Stool Britannia: A Brexit Parable
One of the benefits of Brexit that we were warned about some time ago was the shortage of chemicals used to treat water.
Actually, it was in 2018 that one of the more drastic headlines spoke of shortages of said chemicals - many of which came from continental Europe - as part of the government’s so-called ‘Yellowhammer contingencies.’
Michael Gove was said to have been convinced to support former Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal when he was told by civil service mandarins that a ‘No Deal’ Brexit would leave the UK with a shortage of chemicals used in the treatment to clean water.
Gove himself who told Parliament that the water industry is, “reliant on chemicals that are imported from the EU”.
Indeed, it was a government source that told the Evening Standard that ‘Yellowhammer’ was, “project fear on steroids.”
I’ve spoken before about ‘Yellowhammer’ when addressing the CO2 crisis - from what I gather, this page was one of the first [if not the first?] to draw parallels between the contents of the ‘Yellowhammer’ document and what we see before us now in the form of various shortages as part of the broader supply chain crisis.
It does raise the question, if we have a ‘deal’, why are we experiencing some of the side effects - or rather, consequences that we would suffer if we had ‘No Deal’?
In any case, as with any page ‘first’ I take no delight in this - I’d much rather be wrong [hopefully I am about the government’s failed booster strategy, for example] - but where we’re seeing shortages most visibly [and recently] trickles down to the chemicals used for the treatment of waste, which is cited as one of the reasons why water companies are ‘dumping’ [as it were] raw sewage into Britain’s water.
Actually, as pointed out by Water UK, is not one of chemical shortages [in this case, ferric sulphate] but rather distribution attributable to shortage of HGV drivers - as we saw with fuel.
It’s rather telling though, that the Daily Mail describes it as ‘fury’ that we experience - directed at MPs who voted just last week against - remarkably - preventing these water companies from doing this; as though implementing legislation that prevents companies from dumping raw sewage in our waters is somehow wrong or a bad thing.
I Know This...Much is… Poo!
Some further context to this comes from The Guardian and the BBC who reported as early as March - and even farther back in July 2020 based on data from 2019 - that Britain had a sewage problem.
The sewage problem itself involves companies ‘dumping’ [that word again] raw sewage into our water. In response, the Environment Agency issued a regulatory statement authorising "a temporary reduction in the dosage used to treat waste water".
“Fury” can be directed at Environment secretary George Eustice MP who 6 months ago was saying that water companies had, “failed to enforce the law” that prevented private water companies ‘dumping’ raw sewage into Britain’s waters.
How well is that enforcement going, George?
Not very well at all, it seems, because amendments to the Environment Bill were rejected by MPs following recommendations from - Oh, George Eustice himself; specifically, this amendment put forth by the Duke of Wellington, which says:
Further compounded by the fact that any legal protections that previously required the government to enforce laws on matters relating to air, water and waste, was policed by the European Courts - which we want to ‘take back control’ from - presumably, so water companies are allowed to be able to ‘dump’ sewage into our waters with Conservative Party MPs’ blessing.
In essence then, we have a government that is simultaneously committed to environmental protections whilst allowing private water companies to ‘dump’ sewage into the water.
Such is the issue that recently it was revealed that a grand total of none of England’s rivers passed legal quality water standards.
Why is it suddenly an issue?
I explained a little earlier in the article to suggest that this isn’t a ‘new’ issue - insofar as water companies have been dumping raw sewage into our water for years - as was the case with Southern Water - and the Financial Times described privatisation of water in 2017 [as part of the broader 1989 Water Act] as an “organised rip-off” and even before Brexit - but one of the primary reasons why it is of such paramount importance is obviously COP26.
The primary motivation, one believes, in the media focusing on the story now - aside from the fact that it’s clearly getting worse - is to highlight where our ‘environmental commitments’ are, at best, disingenuous - and at worst, reveal that we don’t appear to be taking it very seriously at all at best.
Indeed, I’ve spoken about our commitments to ‘Green concerns’ before on this page - specifically, the government’s approach to them.
On global warming in particular, it was noted that Boris Johnson appears to take his tips from, of all people, climate change denialist Piers Corbyn and brother of page favourite, anti-establishment former Labour leader, Jeremy.
He even wrote about it in 2015 - going on to espouse Corbyn’s views at great length when Johnson was a columnist at the Telegraph, stating:
“That fear [on global warming]– as far as I understand [Corbyn’s] science – is equally without foundation.”
And this typically hyperbolic nugget:
“There may be all kinds of reasons why I was sweating at ping-pong – but they don’t include global warming.”
And as this page wrote in a portion of the article before:
“...only 48.5% of those taking part in the survey [from March 2020] for the Conservative Home website for members of the party agreed with the consensus among climate scientists that the planet is getting warmer and that human activities are driving the change - remarkably, a third don’t.
Former energy minister and Conservative MP Claire O’Neill - who was set to be the President for the upcoming COP26 summit - was actually fired for suggesting that Boris Johnson “didn’t get” climate change.
“Miles off track”, she said, in an excoriating letter written to the Prime Minister in 2020 where she accused the Prime Minister and his former special adviser Dominic Cummings of bullying her out of the position.”
It’s reasonable to assume then, that the Conservatives aren’t really that committed at all.
Of course, as with coronavirus, the Conservative approach in apportioning the blame is one of individual responsibility - what we can do to help ourselves.
Indeed, one suggestion this page makes - inspired by the government’s own concept of having union flags inside vials of the AstraZeneca vaccine - is that we could have union flag coloured imodium tablets.
Another suggestion - that is probably ‘more fun’ and adventurous - is that we have patriotic Brexit Union Flag coloured butt plugs to solve the issue - although saying this risks the possibility that reasonable discourse on the matter [and content on this page] is flushed swiftly down the toilet.
Which I gather is part of the problem to begin with.