Sauce for the Geese

Caroline Lucas is involved with something called ‘Dear Leavers’ (@DearLeavers) an attempt, they claim, to open up an ‘honest conversation’ about Brexit. But is it? Is it really? This conversation appears to begin with a presumption that it is the supremely benevolent and intellectually superior Remainers who are big enough to offer an olive branch to the lesser mortals who were duped by ‘rich elites’ into voting against their own interests. There-there, they coo; it’s not your fault, they soothe; while all the time we know their teeth are tightly clenched.

Julia Hartley-Brewer asked Dominic Raab the other day, “Can you guarantee to me right now that on the 1st of November when I wake up we're going to be out of the EU?”. Well , how dare the strumpet be so presumptuous? One of her thousands of more politically correct Twitterlocutors posed his own question:  “Dear Julia, with respect, do you not think it is time to stop referring to people as 'Remoaners'? Whatever happens on October 31st, we have to get the country back together - Leavers and Remainers - and the constant use of derogatory terms will never achieve re-unification.”

While he may have resigned himself to departure from the EU bloc he seemed to believe it was the Leave side which had to surrender ground. Yet, in the same conversation one enlightened remainer soul felt the need to helpfully add “We are getting our country back one funeral at a time” in reference to the popular Remain trope that the leave vote came almost exclusively from ancient Little Englanders; the belief that a second referendum would go in favour of the vibrant, multicultural, woke New Europeans; the belief that his country was obviously now called Europe, Northwestern Region, Sector 23, B.

Now, while there is undoubtedly a fair clutch of knuckle-dragging, socially-challenged, gammon-faced morons in favour of sticking it to the Germans – why, I occasionally include my pig-ignorant self among them – these people really don’t have much of a voice. They are equally despised by everybody, regardless of whatever they think their politics are. Their insults are illiterate, unfocused and have no impact because they are not echoed by anybody with any authority, moral or otherwise. And where they have engaged in any form of action it has been as much fuelled by thuggish urges and base stupidity than by any coherent ideology.

But look at the other side, those who think that national sovereignty is a medieval throwback. For over three years, those in the Brussels camp – Julia’s remoaners – who have massive backing in the media, schools, the establishment, parliament itself, have been calling Leave voters racists and xenophobes, too stupid to know what they were voting for. The onslaught has been relentless and shows no signs of letting up. If anything it has recently shifted up a gear since the Remainer Anti-Christ has become Prime Minister.

Respect. It has to be earned...

If anybody needs to dial down the rhetoric it is surely those who have been most engaged in it. So, Ms Lucas and your disingenuous ‘Dear Leavers’ malarkey, how about we leave the EU as the government promised we would and afterwards you lot show us that you can meet your own lofty standards of civility?  Who knows; once you demonstrate that you have some respect for us, maybe our respect for you might grudgingly return.

Frackaday!

While sleeping off the night’s excesses amid a mountain of uncollected bin bags in Brighton I was surprised to bump into local MP, Caroline Lucas, in the early hours of this morning. “Community Service?” I asked, surprised that the court system had acted so quickly after her Public Order offence arrest yesterday. “No,” she said, “this is my regular shift. The council pay double time on the bins after hours and I need to pay off the overdraft.”

Surprised that an MP would be short of cash and brought so low as to need a second job, I pressed her on the matter

“No, it’s this global overdraft.” she said and went on to explain that humans have used up all the natural resources the Earth can provide for the year and are now in 'overdraft'. Caroline explained that we are at 'earth overshoot day', and have exhausted supplies such as land, trees and fish and outstripped the planet's annual capacity to absorb waste products including carbon dioxide. According to the Global Footprint Network, for the rest of the year, the world is in ecological debt, with supplies depleted, land degraded and carbon dioxide building up in the atmosphere

I gazed up at the fresh dawn skies and undepleted land and countered that I had never noticed the world shutting down after August before and asked, “What happens next year then? Does the planet get a fresh stock of resources every New Year’s Day?” Caroline wasn’t listening. Instead she was furiously tapping at her iPad to find the evidence. “See?” she said, showing me, “We should aim to be like Gabon!” I gazed at a graphic. Sure enough, Gabon is well into ecological credit

“But Gabon’s a low-population, fertile, oil-rich country isn’t it?” I asked. “Yes,” she replied, “but here in the west we have a massive energy deficit. We are running out of oil and gas and soon we won’t be able to keep the lights on!” Her voice had edged an octave higher and her trademark stridency was showing through. “In a decade we will be like a Third World. When democracy fails we must take direct action to save our country now!

“But they told us in 1973 that the oil would run out by 1990,” I said, adding “and they also said there would be a new ice age by the end of the last century. None of that happened. And anyway, we are sitting on a gazillion cubic metres of natural gas, right here in Britain.

Caroline pondered this for a moment. “But it’s deep underground, in the shale,” she said, ”our only option is renewables!” She gazed intently at her iPad screen and found the page she was looking for. “Look!” she said, displaying the National Grid page, where the combined might of our thousands of creaking wind turbines was currently supplying less than two percent of our off-peak energy consumption. “Oh…"

We sat there in silence for a few minutes, as seagulls soared overhead in the clear skies. High overhead an airliner left chalk-mark contrails on the blue canvas. “Windpower won’t get you on your holidays.” I suggested and with that she stood up, resolved. The screen on her iPad faded as her battery died. “Can I borrow your phone?” she asked, “I need to book a taxi for Balcombe.”

Caroline Lucas - doing it right!

I sighed. “Back to the picket line?” I asked.

“Frack that,” said Cazza, “I’m with Cuadrilla – We must Dash for Gas!”