THE EXTINCTION REBELLION'S STRATEGY IS EXTINCT AT BEST

By Ethan Thoburn

We all understand that the environment is one of the most pressing political issues in this day and age, which requires a reasonable, rational solution to the growing problem. However, the solution isn’t supergluing yourself to London Bridge or chaining yourself to Carriage Gates or even dancing around Parliament Square whilst bringing London to a standstill, which Extinction Rebellion (XR) feel is necessary as they appear to neglect the hard work of our government.

The current PM may be the greenest Tory there is since his time as Mayor of London where he introduced the first public bike hire scheme, fondly known as Boris Bikes saying he hoped them to be: “as popular and seen as much as the black cab and red double-decker buses”. Also, Mr Johnson cited plans during his Mayorship to rid London of all fossil fuel-powered cars by the year 2034, a whole six years before the year 2040 when diesel cars will be essentially banned. More recently, Boris Johnson also aired his disagreement with President Trump for withdrawing from the Paris Agreement. Environment Secretary, Theresa Villiers’ progressive policy idea offers tax relief for green firms that run at carbon zero or are innovating ‘green’ products. Take firms like Nissan, Tesla and Toyota who all produce electric cars, under this scheme, these firms would be exempt or would benefit from tax breaks and reliefs rather than punish non-green manufacturers with crazy levels of tax, that way it incentivises to innovate and manufacture eco-friendly automobiles.

However, what about Infrastructure? Unfortunately, this cannot be fully rolled out by the government due to excessive costs that would leave the Treasury in the same financial strife as in 2009. Pro-business policies outlined by the Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid regarding start-up firms and entrepreneurial grants, similar to those introduced by Mrs Thatcher in the 1980s seem to be the ideal solution. The idea is that firms would supply the infrastructure to service stations and garages as well as in streets, in cooperation with car manufacturers to produce essentially a network of charging points.

Moving back to our friends at XR - if they really want to be seen as a serious pressure group, they will have to act like one and stop pulling foolish stunts, recruiting hypocritical celebrities and harassing politicians all whilst stopping Londoners going about their business. Not only that, their protests have been revealed to cost the Metropolitan Police over £37 million which is, in anybody’s opinion, a mind-boggling figure, but it doesn’t stop there. The opportunity cost of policing is far greater. These people are taking officers away from fighting real crime such as the rising amount of knife crime in London, thefts, motorbike gangs, fraud and catching the real criminals. Additionally, the cost to ordinary Londoners who are losing out on business, the small businessmen and women of the world who rely on getting about London in their van, car, taxi or on the bus - these are the people who keep the nation moving. After all, Napoleon said that we are: “a nation of shopkeepers” and these shopkeepers cannot get to their work because of these people who scaremonger the rest of us.

There was one gentleman in his van stuck in traffic in Trafalgar Square because XR protestors had blocked the roundabout. He explained that he had now lost a whole days' work which meant he didn’t get paid. Let this be a lesson that blocking roads doesn’t affect government officials and Ministers directly - it affects the working man and the working woman - stopping them from earning a living. The man went on to say that he agreed with the message, but not how they put it across. He needs his van for a living and currently, there are no cheaper alternatives. This example proves that blocking roads will not get the public onside and only sensible pro-business policies will.

Let’s take a closer look at some of XR’s policies, of which some politicians and even parties are supporting, for example, the first is to achieve net-zero by 2025. This would be absolutely unachievable unless we banned all flights, globally not nationally, the state rationing of meat and the confiscation of all diesel and petrol cars. The BBC’s Andrew Neil discussed this matter on his show recently. Now be honest, that would be absurd, and no rational person would seriously support that. The agreed position of the UN which has the support of over 40 countries, and has over 90 authors, all of whom are scientists - is that the 2050 target is a reasonable, achievable and progressive target.

Another one of XR’s policy ideas is to introduce the Citizens’ Assembly to inform the government what real people think’. Now if we do survey the people of the UK on what their action would be then I would hazard a guess that most would agree with the policy ideas I have outlined and that the Conservative Party support or Ministers personally support. There are far too many problems with the Citizens’ Assembly to mention, but I’ll briefly outline a few, for example, firstly it will be of random selection which has numerous drawbacks including a potential unrepresentative makeup, rather similar to the current Parliament! Secondly, many of these people will not be as informed as politicians and committees, which deal with these matters on a daily basis and look at the bigger economic picture rather than satisfying their own desires and agendas although that may be the feeling sometimes. Direct democracy, as proven by the Ancient Greeks does not work so there’s a reason why we don't do that! Take referendums for example, three and a half years after we voted for Brexit we still haven’t left and now we have so-called ‘People’s Vote’ campaigners demanding a re-run; the SNP still want independence even though Scotland voted ‘No’. Referendums only inflame the issue rather than solve it as the losing side will likely badger on about it, and in the concept of John Stuart Mill we end up with “tyranny of the majority”.

CAN BREXIT DELIVER A FAIRER IMMIGRATION SYSTEM?

By Syed Kamall

The Windrush debacle is a stain on our record as an open, tolerant and welcoming society.

But if we fail to learn from it, it will be something worse than a stain - it will be destructive influence with the potential to drag our community relations back to the resentment and tension of the 1960s and 70s. As the child of a father who came to London in the 1950s to work on the railways then the buses, and a mother who followed in the 1960s, I am just grateful that my parents got themselves passports - otherwise, we might have faced the problems so many others did.

I regret the fact that the Labour Party is using it as an opportunity for playing party politics. After all, former Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson has admitted the decision to destroy the records was taken in 2009 while he was in office, even though records were destroyed later. And by the way - didn’t anyone think of scanning or microfiching these documents?

If you ignore the fake news of The Economist, which blamed Theresa May for the “hostile environment” at the Home Office you will see it was, Labour Ministers such as Liam Byrne and Yvette Cooper who initially used the phrase, “many people believe we should be tougher on tackling illegal immigration”. I believe part of the mess is due to targets over immigration. Since so-called “freedom of movement” from the EU means that we cannot put caps on EU migrants, most of whom happen to be white, it means we put restrictions on non-EU migrants, most of whom happen to have dark skin. This leads to a racist immigration system.

During the referendum campaign, I met a number of people who voted Remain who told me they were in favour of immigration but wanted to see “the right sort of immigration.” What they really meant was they preferred “the white sort of immigration.” So what is a fair immigration system? I believe there are three types - but only one makes sense.

The first is to close our borders and to let no-one in. Most companies and most reasonable people know this would be an act of economic self-harm since not all vacancies could be filled by the unemployed - despite the improvements in training offered - or by technology.

The second would be to let everyone in. In fact, the UK had an open-door policy in the Blair years. Andrew Neather, a former advisor to Blair admitted this when he wrote that Labour’s plan “to open up the UK to mass migration” was a deliberate attempt “to rub the Right’s nose in diversity”.

The result was a backlash as white working-class Labour voters deserted the party and voted BNP. In 2009, the former Labour voters helped propel two BNP MEPs into the European Parliament. As I remarked at the time, as in other countries, abandoned socialists crossed the thin line between socialism and national socialism.

While the election of BNP MEPs, BNP London Assembly members and BNP local councillors provided white metropolitan liberals with another subject to debate at their dinner parties and further opportunity to feel morally superior, the real effect was felt by millions of black, ethnic minority and Jewish voters who were worried about their future safety. Open door migration leads to hostility to immigration and immigrants.

The third solution for fair migration is to treat all potential immigrants the same, regardless of where they come from. Then we should decide immigration policy on what skills gaps they fill. An exception should be made on humanitarian grounds for apart for genuine refugees fleeing persecution.

Let’s look at a points-based system where the criteria are clear and regularly reviewed, say every 6 months, as certain sectors fill their skills gaps while others open up. And we could look to technology to help us. With the advent of big data, computers can scan jobs boards, university application data and economic performance data in fractions of a second and assess where the skills shortages lay. Smart automated systems can also make complex tasks much simpler. Such as today’s labyrinthine application systems for visas, often still designed for an age of filing cabinets and paper forms.

Today we can access academic qualifications online. We can look at whether someone’s personal history is real or not. Did they really live where they say they did? In some countries, some credit agencies even scan Facebook for credibility indicators to issue credit cards. If someone is willing for their references to be checked we can increasingly do that. And better, more credible data would also make explaining immigration policy easier. Instead of crude targets, we could show how industries or companies which genuinely need to fill vacancies from overseas are able to attract staff to help our economy grow. Of course, there will always be some who want no immigration and claim that migrants take jobs (even though these may be jobs they would not want to do themselves). However, I believe that a points system based on the needs of the economy could change the narrative on immigration from a crude focus on numbers to filling the skills gaps to grow our economy so that we are all better off.

We should acknowledge that there are genuine concerns to be addressed as to whether rather than filling vacancies, immigration would reduce the wages and standard of living for existing workers in some parts of the country, as we saw after 10 countries joined the EU in 2004. However, if we move to a genuinely fair and transparent immigration policy post-Brexit, no longer giving preference to mostly white Europeans, as a country we can be seen to have learned the lessons from both the EU referendum and the shoddy treatment of the Windrush generation.