UK Politics Thread (Part 1)

Apologies if this has already been posted but somehow I find this worrying. Members who know more about the law may have a more refined view on this but it seems a bit of a step backward. Surely this sort of this is just wrong.

I want to consider it more before expressing my standpoint but it is utterly ridiculous that a policy announcement that follows months and months of consultation across a wide array of stakeholders is reversed within hours. Utterly incompetent.

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One of a few errors I feel. Another being the UKā€™s initial acceptance of all comers rather than agreeing restricted numbers on immigrants. The other being not policing it. Letā€™s also not forget the impact of the press on the UK political landscape.

From then on the extremes were allowed to get a foothold that would never otherwise be given the time of day. They filled the void.

As you say, everything from now will be slow.

News just keeps getting better:

Fascinating topic this one. Posted here because of the political twists to it.

Anyone a little nervous about shipping out our energy security to foreign investment?

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Itā€™s already happened hasnā€™t it? Arenā€™t EDF already involved in UK nuclear? China too?

Yes. Hinckley C is under construction with a deal that makes me uncomfortable but theyā€™ve also been announced with a new Reactor at Sizewell I think it was. Also talk of a new one at Bradwell. The Chinese pulled out if a new plant in Wylfa, Anglesey.

Itā€™s a bit of a no win scenario with the UKā€™s nuclear industry having been put out to seed several years ago. We need the energy but itā€™s questionable whether we have the expertise to design new reactors. Construction we can do with the exception of the reactor cell.

Kind of depressing that we canā€™t do it ourselves.

I Have No Idea GIF

I think we could but government probably want to limit the financial liability.

Even back in the '70s the technology and construction was going to be American until Heseltine torpedoed it with his pro EU/France stance.
The bigger problem surely is the outside financement and hence ownership, then again in the USA they are privately owned installations, though I donā€™t think by China.

Say what? Ah yes pass it directly to the consumer. Very good.

I donā€™t think we could as such. Not economically anyway. Most of the design resource for that stuff has long since retired or worse. Thereā€™s certainly been very little research as far as I know.

Small modular perhaps. Upscaling nuclear submarine reactors etc. See the recent Rolls Royce contract for this but as usual weā€™re years late I feel.

Yeah pretty much. Itā€™s this on going philosophy of just shipping stuff into the private sector and in this instance the French government that makes me uncomfortable with it. Not sure how much say weā€™ll have down the line on this and how it will work with the UK regulators. But we have to get the expertise somewhere, and to their credit, the French have it. Wonder how your average Brexiteer feels about that?

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Wouldnā€™t know, Iā€™m not an average Brexiteer. Iā€™m sure we can do a good deal with the French, they just need to leave the restraints of the EU.

No issue at all. Free market economy. At least we wonā€™t have unelected supranational officials on the continent telling us who it has to be.

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Especially if you have a veto to stop any major structural changes you donā€™t like. Which we did.

Brexit was like setting fire to your house because your neighbours asked if youā€™d be up for going in together on some street improvements.

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Totally agree with you on the arse about face referendum question (vote leave and then weā€™ll tell you later what this means). But it wasnā€™t the negotiation process that radicalised people. Brits were told throughout the campaign that the UK was so important and valuable to Europe that the EU would fold like a cheap picnic table in negotiations and weā€™d be able to have a deal with all the great things about membership with none of the burdensome stuff.

Fundamentally the Leave campaign was somewhere in between utterly fucking delusional and maliciously dishonest - although where the needle falls on that I donā€™t know - and the public fell for it. So when the EU (for the most part) did exactly what they were always going to do, and insist that we couldnā€™t have the benefits of membership without being members, the public reacted as if the EU was being somehow intransigent and unreasonable.

There was never any deal to be had that would be superior to the one we enjoyed inside the EU. There was no problem or annoyance that wasnā€™t grossly exaggerated.

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You know EDF is owned by the French government right? I suppose we elected those right? Good thing we have a vetoā€¦ Oh.

Your only defense is the strength of the contract between the UK and EDF. That fills me with immense confidence.

Part owned and yes. I think you missed my point.

One of the great ironies of the Conservative party. Ideologically opposed to state ownership of our utilities, but absolutely fine if itā€™s another state.

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