In yer dreams, Emmanuel – in yer dreams!

As you recall, it was polling day yesterday. Thanks to covid, vote counting only begins today. It will take longer because those counting have to be kept in smaller groups and breaks must be offered to those who wear muzzles, according to the Electoral Commission. Worse – because of covid the vote count observers from the parties involved can be kept to a minimum if the local returning officers so demand. That also means that our beloved MSM won’t have as many ‘sources’ telling them how this or that candidate is doing. Such gossiping was strictly forbidden when I was one of the vote count observers, but hey, rules are for us peasants, not for the mighty politicians. So – results will trickle in this afternoon.

Meanwhile, our MSM had time and space on their hands to address other issues – such as the ‘fish war’ around Jersey. The Red Tops had a field day, with sort-of funny headlines. The broadsheets were more high-brow and ‘measured’ in their reporting. RemainCentral bent over backwards to distribute blame equally to both sides, observing that it’s of course too bad that “we” sent ‘gunboats’, omitting to mention that so did the French. 

There are two important aspects to this ‘war on the High Seas’ – Trafalgar it certainly was not, nor will the threatened blockade of Calais become a rerun of that famous sea battle. One is the question of ‘switching off the electricity’. The other is the reason for all this warmongering, the deteriorating relationship between France, Brussels and the UK – you guessed it: Brexit!

First, a brief look at the question of energy supply through those interconnectors:

“The UK imports 9pc of its power through interconnectors from France, Belgium, and Holland because it is marginally cheaper most of the time, not because there is a critical dependency.” (paywalled link)

Ah! So we don’t actually need this – how intriguing! Now see the actual reason for these interconnectors:

“The new infrastructure is the result of the decarbonisation of electricity grids across Europe, making it cheaper and more efficient to link up networks. This means, at its most basic, that when the wind is strong in the North Sea the UK can export its electricity to continental Europe. At other times of the year, solar-generated electricity could flow the other way.” (link, paywalled)

Yes, this interdependency is due to the green blob’s climate hysteria, nothing else! Mr Lodge, a research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank, adds this observation, saying:

“’We have slowly offshored our ability to generate all of the electricity we need. We followed European Union diktat when we were in the EU to close a lot of coal and oil power stations early, and we haven’t replaced them at home.” (link)

Indeed – and the rush by BJ to become greener than green, to make the UK into the ‘Saudi Arabia of wind power’ means that vital new technologies relating to nuclear power are disregarded. Common sense and plain physical realities go out of the window when it’s about green credentials. 

There’s yet another point made in RemainCentral which I found interesting. These interconnectors are run by commercial arrangements and cannot simply be switched off according to the whims of a wannabe Napoleon, but here’s the surprise:

“In fact, despite the Brexit deal in December, at present they are operating as if there had been no deal under contingency arrangements that were put in place last year. As one industry source put it: “Frankly we are already operating as if there was a rift — but the electricity is still flowing. So while the rhetoric may be high the commercial (and in fact the political) rationale is firmly in favour of more rather than less co-operation and dependence.” (link, paywalled)

So this industry is working under ‘no deal’ conditions? Who knew! However – shouldn’t the international greenery, or at least the EU Greens, be up in arms about France’s threats, because this means inevitably that horrible, dirty, planet-destroying electricity generators would be needed and used? Don’t hold your breath – hypocrisy is their trade mark! So let’s remember that our dependency on interconnectors is due to the green EU policies ‘BB’, ‘Before Brexit’, reinforced by ‘Green BJ’.

Next, let’s take another look at the outrage by the French fishermen. RemainCentral acknowledges that the Jersey government was:

“within its rights under the terms of Britain’s Brexit trade deal with the European Union to issue new licences to French boats seeking to fish in its waters. But in imposing conditions to prove their historic fishing rights with which owners of smaller boats were technologically unable to comply, and imposing those conditions apparently without consultation, it breached the spirit and possibly the letter of the deal.” (link, paywalled)

Note the adverb ‘apparently’: it’s the French who wail they weren’t consulted but never mind that the French Fisheries  minister who kicked this off had refused to speak to Defra’s George Eustice. However, given that Brexit is bad and to be despised by any French person, it’s of course irrelevant that Jersey acted within the Brexit deal rules. Rules are only to be obeyed when they profit Paris, Berlin or Brussels. Nothing new there. Let’s now look at this explanation by Mr Crisp in the DT:

“Under the deal struck on Christmas Eve, EU boats can continue to operate in UK territorial waters if they can prove historical fishing activity in the area. Access is granted by the issuing of fishing licences but France is angry about how the new rules are being implemented and has accused Britain of dragging its feet.” (paywalled link)

Oh yeah – feet-dragging in the time of covid lockdowns is ‘unacceptable’ – but unilaterally implementing rules about UK lorry drivers having to ditch their lunch sandwiches because of ‘Brexit Rules’ is perfectly fine, as was this:

“In late April, French fishermen blockaded ports to prevent UK-landed fish arriving in Europe in protest. UK-EU talks are continuing to agree on an alternative way of proving past fishing activity.” (paywalled link)

Recalling that ‘event’ now is a bit unfortunate, innit. One might think there’s some ulterior motive behind those blockades, unrelated to fish. There’s more – see this bureaucratic foot-stamping in Brussels:

“Brussels says it breaks TCA rules that require such conditions to be pre-notified, and shared by local fishermen as well as EU ones.” (paywalled link)

Ahem. This is about licencing French fishermen and I do believe that they are  local ‘EU ones’, no? Perhaps it’s a veiled demand to give licences to Dutch fishermen as well? Mr Crisp, Remain correspondent or not, makes another interesting point, writing that:

“French fishermen in the Channel hail from Northern France, which is a stronghold for Marine Le Pen. Ms Le Pen will be Mr Macron’s main rival in next year’s presidential elections. No one expects her to beat Mr Macron but she will make it to the second round of the presidential elections and with increased support from the last elections. Ms Le Pen will only benefit from this contretemps, and Mr Macron must be seen to do something.” (paywalled link)

In that context this French exercise suddenly gains another dimension, namely of being instigated surreptitiously by Macron who is fighting for his re-election, the success or not of Madame LePen notwithstanding. He needs to be seen to fight Brexit after the fact, to show that he hates Brexit and by extension our country. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard concludes his Opinion Piece in the DT by pointing out that:

“The British quarrel is not with France: it is with Emmanuel Macron. His method of government to play the nationalist card and to pick fights with the British wherever possible. He is doing so because his presidency is cracking and his inner team thinks the rosbifs are an easy target. While he may have laid wreaths on Napoleon’s tomb this week, what he craves is the reflected prestige of Charles de Gaulle, even to the point of adding the heraldic Croix de Lorraine to Élysée coat of arms behind his desk.” (paywalled link)

I had to giggle when I read the last sentence. How deluded can someone be who tries to cloak himself in the mantle of Napoleon – another small man – as well as that of General de Gaulle who most certainly was not a dwarf.

Do the right thing, dear Froggies: get rid of Emmanuel – but for goodness’ sake, don’t replace him with Barnier …

KBO!

Photo by ActuaLitté