Trump, Climate Change, and Britain's abandonment of independence

America first, we now learn, seems to mean the planet second.

That may strike you as a paradoxical position to take, America being, like it or not, part of the planet. If that’s your reaction, it only means that you’re one of those who feel we’re duty-bound to take reality into account in forming our beliefs. A great many others, and not just in America, seem to regard reality as an inconvenient obstacle, to be overcome in the quest of some transcendent truth.

Trump digs coal so much he’s prepared to sacrifice the planet to get it

Not just in America. Certainly not. If you’re a Brit in your thirties or older, you probably remember that great May Day in 1997, when Tony Blair grabbed Downing Street for Labour after eighteen years of Tory rule. A new age appeared to be dawning, hope was resurgent, a better future seemed within our grasp.

These days, it’s fashionable to focus on the disappointments that followed. That however is to belittle, to betray some remarkable achievements: a huge onslaught against child poverty, an unprecedented and sustained level of investment in the NHS, the incorporation of the convention on human rights into domestic law, devolution to the constituent nations of the UK, the Good Friday agreement, to name only some of the more remarkable. It seems a pity to focus instead on the poor performance in education and certain areas of benefits: it was a mixed bag, perhaps, but infinitely preferable to the unmixed bag of injustice and cruelty we’ve seen since Labour lost office.

Among the disappointments, however, one is particularly unforgivable: British participation in the Iraq War, which introduced further instability to the Middle East and precipitated a wave of international terror from which we’re suffering still today. It’s most recent manifestation was the suicide bomb attack in Manchester.

The seeds that disastrous adventure can be traced to the greatest weakness of New Labout. Peter Mandelson, always perceived as the would-be puppet master of the Labour government, summed it up when he declared himself “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”. Those are words I never expected to hear from the mouth of a Labour Minister. That people can get rich by contributing to society seems only fair, but that:

• Bankers can drive their banks into the ground and precipitate a financial crisis while taking eye-popping bonuses? 
• Tony Hayward, then Chief Executive of BP, point out that he’d like his “life back” after the Deepwater Horizon disaster on one of his company’s oil rigs? 
• Alex Cruz, Chief Executive of British Airways, refusing to take any responsibility for his company’s apparent inability to run a reliable computer system?

These are indeed examples of people who are “filthy” rich, rather than deservedly rich – who have taken their remuneration rather than earning it – and no one should be relaxed about them, intensely or not, least of all in the Labour Party.

New Labour suffered from a tendency to be star-struck by wealth and power. Its proponents felt at ease with the filthy rich and powerful. No one is more prosperous and powerful than the United States. That was enough to drive us into that war, even though it was led y the man who surely then held the uncontested crown of worst US President even, Dubya Bush.

Today Trump has seized that crown from Bush’s head. The new worst President has pulled the US out of the Paris agreement on climate change. And the saddest aspect from Britain’s point of view? While Germany, France and Italy were quick to oppose Trump, Theresa May’s Britain – Brexit Britain – wouldn’t, or possibly couldn’t, line up with them.

Certainly, there’s no reason to believe a Tory government would be any less star-struck by the US than New Labour was. But in addition, we now have another constraint on our independence of action: Brexit means we have been thrown into far greater subservience still to the US. We can’t stand up to Trump because we need him.

It’s another strange paradox. Many backers of Brexit claimed that its aim was to make Britain independent. The reality is that it will reduce our independence. And just when we should be learning what dire consequences it has on our lives when we abandon it – surely the Iraq War was lesson enough.

Taking back control? You sure? Or are we just handing it to yet another appalling US president?

Knave or fool: David Cameron and climate change

It seemed an extraordinary boon: this morning, the cost of fuel at my favourite petrol station was below a pound a litre, for the first time in years.

It makes the point about the glut of oil on world markets. There’s so much of it around that prices are just collapsing. In principle, that would be good. If we were really beginning to wean ourselves off the stuff, supply would indeed outstrip demand. Weaning, however, seems unlikely to be happening. If there’s a drop in consumption at all, it’s much more likely to be down to economic slowdown rather than changing habits.

On the other hand, we can take a great deal of satisfaction from one recent event. On 12 December, the climate change conference adopted the Paris Agreement and, for the first time, gave the world some hope that nations at last had the will to tackle global warming. As UK Prime Minister David Cameron, said the accord represented “a huge step forward in helping to secure the future of our planet”.

Indeed, he went on to point out how the government he leads is working towards achieving the objectives of the agreement:

Britain is already leading the way in work to cut emissions and help less developed countries cut theirs and this global deal now means that the whole world has signed to play its part in halting climate change.

This makes it all the more interesting that less than a week later, his government won parliamentary approval for an extension of fracking operations in the country. In particular, it allows fracking under national parks or sites of special scientific interest.

Area newly authorised for fracking
Just what we need?

So at a time when there’s a glut of oil on the world market, and within days of a new agreement aimed at reducing dependence on the fuel, Cameron wants to see companies extracting more of it in Britain. He wants that to happen despite the oil glut, the possible damage to some extraordinary parts of the country, and his warm words welcoming the Paris Agreement.

His government followed up that initiative with another which would cut the subsidy previously available in Britain for solar panels by 65%. So Cameron’s government also wants to reduce the pursuit of alternatives to fossil fuels, just as he authorises further operations to extract more of them. But “Britain is already leading the way in work to cut emissions”?

Is it simply that he’s completely brazen in his hypocrisy? Or is he just too intellectually challenged to see his own incoherence?

Cameron: dithering on airports, confused on the Middle East, fumbling on Climate Change. Business as usual

Some enthusiasm may be in order, as the world adopts the Paris Agreement on global warming. It won’t go far enough, or be binding enough, but it may just be the first step towards breaking the logjam, and allowing action to save the planet on which we all depend.

Laurent Fabius brings down his gavel at the Climate Change Conference
and declares the Paris Agreement adopted

Here in Britain we have been debating for nearly a decade the need to increase the capacity for air travel in South East England. Any business organisation significant enough to make its voice heard has been calling for airport expansion. Our exciting Conservative government reacted to a report recommending a further runway at Heathrow, with a promise to make a decision before the end of the year.

Well, David Cameron has kept that promise. His government has made a decision. A firm irrevocable decision.

To put off deciding until next June.

Boris Johnson, the present Conservative Mayor of London, opposes Heathrow expansion. So does Zac Goldsmith, the Tory candidate to replace him. It’s clear that a decision in favour of Heathrow would damage Goldsmith’s chances to keep London, a predominantly Labour city, in Tory hands.

Perish the thought that such considerations may have weighed with Cameron, in his glorious decision not to decide.

In any case, that tendency to dither is by no means out of character for Cameron. He’s never been good at making up his mind. Sometimes, he makes it up and then has to unmake it a while later.

The best example concerns military action in the Middle East.

On 29 August 2013, David Cameron told the British House of Commons:

“…on this issue Britain should not stand aside. We must play our part in a strong international response; we must be prepared to take decisive action to do so.”

On 2 December 2015, the same David Cameron told the House of Commons:

“The question is this: do we work with our allies to degrade and destroy this threat, and do we go after these terrorists in their heartlands, from where they are plotting to kill British people, or do we sit back and wait for them to attack us?”

You’ve got to admire the consistency, don’t you? That full-hearted commitment to action. The determination to wipe out a clearly identified redoubtable enemy. And Britain must help. Unfortunately, in 2013 Cameron was talking about action against Syria’s vile dictator, Bashar al-Assad. One of the groups fighting Assad was ISIS who would doubtless have been delighted to see missiles raining down on the President.

In 2015, the action was against the execrable terrorist group ISIS, one of whose enemies is Syria’s vile dictator, Bashar al-Assad. Who must be delighted to see airstrikes being flown against his rebellious foes.

Ah, well. Cameron knows his own mind. Well, he knows the state it’s in today. More or less. Though it might be better if you asked in six months.

With his sureness of touch, Cameron’s more than ready to cope with the situation he’s plunging into, in the Middle East.

There we see the Russians running airstrikes, alongside the US, British and French, though to be honest the Russians have been doing rather a lot of bombing up in the North West, where there aren’t any ISIS people, though there are anti-Assad rebels. Those are the rebels that France, Britain and the US support. After bombing them, Russian planes fly close to the Turkish border and, according to the Turks, on occasions they stray across it. So when this happened once to often for Turkish tastes, they blew the plane out of the sky.

Meanwhile, Turkey has been training Sunni and Kurdish forces in Northern Iraq to fight ISIS. Back home, Turkey is fighting Kurdish rebels. And Iraq would really rather like Turkey to withdraw its troops from Iraqi soil. However, Iraq doesn’t have an army forceful enough to impose its will within its own borders. Shia dominated, the government is dragging its feet over incorporating Sunnis into that army, leading to delays in giving itself an effective military. The delays were deplored by the British Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon, who knows that airstrikes alone won’t achieve victory against ISIS. He needs someone to put in forces on the ground; Iraq can’t; Syria can, but its army’s controlled by Assad.

Confused? So are the Tories. How many sides are involved in this fighting? How many agendas are being followed? What would “victory” look like?

How can any of us know when the job is done? What are our objectives and how shall we know when we’ve hit them? What’s the exit strategy? That same Fallon calls progress “agonisingly slow.” That’s code for “we have no idea of where we’re going or how long it’s going to take to get there.”

Par for the course for the government Cameron leads. And the non-decision on airport expansion in South East England makes the point. Because, at the time of the historic Paris Agreement on Climate Change, only one option should really have been recommended: no expansion at all. In fact, we ought to be working on reducing our excessive dependence on air transport.

That option, sadly, wasn’t even on the table.