What has the EU ever done for sustainability? That's a question the NUS asked recently. Its answer begins:
"Back in April NUS National Conference passed policy to campaign to remain in Europe. Students’ unions play a vital role in making sure the EU debate is alive, vibrant and engaging, and that students on your campuses are voting with their hearts and their heads. This vote isn’t just about accepting the Europe we have now, but about empowering an entire generation to have ownership, and to shape the debate rather than sitting on the side-lines. This briefing is designed to give you an insight on the impact our membership of the EU has. When the UK joined the EU in 1973, our environment was in such a state that we were nicknamed the dirty man of Europe. Over the decades since, EU regulation has transformed our natural environment for the better."
Good stuff. It's curious, then, that there are so few examples of this transformation in the paper. The only examples cited (with little if any detail) are: cleaner beaches, no more acid rain, fish stocks, recycling, energy efficiency, "and much more".
Happily, when it comes to scaring the horses, they are on better form, asking what might Brexodus mean for our environment? This begins:
"If you’re concerned about the neoliberalist agenda of the EU, it’s worth imagining what life in the UK might be like after Brexit (sic) ..."
It then says:
"Brexit would leave our government free to pursue an even more aggressive deregulation agenda, and would make the adoption of environmentally destructive trade policies like TTIP much more likely."
How that would happen is beyond me, given that TTIP is a deal between the EU and the USA, but hey, let's not bother with the detail.
Meanwhile, the RSPB and WWF have come riding to the rescue of the Remain campaign, or so the Guardian reported on Thursday, and the Prime Minister seems to appreciate their campaigning on this particular political issue, if not on political campaigning in general. Strange bed-fellows.
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