Iain Black of Smaug believes fracking and unconventional gas extraction won't happen on the SNP's watch
THERE has been significant media comment on the SNP abstaining from a vote on banning fracking and unconventional oil and gas extraction. As someone with both a professional interest in this topic and as a co-founder of Smaug (SNP members against unconventional oil and gas) I want to suggest a different, though personal, interpretation to this vote than the ones being aired.
First, let’s debunk a couple of myths and at least counter a couple of explanations about why the SNP abstained:
1) We don’t have the power to ban.
No, we do have the power to ban already, we can use the same mechanism as used for the moratorium i.e. local planning law.
2) They will sue if we don't have the evidence.
The evidence already exists, in my and many other climate and health scientists' perspective, and the concern about being sued by large, aggressive multinationals did not stop Nicola Sturgeon banning genetically modified food (or more precisely GMO) in Scotland last year.
I am sure that Ineos and other interested companies could launch legal proceedings and might choose to spend their money trying to intimidate the Scottish Government, though perhaps after the success of the Orkney Four, it is us who should be suing based on a right to health, clean air and clean water?
Money has been spent on the consultation and it would not be appropriate to waste this or pre-judge its outcome.
So it can be banned, it should be banned, so why don’t the SNP just ban it already? Essentially the SNP is loathed to call off the public consultation because that is not what sensible governments do, and remember that the SNP's ultimate strategy to independence is via showing Scotland that we can be trusted to govern ourselves in a sensible way. It’s been doing this since 2007.
Money has been spent on the consultation and it would not be appropriate to waste this or pre-judge its outcome. The whole fracking/UGE debate blindsided the SNP party hierarchy a little when we were all recovering from the loss of indyref, and coping with the huge surge of membership.
I think it underestimated the importance and emotion around it as an iconic issue. It first came on its radar seriously at the spring conference in March 2015 and then again in Aberdeen at national conference in October of that year.
Since then and continuing on, the SNP members and the wider movement have pushed for a policy change more quickly and with more organisataion and passion than the party was able to cope with considering everything else it was dealing with. The research and consultation period was its quite sensible attempt to give it time and space to fully consider the implications in among this maelstrom.
So that’s where we are now, the SNP is continuing with operation "sensible management" and that includes not stopping sensible-sounding research and impact assessments. But be quite clear, fracking and UGE will not happen in Scotland.
The political reality of the debating chamber arithmetic of Holyrood and, most importantly, its catastrophic implications to the Yes movement, mean it will not happen.
Whatever the local solutions the engineers say can be put in place, they cannot guarantee safety. The careful words of the SNP manifesto stated that it would not be allowed "unless it can be proved beyond any doubt that it will not harm our environment, communities or public health".
The political reality of the debating chamber arithmetic of Holyrood and, most importantly, its catastrophic implications to the Yes movement, mean it will not happen.
Not unless the Conservatives get in power.
Picture courtesy of Erick Gustafson
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