Perfect timing. .
The UK is officially the worst-performing advanced economy in the world
The UK is officially the worst-performing advanced economy in the world
Open letter from Emily Thornberry about our governments inaction on climate change and the Paris Accords.
Dear Friends,
You’ll have to excuse my anger this evening, but we’ve just had confirmation that Donald Trump has withdrawn the United States from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the global deal which sought to stop the planet reaching the point of no return on greenhouse gases.
The other 194 countries who have signed the Paris Agreement will rightly do their best to save it, but that is a lot easier said than done when the world’s second biggest polluter is refusing to keep their side of the deal.
That this abysmal President should commit such an act of global, generational vandalism – sacrificing the future of our planet, and inflicting damage that our grandchildren will be unable to undo – is sadly predictable, but no less sickening for that. The opprobrium of the world should rightly ring in his ears.
But he is not the only one. Also guilty are his so-called allies in our own Tory government, who have failed to raise even the quietest peep in protest.
This, despite claiming three times in their manifesto last month that they were leading global action on climate change. This, despite David Cameron’s words when urging fellow world leaders into action in 2015: “Let’s just imagine what we would have to say to our grandchildren if we failed.”
And the Tories cannot claim they did not see it coming.
In November, two weeks after Donald Trump’s election, I stood in the House of Commons and urged Boris Johnson to make climate change the government’s first priority in talks with the President-elect.
I said Theresa May must “have the moral backbone to tell him that he is wrong on climate change and must not scrap the Paris treaty”.
In reply, Johnson told me that “it is vital that we are as positive as we can possibly be about the new administration”, and that my concerns over climate change were “premature”.
He said the government would “use our influence, which is very considerable, to help the United States to see its responsibilities, as I am sure it will.”
At the end of March, with the warning signs flashing ever more insistently over Trump’s attitude to the Paris Agreement, I raised the issue again in the House.
I told Boris Johnson that the only way to get listened to by Trump was to stand up and challenge him, and I asked him to begin by “telling the Trump Administration that we will not stand by in silence while they wreck the Paris Agreement.”
Once again, Boris Johnson said there was nothing to worry about, and that I was being “far too pessimistic”. He said the US remained a supporter of the Paris Agreement, and was moving towards a position on climate change “that is much more closely aligned with our thinking.”
“We have heard the mutterings of the Right Honourable Lady”, he concluded patronisingly, “but let us see what the American administration actually do. I think she will be pleasantly surprised.”
Well, we can now see what the Trump administration have done, I am not surprised, and it is certainly not pleasant. But it begs the question: what on earth have he and Theresa May been doing to stop this disastrous outcome?
They have had almost seven months since the US election to exert their influence on President Trump, and warn him that adherence to the Paris Agreement was a red line for the special relationship.
Between them, they have visited Washington three times since November, as well as having numerous other meetings with their US counterparts, the most recent just last week.
It is hard to think what is worse: did they not use those meetings to tell Trump how vital the issue of climate change was for Britain; or did they do so, only to be comprehensively ignored when it came to his decision?
If it is the former, then they are just as guilty as Trump for knifing the Paris Agreement, but if it is the latter, then we have an entirely different problem.
This is supposed to be – let us remember –our closest ally, to whom our government has given total acquiescence in every action since Trump came to power, right down to Theresa May holding his hand just hours before he signed the Muslim travel ban.
The Tories will even force HM The Queen to go through the indignity of receiving Donald Trump on a State visit later this year, less than ten months into his Presidency, compared to the likes of Bill Clinton, who had to wait three years for the honour.
All this slavish obedience and fawning obsequiousness, and what does Britain get in return? Surely, as Boris Johnson promised, it would at least be the ability to exert some influence on climate change, and talk Donald Trump into sticking with the Paris agreement.
But no, not a bit of it, and whatever attempts the Tory government may have made to persuade the President have ended in dismal failure and abject humiliation.
That is damaging enough in itself, but ask yourself what it says about Theresa May and Boris Johnson, and their ability to get the best deal for Britain on Brexit.
Just this week, we were told that the Tories were re-launching their election campaign around the premise that Theresa May is the person we want around the negotiating table in Brussels.
That was already laughable, given her abrupt capitulation on social care policy and her cowardly refusal to take part in the BBC leaders debate on Monday, both serving as further evidence that she buckles and hides at the first hint of pressure.
As Jeremy Paxman observed on Monday, this is not a leader who marches towards the sound of gunfire, but runs as fast as she can in the opposite direction, screaming that it was never her idea in the first place.
But now, thanks to Trump’s decision on the Paris Agreement, it is not just her lack of backbone, but her hopelessness at diplomacy that has been exposed.
After all, this was easily one of our top three priorities for cooperation with the new administration, and definitely our top demand. She had seven months to seal the deal. And she had huge amounts of political credit in the bank from her subservience on other issues.
All of those advantages, and yet – when push came to shove – Theresa May displayed all the negotiating skills of a used teabag, and got precisely nothing for her efforts.
Even earlier today, as Trump’s decision hung in the balance and leaders around the world were lining up to pressure him to do the right thing, all Theresa May had to say was: “It’s up to the President to decide what position the US is going to take on this matter.” What an utterly pathetic dereliction of her duty on behalf of our country and our planet.
And if these are the results of her feeble attempts to persuade Britain’s closest ally to stick to an existing agreement on climate change, then what chance has she got of securing the new deal we need with the rest of Europe on trade and jobs?
Unable to take pressure and incapable of winning arguments, the honest answer is that she has no chance, and the inevitable result will be no deal, leaving Britain to crash out of Europe in chaos two years from now, with millions of jobs and half our trade in jeopardy.
That will not – like Trump’s rejection of the Paris Agreement – be an act of global vandalism visited on future generations, but an act of economic vandalism inflicted on this one. And if we are relying on Theresa May’s negotiating skills to save us from that fate, then we may as well give up now.
Or alternatively, we could put a leader round that negotiating table who knows all about facing down pressure and winning arguments, who is renowned for telling the truth and sticking to his principles, and who would never hesitate to tell someone like Donald Trump that he is wrong.
These are all the tests that Theresa May has failed, and if she is too weak, too inept and too unprincipled to win the arguments, get the best deal for Britain and stand up to Donald Trump, then we need her to make way for someone who will.
We’ve got a week left to do it, so let’s get out there tomorrow and over the weekend, and get Jeremy Corbyn into No.10.
Best wishes,
Emily
Dear Friends,
You’ll have to excuse my anger this evening, but we’ve just had confirmation that Donald Trump has withdrawn the United States from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the global deal which sought to stop the planet reaching the point of no return on greenhouse gases.
The other 194 countries who have signed the Paris Agreement will rightly do their best to save it, but that is a lot easier said than done when the world’s second biggest polluter is refusing to keep their side of the deal.
That this abysmal President should commit such an act of global, generational vandalism – sacrificing the future of our planet, and inflicting damage that our grandchildren will be unable to undo – is sadly predictable, but no less sickening for that. The opprobrium of the world should rightly ring in his ears.
But he is not the only one. Also guilty are his so-called allies in our own Tory government, who have failed to raise even the quietest peep in protest.
This, despite claiming three times in their manifesto last month that they were leading global action on climate change. This, despite David Cameron’s words when urging fellow world leaders into action in 2015: “Let’s just imagine what we would have to say to our grandchildren if we failed.”
And the Tories cannot claim they did not see it coming.
In November, two weeks after Donald Trump’s election, I stood in the House of Commons and urged Boris Johnson to make climate change the government’s first priority in talks with the President-elect.
I said Theresa May must “have the moral backbone to tell him that he is wrong on climate change and must not scrap the Paris treaty”.
In reply, Johnson told me that “it is vital that we are as positive as we can possibly be about the new administration”, and that my concerns over climate change were “premature”.
He said the government would “use our influence, which is very considerable, to help the United States to see its responsibilities, as I am sure it will.”
At the end of March, with the warning signs flashing ever more insistently over Trump’s attitude to the Paris Agreement, I raised the issue again in the House.
I told Boris Johnson that the only way to get listened to by Trump was to stand up and challenge him, and I asked him to begin by “telling the Trump Administration that we will not stand by in silence while they wreck the Paris Agreement.”
Once again, Boris Johnson said there was nothing to worry about, and that I was being “far too pessimistic”. He said the US remained a supporter of the Paris Agreement, and was moving towards a position on climate change “that is much more closely aligned with our thinking.”
“We have heard the mutterings of the Right Honourable Lady”, he concluded patronisingly, “but let us see what the American administration actually do. I think she will be pleasantly surprised.”
Well, we can now see what the Trump administration have done, I am not surprised, and it is certainly not pleasant. But it begs the question: what on earth have he and Theresa May been doing to stop this disastrous outcome?
They have had almost seven months since the US election to exert their influence on President Trump, and warn him that adherence to the Paris Agreement was a red line for the special relationship.
Between them, they have visited Washington three times since November, as well as having numerous other meetings with their US counterparts, the most recent just last week.
It is hard to think what is worse: did they not use those meetings to tell Trump how vital the issue of climate change was for Britain; or did they do so, only to be comprehensively ignored when it came to his decision?
If it is the former, then they are just as guilty as Trump for knifing the Paris Agreement, but if it is the latter, then we have an entirely different problem.
This is supposed to be – let us remember –our closest ally, to whom our government has given total acquiescence in every action since Trump came to power, right down to Theresa May holding his hand just hours before he signed the Muslim travel ban.
The Tories will even force HM The Queen to go through the indignity of receiving Donald Trump on a State visit later this year, less than ten months into his Presidency, compared to the likes of Bill Clinton, who had to wait three years for the honour.
All this slavish obedience and fawning obsequiousness, and what does Britain get in return? Surely, as Boris Johnson promised, it would at least be the ability to exert some influence on climate change, and talk Donald Trump into sticking with the Paris agreement.
But no, not a bit of it, and whatever attempts the Tory government may have made to persuade the President have ended in dismal failure and abject humiliation.
That is damaging enough in itself, but ask yourself what it says about Theresa May and Boris Johnson, and their ability to get the best deal for Britain on Brexit.
Just this week, we were told that the Tories were re-launching their election campaign around the premise that Theresa May is the person we want around the negotiating table in Brussels.
That was already laughable, given her abrupt capitulation on social care policy and her cowardly refusal to take part in the BBC leaders debate on Monday, both serving as further evidence that she buckles and hides at the first hint of pressure.
As Jeremy Paxman observed on Monday, this is not a leader who marches towards the sound of gunfire, but runs as fast as she can in the opposite direction, screaming that it was never her idea in the first place.
But now, thanks to Trump’s decision on the Paris Agreement, it is not just her lack of backbone, but her hopelessness at diplomacy that has been exposed.
After all, this was easily one of our top three priorities for cooperation with the new administration, and definitely our top demand. She had seven months to seal the deal. And she had huge amounts of political credit in the bank from her subservience on other issues.
All of those advantages, and yet – when push came to shove – Theresa May displayed all the negotiating skills of a used teabag, and got precisely nothing for her efforts.
Even earlier today, as Trump’s decision hung in the balance and leaders around the world were lining up to pressure him to do the right thing, all Theresa May had to say was: “It’s up to the President to decide what position the US is going to take on this matter.” What an utterly pathetic dereliction of her duty on behalf of our country and our planet.
And if these are the results of her feeble attempts to persuade Britain’s closest ally to stick to an existing agreement on climate change, then what chance has she got of securing the new deal we need with the rest of Europe on trade and jobs?
Unable to take pressure and incapable of winning arguments, the honest answer is that she has no chance, and the inevitable result will be no deal, leaving Britain to crash out of Europe in chaos two years from now, with millions of jobs and half our trade in jeopardy.
That will not – like Trump’s rejection of the Paris Agreement – be an act of global vandalism visited on future generations, but an act of economic vandalism inflicted on this one. And if we are relying on Theresa May’s negotiating skills to save us from that fate, then we may as well give up now.
Or alternatively, we could put a leader round that negotiating table who knows all about facing down pressure and winning arguments, who is renowned for telling the truth and sticking to his principles, and who would never hesitate to tell someone like Donald Trump that he is wrong.
These are all the tests that Theresa May has failed, and if she is too weak, too inept and too unprincipled to win the arguments, get the best deal for Britain and stand up to Donald Trump, then we need her to make way for someone who will.
We’ve got a week left to do it, so let’s get out there tomorrow and over the weekend, and get Jeremy Corbyn into No.10.
Best wishes,
Emily
And the new latest. very interdasting...When the snap election was called these were the yougov poll results.
Here's the latest.
View: https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/867848021182173185
Labour closing a 20 point gap to 5 points.
General election 2017: Exit poll predicts Conservatives largest party - BBC News
current bbc exit polls seat prediction see's conservatives losing their majority. Labour likely unable to form minority government.
current bbc exit polls seat prediction see's conservatives losing their majority. Labour likely unable to form minority government.
- LATEST
Seat prediction: CON 314, LAB 266, SNP 34, LD 14
M
member 3289
Guest
If the Tories lose their majority, will Margaret Thatcher Jr resign as PM?
99% certain the Tories drag her out back and do it for her.
M
member 3289
Guest
Found a gif of the Tories headquarters:
Wow.gif
Im so happy atm, fingers crossed!