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2022-07-18

As always, when governments "panic" they induce catastrophe, when they conduct a proper balanced investigation of all the options they stand a chance of convincing a reasoning public of the necessity, of agreeing a proposed way forward, and indeed of setting in motion a process that has wide support and should succeed.

For really major issues which affect the population's way of life, a referendum to permit the public to be informed of the options, and to choose between them, might well be considered essential where the future impact would outlast the tenure of the current government.

Such was surely the fundamental case for the Brexit referendum, even if it was never stated as such. After all, that would be an alarming precedent for any politician who likes to think that they are there to boss us around ...

Going down the referendum route requires a level of humility that eludes many, perhaps most, politicians in a parliament. They should be reminded whom they represent, and for how short a tenure.

Today we feature an article from Unherd which explores the reasonable cases that exercise both farmers and politicians concerning the current farming practices in the Netherlands.

The politicians panic because they see that they will miss their (totally arbitrary) climate change targets which were agreed above the heads of their farmers and without any decent explanation of how they would be achieved.

And it is indeed probably widely accepted that unfettered use of nitrogen fertiliser does produce what can fairly be described as pollution, at least in as much as algae overgrowth is damaging and unwanted, and maybe ammonia is also unwanted (although its alleged impact on the climate is surely stupendously unscientific and overblown).

The farmers are now panicking because they see ruin staring them in the face in short order, and all because the politicians totally lack the humility to make the case and put the options to the public for a decision that will have enormous consequences to the Dutch way of life, both far into the future, and well beyond the tenure of the current government. All because they are committed to an arbitrary target that the population did not, in full knowledge of the consequences, endorse.

We need to treat our politicians in the same way as our medics:

  • no treatment without full disclosure of the possible "side effects"
  • formal consent must be obtained for changes that would outlive the current parliament

Without these conditions, current practice cannot be described as a workable democratic process.