EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

I think where Andy is coming from is that the EU would need to see a political consensus in the UK for rejoin - otherwise why would they bother even opening negotiations if we could allow the lunatics to run the asylum again and leave once more.

Wait for the Brexists main demographic to die off, so 10-15 years, then it might be possible.

In the meantime we might get Single Market membership - ironically the situation that the Brexists told us we were in when we were members.

Environmentally this probably is a benefit, isn't it, if it means trucks off the roads?

(Not that I think it is worth it for all the other Brexit issues)

As Neil said, the EU wouldn't accept our application for membership if one of the main political parties was still advocating to remain out. They'd only take us back if there was no imminent danger of the swivel-eyed loons getting their hands on the reigns of power again.

There's no rejoining in the next decade, politically it's too much of a shit storm on both sides, if things being reported are true and Labour are working on a EU alignment behind the scenes then that's probably the only way back.

Alignment followed by rejoining the common market then back in the EU when everyone realises there's no point in not being in anymore.

A proper British slow bumbling way to change.

Ok, fair enough.

Although I’d question whether the Tories can remain one of the ‘main’ parties if the headbangers take the reigns during the post-election recriminations, and juke it out with Reform for the votes of a minority, dying, loony demographic.

I can easily see the remaining centre-right flocking to the Lib Dems if (when) that happens. Add PR into the mix, and the Tories could be toast.

It will be beautiful if Brexism causes the final extinction of the Conservative Party- and ironically finally provide an incontrovertible benefit to the UK

No, I don't think so. Now the lorries have to drive from wherever they're coming from to Cherbourg, which might be (is?!) further than Calais - depending upon where they're coming from, of course. So, cleaner air for England/Wales, but not necessarily for France...

Environmentally this probably is a benefit, isn't it, if it means trucks off the roads?

How do the emissions of a diesel truck on a motorway compare to a ferry burning bunker oil at sea?

When I've read about it the suggestion was that ferries were lower emissions per kg of load carried, but I'm not claiming to be an expert so happy to be corrected.

E.g. I'd seen comments such as this:

https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-can-carbon-emissions-freight-be-reduced

Which suggests the road component of freight delivery can be 100 x the emissions of the sea part.

What really needs to be done is to get the canals working again! They might not be as quick as road transportation, but for goods that are not time-dependent (i.e. that won't go bad), they'd surely be a lot better for the environment.

Yeah fair point, I can see a lot of "it depends" to the calculation

It would be interesting to know what proportion of road transport is made up of basic commodities, where it doesn't necessarily matter which individual package/load you receive. As long as the canals are relatively well utilised, it's a bandwidth problem rather than a latency problem (as long as the goods are fungible).

I can't imagine it's a lot, annoyingly.

I’d question whether the Tories can remain one of the ‘main’ parties if the headbangers take the reigns

Someone’s going to be a bit shocked when they realise who’s been at the reins throughout.

UK transport statistics are available here:

• https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/rfs01-goods-lifted-and-distance-hauled#domestic-road-freight-by-commodity
  
  

(Lots of others on that page too.)

I haven't had time to look in detail, but from dataset RFS0106 (Goods lifted and goods moved by commodity and type and weight of vehicle), it seems that a total of 1,640 million tonnes were transported in 2022 of which 226 million tonnes (13.7%) were food products and a further 90 million tonnes (5.5%) agricultural products. If we assume that these are the only perishables/time-urgent goods, then that means over 80% of UK road freight traffic could potentially go by other means.

When I was last using channel ferries for business travel and driving through France, there was essentially a continuous line of hgvs bringing fruit & vegetables up from southern France and Spain to use the Dover Calais route.

It will be beautiful if Brexism causes the final extinction of the Conservative Party

What would follow, would be worse. More right wing than even now.

No, no they wouldn't. I know it's a nice romantic ideal, but it firmly belongs in the bin

Why not? Not being facetious, but I'm genuinely curious as to your reasons (admitting that I've not done any calculations or anything)...

I initially had a gut reaction that lots of little barges carrying little more than an HGV's worth of load but moving very slowly up and down the canal system, each with their own little diesel engine, would cause more pollution, and noise wherever they went.

Then I thought I'd better do some research, and found here http://www.cboa.org.uk
which suggests that a narrowboat can carry a load of 20 tonnes. So that suggests 65.5 million canal barge loads to take up the 80% of road journeys.

The above website is very informative and helpful, and positive about where water transport can be used.

Also, the infrastructure around canal transport meant that the barges went straight to the factories where the goods were needed. Then towns grew up around the factories. So canals go to / through the most built up areas of towns and cities. To revitalise the canals, new distribution centres would have to be built from scratch to take advantage of the canals as transport.

I'm aware that I'm not expressing myself terribly well, but I'm convinced that starting up the canal system would cause more pollution and trouble than streamlining and refining the existing road transport system. Or, ideally, just consuming less stuff.

Also see here https://waterways.org.uk/waterways/freight-by-water

Thanks Steve, those are both really interesting websites, and I will look through in more detail when I have a bit more time. I will admit that when I initially suggested the idea, I was romantically thinking of the old-style 2 people and a donkey towing barges! However, both sites state that water transport is more (fuel) efficient than road transport with CO2 emissions much reduced, and there are possibilities of having much larger barges in some areas. For example, up and down rivers....

Regarding the point of building infrastructure (distribution centres etc), is this not a positive? It would create work (jobs) in construction, could be done on old factory sites (if they still exist) at edges of town and/or lead to some redesign of towns if they exist in town centres (which might not be such a bad thing, getting away from the empty business districts that have been hollowing out the country, especially post-pandemic). Further, these are one off costs (of construction) and would pay themselves back many times if CO2 emissions were reduced.

In summary, I don't think it's at all clear cut that revitalising canals would be more detrimental than upgrading the road network.

When Terminal 5 was built at Heathrow,
the required aggregate was quarried from a field(*), just north of the M40, on the Denham/Uxbridge boundary. Rather than clog this section of the M25 with additional freight HGVs, a conveyor system was installed to deliver the (sorted) aggregate to canal barges. This section of the Grand Union is wider than other sections so can accomodate larger/wider barges. This saved many thousands of hgv movements.

I also understand that much of the excavated material from the Thames Super Sewer has been transported with barges along the Thames to be dumped on the Essex coast to create additional wetland.

Water borne freight is cost and time competitive
when all the environmental factors are costed.

(*) The ex-field is now another deep lake in the Colne Valley.

I believe the spoil from digging the cross rail tunnels was similarly transported out to Wallasea Island.

Indeed it was. The nature reserve there is fantastic and is also home to a seal colony. Well worth a visit.

The spoil from the HS2 Tunnels around North Acton (out towards Ruislip and down to Euston) is also being transferred by conveyor to a new rail head Old Oak Common. Much of the spoil is being used to regrade land just inside the M25.

The former Ruislip (municipal) golf course has its own conveyor system from the tunnel boring machine portal just to the west of West Ruislip station.
The excavated spoil is being dumped on former grazing land. The new level will be 4-5m higher.