the EU CONstitution

Via The Devil and Vindico this should give the SNP something to think about. The North Sea Oil revenues always being what they point to when asked how they will fund their planned socialist nirvana if they can get Scotland from being a vassal of Westminster to being one of Brussels as they hope. First the EU destroyed their fishing industry, and following the Constitution Reform Treaty the EU is going to take over (and given the EU's track record destroy) their oil industry.

North sea oil is on the decline, and has been since 1999, so I am sure that the EUphiles will argue that it is not a major issue and will become an even lesser one in future. But they would be wrong. The UK is still, just, an oil exporter and it does provide lots of revenue for the treasury and jobs for Scots. However it is not just about oil. Oil is not the only energy resource, it is not even the only energy resource that we get out of the North Sea.

Everybody forgets about North Sea gas, possibly because it is not used as the cornerstone of a long standing political debate like the oil is as it is off of England rather than Scotland. However it is gas, not oil, that most people will be using to cook their food and heat their homes with. The output from the gas fields have not yet peaked and are still increasing. There are also the onshore gas fields that have not yet even begun to be exploited. It is also gas, and not oil, that provides much of our electricity in efficient gas turbine based power stations which we are going to need even more of in future as the political elites vacillate over replacing our nuclear capacity and try to pretend that all can be taken care of with renewable. In electricity generation terms gas is second only to coal.

Energy security is a major issue of national sovereignty as has been amply demonstrated by the way that the miner's unions brought down the Heath government in the UK and their attempt to bring down Thatcher, or Russia's use of gas supplies to strong arm it's neighbours. Aneurin Bevan once claimed: "This island is almost made of coal and surrounded by fish. Only an organizing genius could produce a shortage of coal and fish in Great Britain at the same time." Thanks to the EU we have no more fish, and socialism mismanaged away the coal until it was uneconomical. Should the Constitution Reform Treaty come into force soon we will not have any other energy resources either.