Mrs May has apparently decided to borrow the Cabinet spine – there’s only one and they have to take turns – and stand up to Russia. Enough is apparently enough and this time she really really means it. Until she has to hand the spine back to David Davis, who is going to use it for the Brexit negotiations, or perhaps Mr Hammond who now has to tell us with a straight face that the austerity programme which increased spending has solved our financial problems, she will fulminate about the reckless assassination of an ex-spy in Salisbury. Then she’ll hand it back and hide, submerging until it all blows over.
She has an excuse. The EU, who don’t have even one spine between the lot of them, will talk big but fail to back us, will bury the problem in political verbiage, and without wholehearted international support the UK will be powerless to punish President Putin and the rest of his dangerous coterie. Russia has a law permitting overseas killing of enemies of the state, and it seems determined to use murder on foreign soil as a diplomatic tool.
The EU imports:
- 90% of its crude oil
- 69% of its natural gas
- 42% of its coal and other solid fuels
- 40% of its uranium and other nuclear fuels.
Brussels appreciates the energy situation and they have produced this blurb: “The EU works closely with its supplier countries. This includes collaboration with Russia and Norway who together supply over half of the EU’s gas and over 40% of its oil.” Norway we can live with, we don’t expect murderous Norwegians to kill our people. Russia, however, is a dangerous master – I say ‘master’ advisedly because a country which has its hand on the power supplies of Europe is the master. And we’ve seen that word ‘collaboration’ before – it doesn’t bode well.
Will the EU help us in our attempts to punish Russia? With Russia’s fingers around the gas tap? Not in a month of Sonatas!
Our government’s holders of the great offices of State, Business Secretary, Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary etc are too young to remember the oil shock of 1973 when the threat by OPEC to cut production sent the world economy into a spin. However, their expert civil servants will be able to spell it out for them: if the UK tries to punish Russia for this outrage then the little czar will flex his muscles and every nation in the free West would be on our case.
We seem to out of short-term diplomatic options and we got here because our naive and inexperienced politicians have allowed our energy supplies to be dominated, once again, by those whose interests do not march with our own. We can only escape from this trap by committing our country to a medium term strategy of energy independence.
The EU’s energy security strategy, launched in 2014, when they suddenly noticed that the supply of Russian gas through the Ukraine is unreliable, was typical of Brussels’ approach. They produced a lot of hot air but failed to address the real problem. No, the problem is not that we lack plans to share when the gas is cut off, or that we don’t have plans to prioritise supplies to vulnerable people, the problem is that Russia is a fickle and murderous regime, untrustworthy and not fit to be a business partner until it learns international manners.
We may well have shale gas under the UK. How much we don’t know, but the deposits are huge and may well be enough to give us energy security for decades if they are exploitable. We must look at this as a matter of strategic necessity. If it’s there we will be able to free up world supplies so that Russia’s domination of EU markets is broken. If there’s as much as some predictions say then we could pump directly to the EU, offsetting the cost of all those BMWs and Mercs that people insist on buying. But what if the shale gas isn’t exploitable? The USA is now the biggest producer of fossil fuels on the planet, bigger than Russia, bigger than Saudi, big enough to dominate world markets. It’s a short hop as the LNG tanker sails from Texas to Milford Haven. That’ll do.
That’s the medium term strategy. Long term there’s another solution, a solution which plays to the UK’s strengths: SMRs. Rolls Royce is already leading a consortium which is developing a Small Modular Reactor design which can be manufactured as modules in factories, greatly simplifying construction and cutting costs. Modern reactors have become so complex that building them is at the limits of engineering – the one being built in Finland is nine years late with suggestions that it will end up costing more than three and a half times the original estimate of 3 billion euros. SMRs solve that problem and the export potential is immense.
France reacted to the oil shock by building nukes, a strategy so successful that we still import 2Gw from them nearly every hour.. Of course those were the days when France had not sold its soul to the EU and become a compliant yes-man to Germany. Make no mistake, Germany is now in the driving seat of the EU car, but Russia is pumping its fuel.
The UK needs more of our own energy, the lifeblood of civilisation. We need gas feedstock for industry, heat for our homes, fuel for our cars, cheaper electricity to make us competitive when we leave the EU in a year’s time. We need to make Russia, an economy smaller than South Korea, realise that it in their long-term interest to become a civilised member of international society. Let’s get their attention by hitting them where it hurts by stealing their energy customers. It may take ten or fifteen years but revenge is a dish best served cold. And if we simultaneously gain an industrial energy advantage then that’s all to the good.
Russia must pay for Salisbury.
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37 Comments on “RESPONDING TO SALISBURY”
Quote from Tommy Robinson:
“Dear Russia
In future if you want to poison someone in the UK and get away with it, pay a Muslim grooming gang from Rotherham or Telford to do it for you. That way the police will be too scared to investigate as they will not want to be called racist, the media will not report on it and it will take about 20 years before anyone has the courage to actually investigate it.
Regards
TR”
Sounds about right!
I realise that this is “off topic” for some of you but UKIP Daily comments have often been off topic as much as on for as long as I can remember.
https://twitter.com/davidkurten/status/973982055020277763
Good old David.
Good for David Kurten, and Lord Pearson. There are still people in the upper reaches of UKIP who are prepared to stand up and defend the right to free speech, which must include the right to publicly criticise any ideology, including Islam.
But too many others seem to be exhausted by the years of being labelled “bigots, sexists, Islamophobes, homophobes and prejudiced against disabled people” (as standuptoukip put it) and just want a quiet life now. A quiet life for them maybe, but a country no longer recognisable as England for their children and grandchildren.
He’s a turkey voting for Christmas.
Completely off topic.
Why not write one Keith? I’m sure the editor will consider it ?
I think Tommy Robinson is brilliant, undeniable, accurate, just like Nigel used to be.
Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, has an interesting article here https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/03/russian-to-judgement/ . He is not convinced by our government’s hysteria even though he sees Putin as in effect a Mafia boss.
We can’t do anything about Russia but we can act over the recent, politically motivated, and deeply worrying suppression of free speech. I shall be at speaker’s corner on Sunday and I urge all UKIP Daily readers who can to come along. The FLA are coming so don’t worry about Antifa. I hope it will be quite a large crowd.
Where have I said anyone in UKIP should defect to GI? I haven’t so why ask the question at all except for purposes of dishonest argument.
It’s a bull**** free speech wagon is it? Implying I and others are gullible in a way that you, self-servingly, judge yourself not to be? Is that the point of your post. Just vanity signalling.
Would you like to insult me to my face? Try that is. Happy to give you the opportunity.
I’m not insulting you, and apologise if I unintentionally offended you Stout. However your over-reaction demonstrates admirably how Muslims in Luton must have felt when Southern and Pettibone called Allah ‘Gay ‘ ‘Lesbian’ and ‘Trans’. They got the hump.
You FELT insulted, like the Muslims and so had a violent reaction to my – according to Sellner -‘right to offend’ .
As such you should stand alongside the Muslims and the Border Force and understand just why the neo-Nazis were refused entry, not cheerlead for Sellner.
I don’t care if you are gay Stout, That’s your business, not mine.
UKIP Daily is a bulletin board, not a newspaper, all content is user generated, so its really up to users to write articles, etc. Why don’t you write an article yourself? These things don’t happen by magic.
“All content is user generated”. No it’s not. The editors regularly write editorial articles. That’s why there’s an ‘Editorial’ tab at the top of the page. Here for example is Viv’s article criticising me and Hugo for asking for evidence in Martin Sellner’s own words that he is “an out and out Nazi”, as Mr. Bav claimed:
https://www.ukipdaily.com/on-our-own-behalf/
Where did I say that all articles under ‘Editorial’ were written by the Editors? I didn’t, did I? Tacitus claimed, “All content is user generated”. That’s not true.
“User”: First of the seven deadly sins of computing! ?
UKIP’s Lord Pearson met Tommy Robinson in the House of Lords yesterday. Here is the interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bjks3fmajM
Is that filed in UKIP Daily’s “too hot to handle” tray too?
Keith. Your politics are clearly Sellner/ AMW/ Tommy Robinson/ and not UKIP. I don’t understand why you post here instead of on their platforms?
However I would like to see your article, listen to your opinions in depth and urge and support the editor to consider your work for publication ahead of Sunday.
Cheers
K
This is a very interesting interview and really worth seeing for all ukip supporters. Lord Pearson gives some insight into the HoL mind set on Islam. Pearson knows his stuff. The HoL is now so far out of touch with the interests of British people it may as well be moved lock stock and barrel to Brussels or Dubai. Nobody would notice least of all the peers.
Hi Keith
You will find all this is covered by Kipper Central.
http://kippercentral.com
Kind regards.
Our energy needs would be easily met if it wasn’t for the rotten, spineless politicians. We were once world leaders in nuclear energy, built the first civilian reactor and now we are reliant on the French and Chinese. We need to build more nuclear power stations.There is still plenty of oil and gas in the North Sea to be exploited and why aren’t we getting on with fracking? Add in some sensible renewable schemes to exploit our windy, wet and tidal resources and you have an energy strategy that is sustainable and strategically secure.
‘Russia has a law permitting overseas killing of enemies of the state, and it seems determined to use murder on foreign soil as a diplomatic tool’.
So it seems has Israel.
After one killing episode a couple of years ago, where they fabricated and used British Passports to get in and out of the target country, I like many others sent a request Israel Embassy to know how much it would cost to update my British passport – cheaper than Petty France?
Exactly Biscotte The West appears to stick its head in sand when extra judicial killing is carried out by Israel.
In no way do I condone poisonings but lets have a bit of fair-play here and less of the hypocrisy.
Superb , intelligent article. I agree 100%.