The UK government actively encouraged and supported by the opposition parties wants to shut down all the UKās manufacturing capacity to make petrol and diesel cars by 2030. It is true their method is to ban UK purchases of new vehicles, but the intent and the likely consequence is to close down the factories. That is nearly 800,000 jobs, plus all the jobs and factories making components.
The UK was a great centre Ā for clean car diesel engines, that all have to close. Nor will the industry want Ā the fuel tanks, drive trains, gearboxes and the rest that goes with an ICE model. Instead Ā the UK will need batteries and electric Ā motors needing very different suppliers. I read that the government is close to attracting a Jaguar battery plant. It will apparently cost several hundred million Ā pounds of taxpayer subsidy, and will be just one of several battery factories we will need to try to replace the job losses from ending ICE cars. It runs the risk of setting a high cost for attracting any other battery plants. The UK becomes a soft touch in a weak position by moving to wipe out its current industry so early.
Remain who said a 10% tariff on Uk car exports would do damage say nothing about the enormous damage the Ā banning of ICE Ā cars will do. Some in the industry worry they will face a tariff to export an electric car where they have imported theĀ battery and much else and just screw it together. Again this is missing the main threat. Relying Ā on electric cars when we do not have battery or other electric component manufacture will of course damage our industry.Itās Ā not the trade rules that demolish the industry.It is not being able to make most of car here.
The government needs to realise that asking the Uk to retire popular technologies and replace with products the market cannot yet afford or want at scale will not save the planet but will gravely damage our industry. The UK should not lead the bans on ICE cars. We also need to understand that getting someone to prematurely write off an older ICE vehicle to Ā buy a new battery car can add to world CO 2 unless they do many more miles Ā than average. They may be unable to recharge with renewable electricity. There is no point in plugging Ā it into the mains Ā on a no wind day.
June 2, 2023
Good morning.
There is another reason NOT to ban ICE powered vehicles in favour of BEV’s. And that is most of the raw materials for batteries (eg Lithium) are in the hands of the CCP. For them to exert undue influence on us, all they have to do is deny us the essential raw materials and / or sell them to us at a very high price making their manufacture here (or elsewhere other than China) prohibitively expensive.
One has to ask, has anyone in Westminster and Whitehall ever come across the concept of not putting ALL your eggs in one basket ?
To answer my own question, it seems not.
June 2, 2023
If our kind host allows.
Lithium
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lithium
Copper
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/copper
June 2, 2023
…Asks John, after everything that leaving the European Union did to it.
Takes some neck, that.
June 2, 2023
NL
Europe having exactly the same argument, with Mercedes leading the charge to change the proposed rules, and they are gradually building support from other Eu Countries to push the date back to beyond 2035.
June 2, 2023
I guess it must be the same Mercedes that is sharing the cost with TotalEnergy, Stellantis and the French state to open this coming Tuesday the ACC gigafactory in Billy-Berclau, France
(Reuters.com, 30/05/2023, āFrance inaugurated first of four gigafactories in the northā).
June 2, 2023
rephrase that for accuracy….after leaving the European Union that did us on everything.
June 2, 2023
And he still whines about what āRemainā have to say, three and a half years since we left!
June 2, 2023
Point being that leaving the EU did NOTHING detrimental to the car industry, it freed it to come up with the trademark sleek, stylish varied British cars, a different one to suit different people and uses and thrive – you know, like the great industry that was one of the sacrifices for surrendering to the EU in 1972.
June 2, 2023
The whole point being that leaving the EU did NOTHING detrimental to the car industry, it freed it to come up with the trademark sleek, stylish varied British cars, a different one to suit different people and uses and thrive – you know, like the great industry that was one of the sacrifices for surrendering to the EU in 1972.
June 2, 2023
The net zero fanatics in the government and civil service are happy for all uk manufacturing to close. This is how net zero will be achieved.
Next they’re coming for the farmers. Destruction of our power generation in favour of imports is well advanced, 24% imports yesterday.
It’s all part of the plan.
June 2, 2023
Huge cull of cows planned/proposed for Ireland.
June 2, 2023
I agree. I watch, Harry’s Farm on YouTube as you may know and he says the government are offering more money NOT to farm his land than he can by growing crops.
They will get them in a number of ways.
1) Cut traditional subsidies, which is already happening.
2) Raise the price of fertilizer and ban chemicals designed to deal with pests and diseases . Again, already being done.
3) Increase regulation.
4) Increase reliance on non-farming (see above) to ruin fields.
5) Withdraw subsidies for (4) and watch the farmers go bust.
Job done.
June 2, 2023
Lithium is produced / mined (whatever correct word is) mainly in Australia, Argentina and Chile – not China.
June 2, 2023
Yes but China owns most of the production capacity.
June 2, 2023
Not really true, IW, it sometimes pays to check before burping. On the Australian Stock Exchange ASX Liontown Resources, Latin Resources, Essentials Metals, Critical Resources and European Lithium donāt
look Chinese to me.
But obviously you must have read their annual reports before writing your comment, mustnāt you?
June 2, 2023
Love your regular sarcastic and sometimes outright rude posts Hefner.
Your undoubted superior intellect shines brightly.
Keep it up.
June 2, 2023
You miss the point – China has secured mining rights in Africa, they do mine in China, Australia is a big producer and Chile might have the biggest reserves.
June 2, 2023
Ed M
China has bought up loads of mining companies across the world
June 2, 2023
There is a major problem with contributors on this blog who keep writing what they think they have heard ā¦ somewhere ā¦ and seem to be absolutely unable to run even a five minute web search to see whether what they are about to write has any relationship with reality.
elements.visualcapitalist.com Ā“āThe worldās top 10 lithium mining companiesā, 14/10/2022.
China is only the dominant actor in refining Li into a product compatible for battery production.
June 2, 2023
Production of lithium in 2022:
61,000 tonnes from Australia, 39,000 tonnes from Chile, 19,000 tonnes from China.
Then there are smaller producers in Argentina, Brazil.
June 2, 2023
Then there are developments of sodium-ion battery cells (bloomberg 21/03/2023 ā Electric vehicle battery makers test a future without lithiumā.
Na (sodium) the sixth most abundant element in the Earthās crust.
June 2, 2023
And that’s the way to go. Is the UK investing in that technology and other new battery technology research.
Or is it stuck with yesterday’s lithium ion battery technology?
June 2, 2023
The UK is busy investing in wokeness, foreign windfarms & net-zero
June 2, 2023
All because our politicians or a very high percentage of them are totally obsessed with wanting to lead the world into becoming net zero.
All the other countries of the world will require transport so why not our petrol and diesel models or at least their engines.
As much as world politicians huff and puff world net zero cannot be fully implemented. We have been led up the lovely Rose scented garden and been taken in by the people with totally different agenda’s to ourselves.
But all our politician see and smell is what they have been coaxed into believing.
All this other countries are backing off why not us?
We are not managing this proposed changeover very well it is all to cut and dried and the rank and file people are not with you only the globalists.
June 2, 2023
A government obsessed and totally deluded about net zero. Their moronic hydrogen agenda as a way to (very expensively and energy wastefully) to store wind energy generated when not needed is another blind alley (outside a few very specialist areas) it make zero sense in economic or environmental terms. Seems to be driven by the superficial āthoughtā process H2 has no carbon in it thus must be better than methane, petrol or diesel. Ignoring the overall realities of the total process.
Governed by morons, vested interests and crooks on the make from subsidies it would seems.
June 2, 2023
Destroying our own capability to make vehicles to buy from overseas has more than economic consequences. Our ability to move will be dictated by what other countries allow.
June 2, 2023
I do think that one very telling thing is that if one looks into getting a windmill there are ( as far as I can seeā¦not a word of a lie) many obstacles. Not least PLANNING regs. Now since when did planning matter? Not since govt. was vaguely sane.
Subsidies for me on my country estate but not for thee.
Never, ever for thee!
June 2, 2023
Talking of morons, some idiotic labour MP on Talk Radio was talking about what they will do with the tax they will raise by putting VAT on school fees and abolishing Non Don Status. Sure mate but both of these policies will clearly cost far more than they will raise. They will also kill many good private schools off, force people onto to state schools and drive away much inward investment and wealth from the UK. Indeed merely the threat is doing this is already causing much economic harm.
Rachel Reevesās plans are even more moronic and damaging than Huntās and Sunakās.
June 2, 2023
So typical of Labour: look around for something successful, and then tax it to death.
June 2, 2023
Spot on!
June 2, 2023
June now & yet my wife feels we need to put the heating on! Just where is this promised global warming? No statistically sig. worldwide warming for about 25 years.
June 2, 2023
No…our politicians are paid by others to promote the Net Zero agenda. Not necessarily now, but certainly very large benefits will accrue to them when they are no longer accountable to the electorate.
June 2, 2023
Exactly !
June 2, 2023
A bit like the London Mayor writing books about climate change …nice little second earner
June 2, 2023
If you accept the climate change lie, and Mr Redwood evidently does, then you’re to blame for the burrowing out of our motor industry and its supply chain.
These greasy Oxbridge types know how to play the system and do very well out of it, thank you very much
Reply Do not lie about my views. I am seeking to lift the ban which you should support
June 2, 2023
The point is that circa 90% of our largely scientifically illiterate MPs do accept the climate emergency religion, so little chance of any sensible changes to this mad and hugely destructive agenda.
JR was one of the very few sensible MPs who did not vote for the Milibandās moronic and un costed climate change act. Mayās net zero insanity was just nodded through so daft are most MPs.
June 2, 2023
100% spot on LifeLogic
June 2, 2023
Indeed you correctly say. āWe also need to understand that getting someone to prematurely write off an older ICE vehicle to buy a new battery car can add to world CO 2 unless they do many more milesā. It almost invariably does cause more CO2 not less. This in the mining & build of the new car and expensive (& short lived) batteries (plus perhaps a battery replacement too if high mileage EV). We do not have any spare low carbon electricity to charge them with anyway. Plus even wind power is not that low in CO2 after you properly account for all the concrete, steel, diesel ships, grid connections, manpowerā¦ and the (usually gas) backup needed.
Burning wood (young coal) imported on diesel ships, rather than coal also increases CO2 but the government choose to pretend it does not. Also surely far more environmentally damaging to chop down forests than mine coal and certainly far more expensive.
They also lie, or pretend, that walking and cycling cause no direct or indirect CO2. Four people walking actually causes far more CO2 than four people in a petrol or diesel car per mile. Human food is a very inefficient fuel especially on a typical UK omnivore diet. Typically only about 1/25 of the mainly fossil fuel energy needed to create the food ends up as motion energy in the walker or cyclist.
June 2, 2023
It really does get more and more like the oft quoted āEmperorās New Clothesā doesnāt it?
But in the story that little boy refuted the lie loudly and clearly and in front of the supporters of madness ( and the crooked tailors).
āThe Emperor has no clothes on!ā
(I see a bloke is doing sterling work with a film on social media)
We need more JRsā¦strength in numbers.
June 2, 2023
Alas we seem to have fewer than 50 honest & sensible Tory MPs perhaps 100 max. The party has again been captured by the Libdim/Socialist types. The far more sensible members get very little say.
June 2, 2023
It is a most bizarre and incredible situation.
Maybe it is all down to T Blair? Tories still believe that is the way to win?
Oh I am soooo weary of it.
And Iāll tell you what elseā¦Iām blinking cold too and the heating is ON!!
June 2, 2023
Well we haven’t really had a change of government policy since the Blair era ….we just got new labour cabinet mark III less Brown
June 2, 2023
Rees-Mogg on the Covid inquiry – we want to know what the government got right and what they got wrong.
Well that is easy Mogg they got almost nothing right and virtually everything wrong. The pandemic planning, the lockdowns, the pointless unused Nightingale hospitals, masks, schools shutdowns, the net harm ineffective vaccines especially for the young and children (excess deaths still up 8% when they should logically be down circa 8%), not pushing cheap effective things like vitamin D and other effective treatments, the pushing of the infected into nursing homes, often corrupt PPE procurement, the poor covid loans arrangements, the virtual shut down of the NHS for Cancer and other vital treatments, the test and trace joke, the fines for people taking a walk, the endless pushing of fear propagandaā¦ the blatant dishonesty about it certainly not coming from the Lab.
June 2, 2023
Err ! Wasn’t part of the government at that time ?
June 3, 2023
So didnāt you ever take any of the FREE covid tests that were on offer for a year? At the start people were going to very well organised testing centres in their thousands if not millions to get their FREE test. How much do you think that all cost and there were Brits who were taking daily tests for months on end.
I was one of the people who thought covid lockdowns should be stopped after the three week circuit breaker we were told was necessary to cut off the fire. However, the schools, the hospitals, the unions put tremendous pressure on the government not to reopen. They didnāt have the ventilators remember they told us or the staff to look after people.
June 2, 2023
My question on everything facing us and not just this issue, is who exactly is this government working for?
It sure as hell doesn’t look like it’s those they are duty bound to be working for.
Ditto that for its partners in crime Labour.
June 2, 2023
Who are they working for, Michelle? Look at the company they keep, especially at Davos and other international events.
How often do you see senior government minsters at British industry events?
June 2, 2023
It is time there were better definitions of ‘British industry’. The phrase is given out by government as if it were talking about British owned products and production.
They like to hide foreign ownership. They don’t mention it.
This fake Conservative government, supported by Sir John is very happy that just about everything here is for sale overseas. Foreign acquirers are always proud of their identity; our identity however is not important to our leaders, both in government and elsewhere, particularly in the case of England.
June 2, 2023
Michelle,
The government are working for their own self interest, even if that means selling the country down the river. Many of them never cared about the nation state anyway – or at least not this one.
Itās the Tony Blair model. Boris Johnson embraced it without bothering about dressing it up with fine words, or even hiding what he was up to.
June 2, 2023
All about reducing the economy, denying liberties and reverting to village population with no local skills or trade.
June 2, 2023
You’re describing ’15-minute’ cities
June 2, 2023
Everything about this net-zero scam is against the UK people, but gets our MPs brownie points with the international community ie UN WEF IMF WHO etc
June 2, 2023
EVs need power points and tens of thousands of them.
The base power generation is not reliable enough, the transmission network is not in place , local distribution network requires some heavy updating and upgrades.
Still the EV industry has not told us or put in place a viable environmentally safe disposal network for all the batteries and other components such as tyres which have less life mileage.
Replacement batteries are expensive, what about all the drive and transmission units they are never mentioned.
Has enough thought gone into this conversion programme? Methinks it’s going to be a hell off a bill for the taxpayers either way the country goes.
June 2, 2023
Whatever happened to conservative market forces and organic progressive competitive environment?
June 2, 2023
There was a piece on GB News yesterday, where a former government energy advisor claimed that expert sources within the National Grid had estimated that the cost of replacing gas with electricty would require an investment of Ā£3 trillion pounds to upgrade the current distribution system. That is a staggering amount – more than our current gross national debt (Ā£2.3B ignoring government pension liabiliites) and then some. If this is true, why is it not being shouted from the rooftops by the press and being debated as the real climate emergency in Parliament? Even if it is not true, where is the Commission, Energy Review body, White Paper (whatever is required) that will get to the bottom of the true projected costs of these ill thougt through NZ policies? You couldn’t possibly run a business like this…and not go bust.
Apparently the Covid enquiry has already cost Ā£140 million after just 18 months and not even interviewed anyone. I was absolutely amazed by this sum. I’ve managed large organisations with large staff numbers and expensive premises for a very small fraction of this cost per annum. What a complete waste of public money.
Our political classes seem more obsessed with Philip Schofield (MPs interviewing ITV excutives – really?) and the contents of Boris’s Whatsapp messages than actually running the country. Is Mr Schofield going to help heat my home next Winter? Will Boris’s WA messages reduce the cost of living anytime soon? What on earth is going on? It seems the world is going to hell in a handcart. Complete madness.
June 2, 2023
Agree IanT, we’re being lied too
June 3, 2023
Surprised it’s already cost Ā£140 million? I’m not. A very large quantity of whitewash will cost a very large amount of money.
June 3, 2023
How did they calculate Ā£140m Iād like that figure fact checked, who has been taking this money? Where are the first reports? It is a pathetic waste if its true.
June 3, 2023
According to the Guardian 28/05/2023 āUK Covid enquiry: when is it, what does it cover, and how long will it last?ā the direct cost of the enquiry was Ā£15 m at the start of 2023.
What has happened since January to increase the cost at least nine times?
It might help if people were to give their sources in a way a teeny more precise than āapparentlyā.
June 2, 2023
Post Brexit, that the vehicle majors who own the brands and the plant are becoming lukewarm about making the not inconsiderable investment required to produce EV’s and batteries here should surprise nobody.
The government, influenced by the powerful fossil fuel lobby, has failed to invest in upgrading the national grid, has failed to organise sufficient charging points, has removed all incentives to buy an EV, refuses to approve onshore renewable installations, prefers to invest in the carbon capture and storage scam and has placed a 20% VAT rate on public charging points. Or invest in gridscale electricity storage.
As the anti-net zero brigade prepare to blame the renewables industry for the ending of vehicle manufacture here in the UK, Grant Schwraps the mediocre SoS Energy Security and Net Zero should consider his position
June 2, 2023
The UK is not a remotely competitive place to make EV cars and batteries, indeed it is not very competitive in very many areas of manufacturing. High taxes, high energy costs, restrictive employments laws, high building costs, high housing costs, high wages, high regulatory costsā¦ why would anyone choose the UK unless bribed by Gov. grants?
But when the grants stop they will leave anyway?
June 2, 2023
”when the grants stop they will leave anyway”
The story of every multi national
June 2, 2023
As the anti-net zero brigade aka the majority
June 2, 2023
I do think that is a very interesting argument, which I have seen before several times.
That the mess we are in is the result of a tussle between the fossil fuel industry and the green supporters. Basically the fossil fuel brigade is making govt. drag its feet?
But are the measures you mention actually possible? And why would the factories be closing if they could get Big Oil backing?
Iām certain that I once read ( before it was an issue) that in 1930s America fossil fuel won the battle against electric carsā¦hence dominance of oil ever since. I have however been told that I am wrong!š¤
June 2, 2023
For every ton of gas burnt, about 3 tons of CO2 has to be captured and stored. Highly impractical. A better way is to expand the UK’s temperate rainforests, which benefit the environment in cooling summer extreme temperatures and arrest floodwater, aside from how sceptical you are about the importance of atmospheric CO2.
Plant trees not houses.
June 2, 2023
Everyone is trying to manipulate and control the climate ā¦.just leave it allow
June 2, 2023
Links please.
Why should low and middle income people subsidies a rich man’s toy ?
June 2, 2023
The only “upgrade” to the national grid which would make any difference at all would be to attach half a dozen big new nuclear power plants to it. At that point maybe the government could “organise” (ie. spend billions of Ā£s taxpayer’s money) on enough charging points for an EV switch over.
Maybe John can tell us whether the EU rules of origin which say 45% of a car’s value must be sourced in the UK or EU are reciprocal ? So if 45% isn’t met there is a 10% tariff on UK car exports to the EU but would there also be a 10% tariff on German/French car exports to UK ? The EU doesn’t have their own lithium either – it’s all in Australia and Chile. Around 10% of German car exports are to the UK, I doubt they would accept the loss of that export market due to rules of origin, and if they did the UK manufacturers can take up the slack.
June 3, 2023
Good question.
June 2, 2023
Perhaps you haven’t noticed SG that the large German car manufacturers are also in some difficulty and they have asked the EU for a stay of execution on current car policy. The move to EVs is not only hitting UK car production but also European prospects too. I think there is a very good chance that European EV companies will generally struggle to compete with Chinese manufacturers. We don’t have enough control over the neccessary raw materials or labour costs to compete globally. The MG4 EV is UKs ‘2023 Car of the Year’. Other Chinese brands will quickly follow. As to your other comments, when you can accurately cost your NZ policies, then we will be better placed to judge their practicallity
June 2, 2023
The best government transport policy might be to keep sensible older ICU vehicles running as long as possible. No reason they cannot run for say 50 years, stop blocking the roads with islands, low traffic areas, anti car traffic lights, bus and bike lanes (usually empty)… and fix the pot holes. That and get fracking, drilling and mining plus R&D into better nuclear, combined heat and power, fusion, cheaper insulation and a few more thermals and jumpers for the poor.
June 2, 2023
SG : āOr invest in gridscale electricity storageā
What system would that be SG?
I have downloaded the 2022 demand and wind energy data from the Gridwatch website into an Excel spreadsheet and calculated the following to provide reliable electricity by the 2035 decarbonisation date:
Using hydrogen as a storage of energy :
513 GW of installed wind power at a cost of Ā£2.4 trillion plus Ā£247bn in electrolysers and the cost to store 2.8m tonnes of hydrogen
Using batteries as storage :
342 GW of installed wind power at a cost of Ā£1.6 trillion and Ā£28 trillion for the batteries.
Your proposed grid upgrades would cost Ā£trillions and we do not even have the manpower to achieve it. In addition by putting all our energy eggs into one basket through electrification of everything we will be totally controlled by coal-fired China as they will be suppling our wind turbines, solar panels, heat pumps, evs, motors, generators and all the metals and raw materials for cabling etc..
Plus all supplies of our building materials ā steel, concrete, glass, bricks etc and everything derived from fossil fuels from pharmaceuticals to plastics.
BTW, note that whilst wind turbines can only produce 1 watt of power for each 1 kg of steel/concrete required for construction, fossil fuels can produce 2000 watts of power for each 1 Kg of steel/concrete and it is 1000 watts for each 1 Kg of steel/concrete for nuclear fission.
June 2, 2023
The 2030 ban must be ditched – and your fellow backbenchers must force this execrable zealotment to see sense.
June 2, 2023
Too late, the UK car industry is already doomed.
June 2, 2023
It died a decade ago under this government when auto companies stopped chasing the customer profit and started chasing the government subsidy
June 2, 2023
I still canāt get my head around the fact that the majority of Tory MPs voted for the ban in the first place ā¦.sheep, scared sheep, woke sheep
June 2, 2023
It will not be possible for any manufacturing industry to remain in the UK if it is to become a high cost energy producer, as it will be if it follows the German example. We already have achieved the position of third in the high electricity price league. Germany has taken steps to protect its industry after losing cheap Russian gas by delaying the ICE ban and using more coal.
They can see that the Chinese have the electric car industry sewn up and they are already outselling European models. It is possible to buy a nearly new low mileage MG for less than an up market ICE
car. Most customers prefer to have a car which can travel long distances and does not depreciate rapidly because half the value is in a battery with a life of 8 years.
June 2, 2023
+1
See my post above. He who controls the raw materials can control both the price and supply. The CCP already have one boot on the European car makers throat.
June 2, 2023
+1
To highlight your point, the UK has full trade & political relations with China ā¦.and on the other hand accept refugees from China without any recourse because weāre scared theyāll turn off the tap to goods which we ānowā rely upon
June 2, 2023
I see that the āSpectatorā has renamed our PM āRed Rishiā.
Because of the threat of food price controls and high taxation I guess.
Out of interest I wonder if price controls could have even been mooted in a truly competitive market where horrible supermarkets hadnāt been given so many leg-ups?
June 2, 2023
Agree Stred
June 2, 2023
Michael Gove, the then environment minister, produced this plan back in 2017, when it was sold to the public as needed because of the impact that poor air quality was having on peopleās health. Emissions from ICE vehicles had apparently breached EU thresholds. It was not marketed as helping to save the planet. But now the ban on ICE vehicles seems to have morphed into the Net Zero agenda, probably thanks to Boris Johnson’s aggressive campaign for a Green Revolution in 2019-2020. He brought forward the target date to 2030, ahead of even the EU’s 2035 target date. No thought was given to the impact of that decision on British industry and jobs, beyond the vague assertion that green jobs would be created somehow, sometime in the future. The whole thing typified Johnson’s heedless, reckless approach to governing the country, and should be revoked. His legacy of irresponsibility is far more culpable than a few Downing Street garden parties in my opinion.
June 2, 2023
The 2019 manifesto included a pledge to “consult” on the earliest feasible date by which ICE purchase could be “phased out” (horrible phrase). When the then Anti-Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced the 2030 ban, we could be forgiven for concluding that he had limited his consultation to Lord Deben, Caroline Lucas and Swampy.
An aside – the lunacy does not stop there. We only need read ss.76-79 Environment Act 2021 to see that this Conservative government has enacted measures giving it the power to “recall” (aka confiscate and destroy) vehicles that are deemed not to meet relevant environmental standards. Might a future anti-car government take it upon itself to confiscate and destroy all 4x4s, or pre-2015 diesels, or any ICE car that had reached 100,000 miles on the clock? How was this deeply sinister measure ever nodded through?
June 2, 2023
Its more than a worry, its anti democratic, anti the people
June 2, 2023
David Cooper
+1 There is, I believe, an absolute determination to take almost all of us off the roads. Come hell or high water.
June 2, 2023
I believe you’re correct ….next step 15-Cities for the plebs and HS2 for the elites (and empty motorways)
June 2, 2023
+1
Hear, hear.
June 2, 2023
Philip P
Good post with one hell of a sting in the last two sentences. Truth will always out.
June 2, 2023
…and yet no Tory MP said ‘NO’
June 2, 2023
The CONservative Party’s BRINO deal with the EU requires the UK to follow EU Environmental Policies, including the Net Zero lunacy. We are not stuck IN the EU, but they have ensured we are stuck TO it.
Germany and Italy recently forced the EU to back down on banning all ICE vehicles by 2035 (5 years after the UK) because of the devastating impact it would have on their car manufacturing industries. German manufacturing is being hammered by so-called green policies and they are already in recession.
I expect the Blue-Green-Socialists in Government will start slowly back-tracking on some aspects of the Net Zero lunacy – they know it goes down like a bowl of cold sick in the Brexit-supporting Red Wall seats. But since their main political opponents in the Blue Wall are the “green” obsessed LibDems they’ll be very cautious.
We can all help the process by refusing to go along with the lunacy. Don’t get a SMART meter. Don’t buy an EV. Don’t change your gas or oil boiler for a heat pump. Don’t change your diet. And don’t vote for any Party which is promoting the destruction of your living standards.
June 2, 2023
I will NOT be doing any of that nonsense Donna as I am a pensioner on fixed income. Butin top of all that, I do notbuy their loony tunes
June 2, 2023
+1
June 2, 2023
Donna
+1 many.
Last paragraph says it all, but will the electorate be brave and sensible enough to change their apathetic behaviour.
June 2, 2023
Donna, Germany put brakes on the fossil fuel car ban; the original commitment was to 2050; Boris brought it forward to 2030 we should just do as Germany did and take a step back.
I feel the UK should concentrate on producing cars for UK use for our narrow roads, garages and parking spaces; we don’t need most of the vehicles to go over 75 mph as many people don’t take them abroad. We should gear them to perform better at slower speeds with the speed digital and larger, with more hybrids and local couple and family runarounds. When I first test-drove a tesla, I didn’t like the sparse inside no dash, no gear stick, just a screen, afterwards, I think it’s much better. The Japanese drive on the same side as us they are our obvious partner in that.
June 2, 2023
Destroying our economy is a political vanity project.
June 2, 2023
It is rather more concerned with ultimate control.
June 2, 2023
What a rotten and corrupt political class we have, apart from a precious few who are denied any meaningful voice.
A curious observer would be forgiven for thinking that it is the intention of our ruling classes to shut down business and industry in the UK to make the country totally reliant on other countries, mainly China. China now controls vast quantities of the materials required for batteries in countries around the world.
Welcome to the new world order. Communism.
June 2, 2023
Why anybody would buy a luxury milk cart is beyond me, mad!
June 3, 2023
MFD – actually I was sceptical, I usually buy a car then keep it for 18 to 20 years, I leased a battery car this time because I wanted to see what they were like first. I like recharging at night once per week clean and not having to go to a fuel station is great, that top up lasts all week. I like the space interior, I like the smooth drive (although the steering correct on narrow country lanes isnāt good because some of the roads have bricks jutting out and I donāt think the car is seeing them or the overgrown shrubs). I like how quiet the car is. The boot size is good, the seats are comfortable and good leg room in the back.
My husband leased a Kia hybrid for longer journeys, the battery on that needs topping up more often but lasts week day journeys we havenāt had to dip into the petrol tank too much but having it as back up on long journeys is better.
My parents would get one if they could afford one, my children would get one if they had a recharge point for night recharging but that would be impossible.
June 2, 2023
All very nice but the government is your party. You support your party, you are totally loyal to your party.
Your are therefore part of the problem.
You can’t get away with virtue signalling by regular criticising like this claiming you can change its mind from within and end the betrayals.
If you feel like this and the many other policies and practices you disagree with you should break away and prove you really true to those you propose.
June 2, 2023
Who are “the government” to which you refer? Is it really the Civil Service in Whitehall that is “governing” and is all the pressure to do daft things coming from lobby groups? I can’t imagine the electorate is pushing to import electricity from Belgium to feed electrical vehicles that it doesn’t want. The so-called “executive” is out of control and this Nanny State is telling us what is best for us, “Market Forces” “supply and demand” we don’t do that anymore. The run up to the next General Election will be very interesting to see what promises are made to persuade a very unhappy electorate to vote at all and then which party makes the most sense.
June 2, 2023
Let the market decide without fear nor favour.
We need less government intervention in all aspects of everyone’s lives.
Twitter is not the world so stop taking notice of it.
June 2, 2023
We are seeing the deliberate dismantling of the west – managed decline some call it, and it would seem Great Britain wants to be a leading figure in its demise.
I canāt remember where I read it yesterday, but all the Eurasian countries met very recently and they were all positive and keen to grow their economiesā¦.
Whatever happened to HMS Great Britain that bobbed along on the high seas despite the rough weather?
June 2, 2023
Millions out of work, no working transport, no food in the shops, no warmth in your homes but not to worry you’ll be able to keep warm from the heat of burning buildings as people mass riot. All coming soon courtesy of our bought and paid for politicial class following their WEF orders. I’m sure they’ve already made sure they have places booked in bunkers to avoid the wrath of the survivors.
June 2, 2023
Des
The useful idiots, I fear, will find all the places taken at the top table and no room in the bunker.
June 2, 2023
What exactly is in the mindset of our Politicians John, that they continue with all of these policies which will increase self harm to the people of this Country.
Do they all really believe in Net Zero, or do they not care.
Are they completely unaware of the consequences of us losing manufacturing capacity in our Country.
Like thousands of others in this Country I served a fully indentured 5 year apprenticeship in the motor manufacturing industry, where the experience and skills learnt within that industry lasted me a lifetime.
Research, Development and design, Planning and production control, management of material purchasing and supply, management of schedules and people, all of that bedrock of knowledge has served me all my life, even when I changed industries, and then designed and built my own house.
Lose our manufacturing capacity and you eventually loose all of that knowledge and skill in the Country, we simply cannot live as a Country selling coffee to each other, and importing everything else, including the coffee beans.
June 2, 2023
Even if the ban is lifted car manufacturers know that the intent is still there within the political āeliteā and will not reinvest in the technology. Itās the same with gas and oil exploration where new permits are not enough now to persuade multi nationals to invest on the scale required. Sunak and Hunt wouldnāt back track on their commitment to increase corporation tax – they certainly wonāt do so for something as totemic as this key part of their net zero fantasy.
Weāre to become the Saudi Arabia of wind and the Venezuela everything else
June 2, 2023
MPC
That is why it is a complete waste of time voting for any single one of the establishment parties.
June 2, 2023
SJR, I’m sorry but it epitomises the total failure of your government. Not content with screwing up everything they have direct responsibility for, they are now spreading their cancer of incompetence into the very lifeblood of our productive industry to the extent that they will kill it.
Not only are they intent on killing it, they will push us into the elephant trap set by China who has an almost monopoly control of the World supply of rare metals required for the batteries in EVs, but also sits belligerently next to Taiwan where most of the chips come from. It is what you get from an illigitimate UK government following the unmandated policy of Nett Zero, to the tune set by the globalist agenda. The only cure for this insanity is an election in which Reform make clear their Conservative agenda from which the electorate then own responsibility for the way forward.
June 2, 2023
+1 agricola
June 2, 2023
All predictable and very worrying Sir John. UK is not ready for BEVās; working folk and their families cannot afford, they are impractical and people realise the infrastructure to properly support them is not in place. The manufacture of a BEV requires complex rare earth metals producing more CO2 than an equivalent ICE. Government compulsion will not achieve the desired outcome. People will keep their existing diesel and petrol cars irrespective of Government wishes. The EU has already realised their car manufacturing industry will need ICEās way beyond 2035 and has sensibly altered their policy, mandating ICEās with āgreenā fuel. UK should follow EUās lead. Fuel technology must be the way forward. The insane push towards an arbitrary and unachievable target of 2030 for new ICEās and 2035 for ICE hybrids is utter madness. The crunch is coming Sir John! Parliament, with its crazy groupthink mentality, is in for a rude awakening because the working people of this country do not want their car industry destroyed on the high altar of virtue signalling.
June 2, 2023
Closing down perfectly good factories. Losing 800,000 to 1,000,000 jobs. All in the name of saving 1%-2% of 0.045% of Earths atmosphere. Virtue signaling gone mad but so typical of todays hopeless politicians.
China will be roaring with laughter as it build up it’s own ICE car manufacturing.
You can keep your EV’s, I’m sticking with petrol. If I’m still fit enough to drive by 2030 I’ll buy a new ICE car just before the ban and run it into the ground until I snuff it.
June 2, 2023
I’m with you. If we took to the streets to protest our case, would we get the protection of the and encouragement of police, like the Socialist revolutionaries like Just Stop Oil?
The answer is we would not.
Our society and the way we live has been abandoned and is not defended with principle and determination by those who claim to be opposed to what is happening.
They are weak and cowardly and are happy our way of life is lost as long as they are kept safe.
June 2, 2023
Our government is the enemy
June 2, 2023
…I can’t believe I voted for them ….but they were the only party that guaranteed brexit
June 2, 2023
An efficient Govt would tick over soundly like a well-oiled clock.
This one goes reliably wrong.
Dangerous tinkers cause alarm with damaging strikes at busy times.
Long hair and dirty nuts clog cogs and works in sticky mess.
Regulators tried to wind the spring with CO2 washers and leaky batteries.
They lost the key. There is escapement and no movement.
Readers of The Sun predicted what the Govt could not foretell.
June 2, 2023
Why should I care, no-one lifted a finger when the industries I worked in were destroyed.
Besides, the real coffin nails were the employees who didn’t care very much considering how often they were on strike and the UK consumer who happily bought imported cars.
The loudest member of your choir on here boasts that he doesn’t support the auto industry, preferring to keep his old foreign manufactured cars.
June 3, 2023
I have sympathy with this view Dixie. I did convert to a battery powered car after reading your message previously.
Why are over 80% of the cars built in the UK only for export? Why are we importing the vast majority of the vehicles for our roads, its odd.
June 2, 2023
Dear Mr. Redwood,
Will anyone save the Conservative Party from the lunacy that has overtaken it?
June 2, 2023
Both Labour and “green behind the ears” Conservatives have zero comprehension of this lunacy being foisted upon us all to as their track records on Energy policies, closing power stations, North Sea oil and modern mines, fracking, diesel encouragement and punishment, EVs, Gas etc has been disastrous for many except the Westminster bubble.
June 2, 2023
The only people who propound and enact these policies are those that can afford them.
June 2, 2023
+many thousands
June 2, 2023
SMMT: 82.1% of all vehicles made in Britain are exported (55% to the EU); 705,826 cars manuf. for export in 2021. 1,122,147 engines were manufactured for export in 2020 61% of all engines made in Britain.
Car dealer magazine: 28 Apr 2023 ā Exports helped push March’s car production figures up by more than six per cent to 81,605 vehicles year on year, the second month of growth in a row. Supply shortages ease. Hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery-electric vehicle production surges by 75 per cent in March.
June 2, 2023
That 80% statistic is frequently quoted, but we very rarely hear that 90% of the cars sold here are imported.
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/06/02/will-anyone-save-the-uk-car-industry/#comment-1391358
Perhaps somebody can explain why UK car makers have so little interest in supplying their home market.
As I pointed out some time ago:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/04/29/which-inherited-eu-laws-should-be-improved-or-removed/#comment-1385237
“In 2022 the biggest market for UK producers was the UK domestic market, 64% of GDP … ”
Not the EU Single Market, or the US market, or any other overseas market, but the domestic UK market.
June 2, 2023
Morgan, Rolls Royce, Bentley and Jaguar are luxury brands. BMW, Audi and Mercedes have panache but are affordable.
June 2, 2023
Denis, I donāt get it! Why make cars for export rather than for our home market. Who benefits from all these products criss-crossing.
June 2, 2023
To answer the question ā only the Reform Party are committed to repealing the ICE ban 2030, therefore only the Reform Party can save the automotive industry
June 2, 2023
But they have zero chance of gaining any power, if they win one seat they will be doing very well.
June 2, 2023
The Reform Party has every chance if people vote for them
June 3, 2023
BTW, glen, have you ever seen a list of potential Reform candidates for the next GE?
I am assuming that the 29 Brexit Party former MEPs will stand, but where are the 621 other Reform candidates coming from? According to Richard Tice (04/01/2023) the party already has 600 potential candidates.
Given that at last monthās local elections TBP only got 6% of the votes in the wards where it stood and a grand total of 6 councillors whereas the previous version of the party had achieved 19% and 31 councillors in the 2019 local elections, one can wonder whether these 650 candidates will actually take a human form in time for the next GE.
But glen, as Matthew 17:20 (nearly) said: āTruly I tell you, if you have a brain as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain āMove from here to thereā and it will move. Faith can move mountainsā.
June 2, 2023
There is a problem with EVs, battery life shortening the affordable second-hand market.
Many people in apartments and terraced streets can have recharging units at home; people need to recharge at night. You can’t plug a whole street of EVs into one street recharger unit to fill everyone’s cars up between midnight and 5 am; we can’t have one recharger at work because the local estate won’t permit us to lift the pavement for an hour, and reset it to put one in our parking space! The government needs to address that sort of nonsense.
June 2, 2023
Sorry, Many people in apartments and terraced streets CAN’T have recharging units at home.
June 2, 2023
The problem is there are too many ideologues in Parliament.
The greenies who want to destroy petrol / diesel etc
And those who love petrol / diesel, unable to see the great opportunities to make loads of money in Green Tech and how Green Tech will also save our country billions and billions in terms of being free from poisonous pollution that destroys people’s health, pushes up the cost of the NHS, and reduces productivity, not forgetting also, mental health – reduction in noise pollution in our cities etc …
So avoid being a gas-guzzling dinosaur on the one hand and a tree-hugging lovie on the other, but rather be a wise, sensible person with an entrepreneurial spirit and a love of what modern tech can do for our economy and environment and health in general.
June 2, 2023
Parliament justs loves doing experiments in social engineering ….akin to marist control
June 2, 2023
As every, the market will decide.
Customers will not buy all the expensive and impractical EVs that the government is mandating the manufacturers to produce. They will not be able to discount them because they will probably cost as much to produce as they could try and sell them for. Instead, the manufacturers will stop production because they will realise that parking the unwanted cars in fields won’t change the economics of buying one.
Britain’s perfectly good IC car production lines will be ripped out, workers made redundant, and the equipment will be taken to the Far East and put back into production ! In the meantime, dealers here will be unable to sell the EVs in the quantity required so I can see firms like JLR sending Jaguar to the history books. A much scaled down Land Rover may survive, producing EV Range Rovers for the very rich to swan around London. All of the really useful Land Rover models will be produced and sold abroad because the kind of person wanting a working vehicle won’t and can’t live with the limitations of an EV.
What will the Horsey set do to tow their three ton trainers ? Carry on running their old IC-engined Range Rovers and Defenders, of course. An equivalent new EV will have a useless towing range of less than 100 miles.
The Government will try to tax IC-engined cars off the road but all that will do will cause demonstrations of the kind seen in France. I for one have a selection of vestes jaunes and would be ready to take to the streets.
June 2, 2023
My parents would never believe the issues we are wrestling with: banning all known means of transport, spending Ā£300 BILLION pa on social security much of which is to maintain aggressive aliens in our land, wondering how to appease striking Doctors and nurses (!), antagonising the mighty Bear for no discernible reason, closing the private (wealth creating sector) for a flu, printing hundreds of billions with no concept of the repercussions and wondering what a woman is.
We deserve oblivion.
June 2, 2023
āWe deserve oblivionā: Never has such a truth be spoken ā¦
Ever thought of moving to Moskva?
June 2, 2023
We’re certainly in crazy tory times …I find it hard to believe just how far the tories have let its voters down
June 2, 2023
Firstly, I will repeat a question from two years ago:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/03/02/cars-batteries-and-the-uk-motor-industry/#comment-1213440
“With the change to electric cars, could we ever be making more than 12% of the new cars sold here?”
Secondly, I will update the SMMT statistics from 2018 to 2022:
https://www.smmt.co.uk/reports/smmt-motor-industry-facts/
Cars built in UK 775,014
Cars exported from UK 606,838
Suggesting
Cars built and sold in UK 168,176
Divided by
New cars registered in UK 1,614,063
Gives 10% as the approximate fraction of the home market supplied by home producers.
The numbers are drastically down from 2018 but it still ends up with around nine of out ten new cars registered in the UK are imported cars, and most of those are imported from the EU.
June 2, 2023
And don’t forget, Mrs Thatcher had NO business experience (and was only trained in chemistry).
She was BRILLIANT at defeating the ideology and reality of socialism. But that’s as far as her skillset allowed. She had no skillset in how to build up an exciting, modern, entrepreneurial economy (even though she thought she had – power went to her head). Following her as if she did (like Liz Truss most spectacularly), has been a tragic mistake.
Reply With the help of myself and others she led a revolution in the City, telecoms, car production and energy. The UK shot ahead in these fields as privatisation liberalised and global capital poured in.
June 2, 2023
‘ With the help of myself and others she led a revolution in the City, telecoms, car production and energy. The UK shot ahead in these fields as privatisation liberalised and global capital poured in’ – I’m in favour of all that. I’m NOT arguing against all that. I’m arguing that we needed like an UPGRADE from this economy, back in the early / mid 1980’s to one more focused on the entrepreneur in particular in the High Tech industry, including tweaking the economy to boost the north of England too. Something like that. That Thatcherism is like an out-of-date operating system which some are still overly attached to.
(Big) UPGRADE / (big) TWEAK not get rid of (and NOT to return to the old operating system that worked well back the early / mid 1980’s, in particular – but not NOW. Liz Truss wanted to take us back to the operating system of the early / mid 1980’s. That is what I am talking about).
And THANK YOU for your part in dragging us out of the economy of the 1970’s into the economy of the 1980’s.
Reply I helped her attract a very successful Japanese car industry to the NE
June 2, 2023
True but she left schools and the NHS as dire state virtual monopolies and left many other absurdly rigged markets like transport, broadcasting, universities. She also closed more grammar schools than anyone else and fell for climate alarmism.
Still she did at least give tax breaks on medical insurance and there was no 12% insurance IPT tax then either. Her largest error was appointing a complete fool to be chancellor and let Major take us into the ERM fiasaco. Against the wise advice of her economic advisor, JR and other sensible pleople.
June 2, 2023
Was the loss of manufacturing industry a consequence of deliberate policy or a by-product of Geoffrey Howe’s obsession with inflation? did Geoffrey Howe suffer from an obsessive-compulsive disorder which later caused his obsession with metrication?
June 3, 2023
You have to judge the very considerable achievements of Mrs Thatcher and our host against the economic and industrial relations she inherited. Younger people could not imagine industrial relations back then : today’s strikes are small fry compared with what Mrs Thatcher faced, as had her Labour predecessor in the Winter of Discontent.
Manufacturing in the UK was a constant battle against communist trade union militants like Red Robbo at British Leyland and Arthur Scargill at the NUM. There was a incessant one-sided dialogue about “maintaining our differentials and working practices,” the latter is still a live issue with the dinosaurs of ASLEF and the RMT who, unlike their members, are openly of the extreme left and publically critical of our support for Ukraine.
The Spanish practices in the newspaper printing industry were a fraudulent disgrace, with print unions holding an iron hand over the printing presses, “employing” ghost workers whose wages, paid in cash, of course, were distributed amongst those that were actually employed. Even then, manning levels were grossly exaggerated, at huge cost to the press barons.
During her period in power, Margaret Thatcher transformed Britain from being a laughing stock to a very important player on the world stage, where she was deeply respected and made a very considerable contribution towards the end of the cold war. We will not see her like again, more’s the pity.
June 2, 2023
The UK Car Manufacturing was doomed the moment it all past into Foreign ownership. Its is a common thread offshore ownership is great from these companies all the while their home markets flourish, but they always reseed to their roots to protect their homelands capability in tough times.
The only way the stay in the UK is if they get massive taxpayer handouts, those that eventually gets dissipated to their home market production. Meaning the UK taxpayer gets to fund the tax coffers at the expense of the UK.
June 2, 2023
Ian B
To attract business you need cheap reliable energy. Access to raw materials. Low labour costs. Sensible regulation with minimal government interference. Oh, and low taxation.
Works for Switzerland.
June 2, 2023
āI read that the government is close to attracting a Jaguar battery plant. It will apparently cost several hundred million Ā pounds of taxpayer subsidy ā
2 glaring problems with this situation.
JLRās owner has form on āBlackmailingā the UK Conservative Government, and usually gets rewarded. If taxpayers money is to disappear to India in this fashion how much of the business does the UK Taxpayer get to own?
If the UK Conservative Government is able to steal more money from the Taxpayer to pay this man, how come they couldnāt to invest in the home grown British Volt? At least there would have been UK taxes paid.
Mind you all this was as a result of the stupidity of Boris Johnson want to start a race that no one else sort to join. Banning something without first sourcing a viable alternative is lunacy let loose.
June 2, 2023
Once again Government judgement and policy have got it wrong as far as the car industry is concerned . Apart from the many thousand of jobs that depend on the factories that employ them there are technical and a host of other developments and innovations that emerge from their activities . During the Thatcher years the industry was able to develop and overcome serious labour issues that existed and the consequences of the changes were enormous on the rest of industry and commerce . Mobility and transport play a major role in the economy of the country and we cannot and must not turn our backs on this – leaving it in the hands of others would be madness ; the EU would rub its hands in glee were we to do so .
June 2, 2023
The lunacy continues, the theme of Conservative Government failures penetrate every nook and cranny of UK life
āBritainās paralysis will allow China to obliterate our lead in renewable powerā
Dumb DT reporting at it best.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/06/02/britains-paralysis-china-obliterate-renewable-power/
Britain doesnāt have a lead in renewable by any measure. It has a lot of Foreign Governments receiving UK Taxpayer funding for their activities in the UK, all rewarding wise governments elsewhere. At the same time excluding our indigenous industry and capability.
China is by far the largest recipient of UK Taxpayer subsidies and rewards as it is by Conservative Government decree the UKās largest supplier. Imports, imports, imports destroys resilience and self reliance. Using taxpayer subsidies to fund foreign manufacture does not save World CO2, it increases it.
This Conservative Government with the way it has handled their self proclaimed 2030/2050 targets set out to destroy the UK first. No other Government in the World has declared war on its manufacturing and its people in this manor, they all recognise to do things you first have to have a resilient self reliant economy.
Every answer to today’s problems we get from this Conservative Government, is to pontificate, kick the real solution down the line and reward Foreign Tax Domains.
Joe Biden is to create an IRA fund of some $739 billion with the attachment that it is “Made in America”. That means manufactured, not assembly. This Conservative Government does the opposite anyone can have taxpayer money as long as it is not manufactured in the UK.
June 2, 2023
I would say that the UK Government actively encouraged and supported by the opposition parties wants to shut down ALL the UKās manufacturing capacity, not just car production.
This is either conspiracy or incompetence and the result will be the steady destruction of our nation and living standards.
There will be no green jobs because all the replacement electric products are already available from China.
June 2, 2023
Sir John
I humbly apologise for my previous remarks, you were being much too subtle for me!
June 2, 2023
It’s far too late to ask that question…
We all know from government plans that cars will become redundant in a few years time, as we will be consigned to our own 15 minute cities and forbidden to travel except by special authorisation.
So there is no point in trying to save the British car industry.
What we should be asking is when the people who can truly see where net-zero and the other loads of nonsense constantly piled on is taking us will get together and form a strong united opposition to the insanity we face?
June 2, 2023
Why not ask the two Billionaire Jimmy’s, Ratcliffe and Dyson. While you’re at, it ask them to take over the running of the country too. It’s time we had professionals in Downing Street.
June 2, 2023
Off topic, I have a letter printed in the Belfast News Letter today:
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/letters/letter-the-uk-should-apply-import-controls-on-goods-coming-in-across-the-land-border-into-northern-ireland-4166763
“The UK should apply import controls on goods coming in across the land border into Northern Ireland”
“The United Kingdom government plans to step up checks on food imported into Great Britain from the Irish Republic, in part to exclude animal diseases such as African swine fever. But with no checks on goods entering Northern Ireland across the land border the province will in effect be abandoned to share whatever fate may
befall the Republic.
If there was a significant risk that animal diseases might get into Northern Ireland from the EU then there would have to be checks on its exports to Great Britain. Maybe this is hypothetical, but much less so than the risk that “chlorinated chickens” might cross the border into the Republic which agitated the Irish government.
Just as Northern Ireland could potentially be used as a back door for unsuitable goods to enter the EU Single Market, it could also be a back door into the Great Britain market. The obvious answer is for the UK to apply import controls on goods coming in across the land border, as well as export controls on goods heading the other way.”
My first reference was:
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/brexit-checks-risk-meat-cheese-price-surge-compounding-inflation
“New Brexit Checks Risk Meat And Cheese Prices Soaring Even Higher”
“There have also been repeated warnings that failing to carry out post-Brexit checks on EU products increase the risk of diseases like African swine fever entering the UK.”
June 2, 2023
Yes Denis but as you say ‘hypothetical’ and the best way to ensure it remains so is for the agricultural dept in stormont assembly to monitor things closely when they get back together again.
June 3, 2023
Apparently the UK government thinks that the best way is to check what is coming into UK territory from the EU, but not for the Northern Irish part of the UK which must remain exposed to whatever comes over the border from the Republic, without any checks even at sites set well back from the border. Remember:
https://drb.ie/articles/the-professional/
“It became our firm position that any checks or controls anywhere on the island would constitute a hard border.”
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/05/11/retained-eu-law/#comment-1387386
āNo matter where you locate check sites ā they amount to a hard border.ā
“the Irish government would not accept checks even if they took place at a farmyard in Ballymena,”
June 3, 2023
To add, when this nonsense started it was just about the border: Leo Varadkar at 30 seconds in here:
https://news.sky.com/video/is-the-norway-sweden-border-a-solution-for-ireland-11141058
“No hard border. No physical infrastructure on the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.”
But later that “border between Northern Ireland and Ireland” expanded to encompass the whole of the island, apart from the designated points of entry where it was OK to have a hard border.
And for the sake of his near worthless trade deal Boris Johnson went along with that:
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2019-10-03/debates/585F872D-9372-4448-A32F-5CEC0FD49FB7/BrexitNegotiations#contribution-35ACC6F6-00F0-472C-91FB-3D9F8E60DE0B
“Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)
Many of us, on both sides of the House, want to deliver what people voted for, to avoid a no-deal Brexit and to avoid the process being strung out interminably, so I welcome the Governmentās latest proposals. Can the Prime Minister assure me that the customs proposals for the Irish border do not involve the construction of any new physical infrastructure, whether at the border or anywhere else?
The Prime Minister
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who has taken a keen interest in these matters for a long time and has helped to bring many Members together across the House on this question. I can tell him: absolutely not ā the proposals we are putting forward do not involve physical infrastructure at or near the border or indeed at any other place.”
June 2, 2023
There are quite a few of your readers who have said they will purchase a petrol / diesel powered vehicle just prior to the 2030 ban and run it until it drops. This is, of course, quite sensible, particularly if EV prices are still high and charge points are few, but this reckons without the mendacious actions of a future government that just might restrict or even ban the supply of petrol / diesel to ‘nudge’ the peasants towards EV’s.
June 2, 2023
It doesn’t need the government to do it. If you own one of the 1% ICE vehicles still on the road, fuel stations will be few and far between. If you have to go 15 miles to refuel how viable is that?
June 2, 2023
APJ
One of the reasons I purchased diesel rather than petrol just recently, as diesel is supplied to lorries and other commercial vehicles, of which few use petrol, and will take years before being powered by battery.
Unless they want to completely kill off the classic car market, and electrical generators powered by petrol, there should always be some petrol available, but then with the UK Government nothing would surprise me any more.
Certainly noticed a big difference in MPG being much lower with E10 petrol, than the normal mixture supplied for years before.
June 2, 2023
‘The law is an ass’ is a derisive expression said when the the rigid application of the letter of the law is seen to be contrary to common sense.
June 2, 2023
The car industry needs a regulatory and tax environment that is competitive and stable as well as infrastructure and reliable supply chains and ease of market access. The Tories have created disadvantageous taxation, a regulatory environment closely aligned to the EU, and high uncertainty of regulation. The EU has a clear interest in obstructing both market access from the UK and reliable European supply chains.
Freeports could provide the necessary environment and access. Australia is rich in the minerals needed for electric vehicles and is intent upon exporting value added products using them. UK has a trade deal with Australia. The EU is banking on Ukraine but first Ukraine must repel Russian forces.
The two rainclouds over the show are Green energy policy and a clueless government
June 2, 2023
Will anyone save the UK?
It is impossible to conceive of a worse proposal for our energy and security than to attempt to transition our energy from cheap, abundant and reliable fossil fuels or nuclear to expensive and intermittent energy from renewables with no economic means to store energy coupled with the forced transition to the impractical electrification of everything.
All done to save the planet 1% of its anthropogenic emissions of the plant food trace gas known as CO2.
The coal-fired Chinese must be laughing as they supply us with the means to destroy ourselves with wind turbines, solar panels, heat pumps, evs, batteries and all the raw materials for motors, generators, cabling, plus all our construction materials such as steel, concrete, bricks and glass and all our chemicals and products made from fossil fuels from pharmaceuticals to plastics.
Net Zero is impossible and its attempt will end eventually. The question is how bad will it get before it does.
June 2, 2023
Fossil fuels are no longer abundant. Also we need them for other things besides burning. As they become depleted, they will get to be ever more expensive.
We have to consider security of supply, (ie not relying on the likes of Putin.)
June 2, 2023
Harry :
Fortunately fossil fuels are still abundant and if it were not the case China and India would not be burning 5.6 billion tonnes/year of coal each year and still rapidly building further coal plants for generating electricity.
Although I agree with you that long-term fossil fuels should be kept for chemicals instead of burning Iām afraid that renewables (wind and solar) are totally unable to supply the energy the world needs.
In fact burning fossil fuels releases back into the atmosphere CO2 which has been locked up in the millions of billions of tonnes of carbonaceous rocks created by shelled marine animalsā shells over many millions of years. The increasing atmospheric CO2 promotes the growth of plants whilst not producing any additional warming because of IR saturation (see Happer & Wijngaarden). This is also evidenced by historical records going back 500 million years since the start of the Cambrian explosion.
The correct way to produce cheap, abundant and reliable energy is to use nuclear fission which at the same time is low carbon, although this is not necessary.
Nuclear fission also reduces the use of resources. 1 Kg of steel & concrete for nuclear plants produces 1000 watts of power whilst for each 1Kg of steel & concrete used in the building of wind turbines provides just 1 watt of power.
Nuclear fission also provides us with the most secure supply of energy as the fuel is readily available and can even be produced in breeder reactors.
June 2, 2023
”Fossil fuels are no longer abundant” NOT TRUE
June 2, 2023
It needs to be realised that any additional electric appliance (e.g an EV) plugged into the mains is 100% fossil fuelled.
This is because renewables are always running at 100% of their current capacity at any given time. The only way of supplying extra electricity is to ramp up the gas turbines. We are still a long way from having excess renewables capacity to bring online.
Therefore any new loads on the system are 100% gas powered. Sometimes they are even coal powered. Yet the CO2 savings are always calculated on an average mix of electricity sources, a complete misrepresentation.
June 2, 2023
KB : āThis is because renewables are always running at 100% of their current capacity at any given time.ā
No, theyāre not!
Solar panels give no power at night and at UK latitudes only an average of 10% over the year of their rated maximum.
Wind turbines only provide 30-35% of their rated/installed/nameplate capacity over a year and often produce zero energy when the wind drops.
As I write the 27 GW of installed wind power is providing just 3.53 GW of power, 12.3% of demand (02/06/2023 22:50 hrs).
This is why renewables are completely useless. For reliable energy you need a back-up system and no economic carbon free back-up system yet exists.
June 4, 2023
They are always running at 100% of their CURRENT capacity.
You’ve misunderstood the point completely.
That current capacity may well be zero or very low, a small fraction of the NAMEPLATE capacity.
The point being, that because of this, they cannot be turned up to meet increasing demand from new appliances. Any new demand can only be met by turning up the fossil fuel generators.
June 2, 2023
Motoring.
The “greenest” thing you can do is keep your car running as long as possible.
June 2, 2023
After all the outcry on this diary about the ICE ban 2030, there isnāt any backbencher rebellion, no backbencher pro fossil fuel group and no review of the policy & cost of net-zero ā¦.I despair how distance our politicians are with the voting majority, I despair that our politicians would choice international bodies over its own people and I despair that manifestos are worthless
June 2, 2023
“Will anyone save the UK car industry” this coming from himself is a bit of a damp squib – we have already taken back control so then how could things have come to this? – and exactly who is out of step here? On one hand we have government and the opposition parties determined to run down the car manufacturing industry as we knew it but then we hear the lone cry of desperation and protest from JR – still in his delusional state he still thinks things written in this blog actually matters
June 3, 2023
Steve.
Manufacturing matters, you cannot import everything you need, because we will have nothing left to trade/pay for it.
We have already sold off most of the family silver in one way or another, now we have started to sell off our land or the control of it !
JR is far from being delusional he is being realistic !
June 3, 2023
STOP the political waffle re CO2 and net zero. It is a daily diatribe now.
June 3, 2023
Thank you Sir John. Excellent.
June 5, 2023
Since when has the UK been spelled ‘Uk’?! It’s an acronym, not a word.