centralised model in the wake of Brexit much against the wishes of most of Europe’s people one does wonder if they have learnt anything. They certainly aren’t listening to the people. What is frustrating is that had the Eurocrats and Brussels elite listened to Cameron and accepted his concerns much of this breast beating need never have happened. If he had returned with a good deal on the table, not one discredited by Junkers and Scultz before Cameron got out of the Eurostar at St. Pancras, Brexit would have remained Farage’s dream. In my view the EU has become too large, too cumbersome and too expensive to survive. Ambitions of a European Army, a central tax regime, an EU law very different to our Habeas Corpus and almost ‘thought control’ are simply not what we signed up for. Regrettably the fairly fine division of the vote rather than the clear mandate of 1975 has left Democracy the loser as the oft practised European habit of new Referenda until you get the answer you require is as prevalent in the Remainers as in the Scottish Nationalists.

In my mind there is still time for the EU to come to the table and address the issues, to emasculate the unelected Eurocrats and provide the UK with an acceptable and progressive plan.  Will they do so? Do turkeys vote for Christmas?