Fracking Gets A Kicking

The sheer wilfulness of Liz Truss, who has for some reason been elevated to the status of Prime Minister, and her new cabinet, combined with their slavish adherence to outdated right-wing ideology, has not only meant appointing Jacob Rees Mogg, the member for times long past, as Business Secretary, it has also brought back fracking for shale gas, despite the Tory manifesto.

The platform on which Ms Truss, Rees Mogg and the rest stood for re-election back in 2019 was one where the moratorium on fracking would continue. Rees Mogg has now declared that the moratorium is being lifted, to the applause of those who are providing the ideological underpinning to the Government, but horror from MPs in potentially affected regions.

So it was that The Moggster stood before the Commons yesterday, to claim erroneously that causing earthquakes, damaging property, damaging the environment and impacting on public health was in the national interest. It was not long before he was left in no doubt that this was a campaign likely to develop not necessarily to his advantage. He became unpopular. Rapidly.

This was not helped by his use of personal abuse as a means of covering over his shortcomings, as Adam Bienkov of Byline Times noted: “Asked by the SNP about the cost of his energy plans, Jacob Rees-Mogg replies by paraphrasing P.G Wodehouse, saying it ‘is not too difficult to discern the difference between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine,’ before dismissing the party's ‘general grumpiness’”.

That, the suspicion that Rees Mogg wasn’t up to answering the question with any degree of candour, and The Independence Question, led the SNP’s spokesman in the Commons to respond that there would be no fracking in Scotland. Wales’ First Minister Mark Drakeford had already made a similar assertion about his own patch. Then it got worse. A lot worse.

He accused those opposed to fracking of Luddism. The Tweeter known as General Boles mused “Jacob Rees-Mogg (pictured here without a computer on his desk) has just accused someone of Luddism”. Could be dig himself in any deeper? Don’t ask. He then claimed it had been reported that “Some of the opposition to fracking has been funded by Mr Putin's regime”.

Not unlike his claim, also in the Commons, that George Soros has bankrolled the Remain campaign, albeit without the anti-Semitic overtones. But it will, despite audible disgust from his own back benchers, allow the Tories to claim that opposing fracking is somehow insufficiently patriotic.

MPs were told that an increased incidence of earthquakes should be tolerated “in the national interest”, although the areas of England which may be affected will most likely not include that where he lives. But there was still the implicit promise that fracking would only proceed after the consent of those living in the areas affected had been obtained. Until now.

Because that, too, was thrown into question, after Pippa Crerar, now at the Guardian, told her followers “Liz Truss considering designating fracking sites as nationally important infrastructure, potentially cutting out local communities and breaking an election promise”. Which looks like fracking would be imposed, whether communities wanted it, or, more likely, not.

Worst of all for Rees Mogg, he was attacked by MPs on his own side of the Commons, some of whom represent so-called Red Wall seats, and where memories of mining and salt subsidence still linger. Damage to buildings, roads and rail lines impacted, with the result that journey times will be longer, and above all, something that hardly ever affected the well-off.

All for the pursuit of ideological purity: like Kwasi Kwarteng’s “Mini Budget” given this morning, it won’t bring the promised growth, the least well-off will suffer the most, and it demonstrates superbly that the Tories are in the grip of economic quack doctors and illiterates. Worse, it makes the UK look more than foolish in the eyes of the wider world. But one growth area is obvious.

Irish passports never looked so attractive. Similarly with residency applications for several mainland European countries. The Tories have been running down much of the country for more than 12 years. They don’t intend to stop any time soon. Tolerating the bureaucracy of Spain or Italy may soon become infinitely more popular than it was when we were in the EU.

Or you can just sit there and watch the rich get richer. While you’re paying.

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