Just How Fracking Immoral can the Tories Get

You're not going to get a better time to bury bad news than the day the Queen dies...so what did the tories try to push under the radar on that historic day?

"Fracking ban in England lifted in bid to boost UK gas supply" - BBC News

Yep, the tories have lifted the ban of fracking for shale gas, a process which has been linked to water contamination (as if drinking water isn't important) and earthquakes.

Why would they do such a thing? Well basically, because some people can get very rich doing it, although obviously that's not quite how the tories phrased it. The official reason is that "tapping into the "huge reserves" of shale gas would help the UK meet a new target of being a net energy exporter by 2040." (Liz Truss).

Bear in mind, under the tories this is privatised, it won't be the UK doing this; Private companies will be given the rights to do so. The UK won't be a net exporter; Those private companies will. Some people will get very rich. The UK, won't.

It Won't Even Make Gas Cheaper

It Won't Even Make Gas Cheaper in the UK

We might assume that given escalating energy prices are blamed on foreign energy supplies, that having a UK supply will make energy cheaper in the UK. Unfortunately, as it stands, that won't be the case. Gas extracted in the UK by private companies will be sold on the same global energy markets that are currently extorting us. In the interests of their shareholders, those private companies will sell to whoever offers them the highest price, whatever country the buyer happens to be in, at the highest price they can get. UK Suppliers will still have to buy gas from the same global energy markets. Gas in the UK, will not get cheaper because of this.

The only way that will change is if the government were to nationalise this process, or legislate to make it law that gas extracted in the UK must be sold to UK energy suppliers... but as we heard from the outset, Liz Truss's own words this is about "a new target of being a net energy exporter by 2040." It's not about keeping that gas in Britain, to make gas cheap in Britain, it's about exporting it, to make money, and again, it's not profit for the country, it's profit for the private companies actually extracting the gas.

And the Tories pushed this all under the radar on the day Queen Elizabeth II died, because they knew the media would be talking about nothing else for the entire week following that.

That's how Fracking immoral this current Tory government are. They're risking water contamination and earthquakes, all in the name of personal profit, and all the while there is another perfectly viable solution, that being to provide government investment in a nationalised company producing local renewable energy specifically for local markets... but the tories and their funders can't personally profit from that... so fracking it is.