Thursday 28 November 2019

It's Fracking Hypocrisy!

This week we saw Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson take the SNP to court and succeed in getting a court order to stop a leaflet that the SNP candidate distributed and which contained inaccurate information and claims about her. The SNP were ordered to withdraw the leaflet, the Royal Mail were to stop circulating it and the SNP pay her legal costs.

The leaflet claimed she had taken £14,000 from a fracking company. Her lawyers argued that it was not from the company, but from one of the directors of the company donating in a private capacity and that the money was used to fund her constituency office. While most people might be tempted to conflate the two, the court seemingly agreed there is a difference, and that the way in which the information had been inaccurately presented by the SNP and used to justify calling Swinson a ‘hypocrite’ was defamatory.

It’s worth noting that the company in question (Warwick Energy) although it holds some fracking licences, is apparently not involved in any drilling in relation to fracking at the moment and that such activities are claimed to make up only a small proportion of the company’s interests. Other activities include offshore wind generation, conventional gas recovery and power generation, offshore drilling and gas storage, may of these things the SNP actively support. Swinson’s lawyer points out that 80% of the company’s energy production is from renewable sources.

(https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/26/jo-swinson-wins-court-order-against-snp-over-election-leaflet)

Now that’s all well and good, you will have your own opinion as to whether Swinson is a hypocrite to oppose fracking but to take a substantial donation from someone who happens to be a director of a company that has had some involvement in the industry at some point and might again. What I’d like to examine here is not Swinson’s position, but the SNP’s own hypocrisy in calling her out on this matter, and as usual with the SNP their own hypocrisy appears to be on several levels.

First there is the matter of being on the receiving end of benefits implied to come from a company involved in fracking. I encountered a number of SNP supporters who in the wake of the court judgment implied that there was no difference in the cash coming from a director than from the company itself (or words to that effect), and that even if the company wasn’t doing any fracking the fact it held licences to do so was bad enough. I’m not making any judgement here on Swinson and whether taking the donation makes her a hypocrite, but many SNP supporters were. 

So let's look a little deeper at the SNP position:

SNP Fracking Hypocrisy Part  1:

As the Green Party handily points out, SNP held a conference earlier this year that included an event sponsored by BP (https://greens.scot/news/snp-climate-conference-sponsored-by-heathrow-and-bp ). They also note that under the SNP another multinational petrochemical company (Shell) is providing funding to Forestry and Land Scotland (snp-reforesting-plan-paid-for-by-oil-giant).

How does that potentially reek of hypocrisy? Well BP have substantial involvement in fracking
(https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-6000769/BPs-8bn-bet-fracking-Oil-giant-snaps-5-500-wells-marches-US.html,
https://www.ft.com/content/beb54fda-a1c2-11e7-9e4f-7f5e6a7c98a2,
https://www.behindthelogos.org/bp-starts-fracking-argentinian-carbon-bomb/).
Shell also have involvement and have made extensive investments to exploit shale gas output (https://e360.yale.edu/features/a-fracking-driven-industrial-boom-renews-pollution-concerns-in-pittsburgh)
Now just like Warwick Energy, fracking related activities are only a minor part of all of BP and Shell's activities, although they maybe can’t claim their energy production to be 80% renewable like Warwick Energy! However their investment and involvement in the fracking industry dwarfs that of Warwick Energy. And here's the SNP actively reaping benefits from them and at same time slagging off the Lib Dems for taking money from an individual who works for a minor industry player while they partner up with two of the biggest players. Rank hypocrisy from the SNP it would seem. 

SNP Fracking Hypocrisy Part 2:

Taking cash from individuals with links to fracking and related industries.

It’s not that long ago that SNP were in the papers for receiving donations from a minor company that had been linked to fracking or potential fracking by journalists:

“Motherwell-based Hydracat Limited donated £3,750 to Neil Gray, SNP MP for Airdrie and Shotts, as well as £17,500 to the SNP.
Electoral Commission records also show the company’s director, Bobby Hill, handed over £6,500 to the SNP’s Airdrie and Shotts branch in 2011.”

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/politics/holyrood/763553/snp-mp-critised-over-donations-from-fracking-company/

And also

“THE former cabinet secretary in charge of planning took thousands of pounds from a family business linked to fracking for his re-election campaign, it has emerged.
Alex Neil accepted almost £3000 in donations from the family behind a leading drilling company that stands to benefit if the SNP allows fracking in Scotland.”

https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/14566316.SNP_planning_minister_took_cash_from_pro_fracking_drilling_company/

The details of donations to Alex Neil are interesting: According to official election records, Hydracrat Ltd donated £490 to Neil on March 21, and five members of the Hill family then gave a further £2420 between them over the next few days.
Bobby Hill, the company’s director and sole shareholder, gave £485;
his 80-year-old mother gave £495;
his wife gave £470;
and his 24 and 21 year old sons  gave £490 and £480 respectively.

Given that the threshold for reporting donations to the Electoral Commission is £500, you might be forgiven for wondering if the amounts donated to Neil by the Hill family were specifically chosen to be just below the reporting threshold and you might conclude that it looks for all the world as if someone thought it might be better if a larger donation was broken up to be less prominent and attract less attention. Now why would that be? Nothing to see here? Then why the odd pattern of donations?

SNP Fracking Hypocrisy Part 3:

Just a few months ago the Scottish Government handed out an extension to a fracking licence held by INEOS in Scotland. You may well find this quite bizarre that while with one face the SG are maintaining their supposed opposition to fracking with a moratorium on it, while with one of their other faces they have agreed to extend a licence for exploratory fracking in Scotland rather than just saying 'no' to the renewal request.
One has to question if this is any more or less ‘hypocritical’ than the SNP saying that the Lib Dems have been by claiming to oppose fracking while taking a donation from someone who's company holds some fracking licences they haven’t used. Green MSP Mark Ruskell is somewhat puzzled by this position too: https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/snps-environmental-commitment-called-into-question-after-extending-fracking-licence

SNP Fracking Hypocrisy Part 4:

Here’s what senior SNP minister Mike Russell has to say in his book ‘Grasping the Thistle’ about dodgy underground mining activities in Scotland.  In his vision for an independent Scotland:
Underground coal gasification is particularly suited for Scotland’s offshore deposits where redundant oil and gas facilities could be converted to drilling and igniting underground coal and piping the gas to shore for electricity generation and hydrogen production”.

Oh dear, does that make him a hypocrite, given that his party sort of oppose this sort of activity? (I say sort of, because sometimes you wonder).
Coal gasification is where you drill into a coal seam and set it on fire, the ensuing combustion (which can continue for years) produces all sorts of gasses which can then be pumped up and utilised, clearly there are all sorts of environmental question marks over it, and it's potential to affect underground water and other things, just like fracking....

For more on Mike’s interesting views and their stark contrast with claimed SNP policies see my previous article: when-grasping-thistles-be-careful-of.html

Summary:

Those are four potential examples of why the SNP might be deemed a wee bit hypocritical for attacking Jo Swinson on this issue. I don't suggest that anyone has done anything wrong, as far as I know all donations were perfectly legal, but you can judge for yourself what it tells you about those involved. 
However whether you agree with fracking, vehemently oppose it, or are undecided, I hope you’ll agree that not every issue is as simple as politicians and parties think we are. 

No comments:

Post a Comment