Windfarms - a referendum?
Alastair Allan is to "press" the relevant Minister for a referendum on the Lewis Windfarms, if elected.
(1) Whatever happened to the promise that there would be a referendum? It never appeared in the manifesto, and is clearly NOT a commitment.
(2) To change the planning rules at this stage will give a clear opportunity for AMEC to seek a judicial review, which they will undoubtedly win, stopping any referendum.
Not so much a promise as a weak aspiration, undermined by his own party.
Nor a "neverendum", more a "neverhappenum".
The only party promising to stop the windfarms are the Tories, everyone else agrees that the law is ... er ... the law, and must be abided by. At last Alasdair Morrison has had the good grace to admit that the Council's position on this - as I repeatedly expounded - was correct, and the candidates have all been wrong. Just for the record, I've told candidates of every party that they were wrong.
(1) Whatever happened to the promise that there would be a referendum? It never appeared in the manifesto, and is clearly NOT a commitment.
(2) To change the planning rules at this stage will give a clear opportunity for AMEC to seek a judicial review, which they will undoubtedly win, stopping any referendum.
Not so much a promise as a weak aspiration, undermined by his own party.
Nor a "neverendum", more a "neverhappenum".
The only party promising to stop the windfarms are the Tories, everyone else agrees that the law is ... er ... the law, and must be abided by. At last Alasdair Morrison has had the good grace to admit that the Council's position on this - as I repeatedly expounded - was correct, and the candidates have all been wrong. Just for the record, I've told candidates of every party that they were wrong.
2 comments:
Laws can be changed, at whim. If nothing else, the last ten years of Labour have proven that beyond any doubt.
Moreoever, there's still the EU regulations regarding protected areas, which is an entirely separate case. I know that the Council tried to maintain that the EU legislation doesn't really mean what it says it means, but that'll be a matter for Brussels (and only Brussels) to decide upon, should any interested party bring this matter (I'm thinking the RSPB, and possibly your local citizens' groups) to their attention.
Why, though, are you opposed to referenda in general? There's a huge democratic deficit throughout the UK at the moment, and referenda would be an ideal way to address that. Works great in places like the US and, I believe, Switzerland.
You can't have missed the fact that Alasdair Morrison has been booted out by the Western Isles electorate mainly because of the windfarms issue, exactly the same as Calum Macdonald was in 2005. I don't deny that AM did some good things in the islands, but he was sacked by the people over the wind factories.
So there's your referendum already. Yet another 'no' to add to the long list. How many is that now?
Although I expect that, if there was a referendum purely on the LWP windfarm, the swing to 'no' would widen considerably, a bit more than 687.
There are Stornoway men in their 20's writing to the Gazette against these windfarms now (with very lucid arguments too), and conversely there are nutty ministers writing all for them, using terms and 'logic' which suggest that perhaps they should stick to their pulpit.
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