Two Tier Keir Goes Green: Starmer’s Faux-Environmentalism Threatens Ireland

As Tony Blair’s sweeping reforms of the 1990s garnered the name New Labour, it may be said that Keir Starmer hopes to fashion a legacy for himself as the leader of a Green Labour.

Net-zero carbon emission policies, investment in renewable energy, and the so-called “greening” of just about any industry you can think of merely scratches the surface of the Starmer government’s environmental-mania. Indeed, Starmer’s controversial intended revisions to the taxation of inherited land seems almost purposefully designed to force a mass-sale of small-holder English farmland.

However, despite Labour’s supposed green credentials, the moniker “two-tier Keir” may also be extended to the Prime Minister’s treatment of environmental policies. Case in point being Labour’s silence on the Sellafield nuclear waste processing facility which, after Chernobyl, spawned the greatest nuclear disaster in Europe.

Situated on the coast of Cumbria, the Sellafield facility was created in 1947 as part Britain’s botched post-war strategy to retain its status as a world power by harnessing nuclear power. Initially intended to process radioactive isotopes for military use, the plant switched to commercial power generation in 1956 before the calamitous Windscale fire.

The fire raged for days, spreading lethal radioactive pollutants across Britain and Europe. Since this disastrous turn of events, Sellafield has been used exclusively as a waste storage facility, although it hasn’t proven a very good one.

In the 1970s it was discovered several leaks were discharging contaminated radioactive waste into the Irish Sea. These unplugged leaks, according to the Republic of Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency, now release up to 3,000 litres of waste per day.

Ancient and over-capacity waste storage infrastructure has made British engineers’ protracted crisis management of Sellafield a nigh impossible task, and unable to plug the leaks, the facility remains a biological hazard for the health of Britons in the area.

Greenpeace, would-be allies of Starmer’s “Great British Greening”, have campaigned against the pollution of the Irish Sea for decades, calling it the most radioactively contaminated body of water in the world.

But Sellafield is not just a domestic issue impacting the North of England, the north-westerly currents of the Irish Sea brings the impact of British nuclear waste to Irish shores. Furthermore, the presence of European Union fishermen in Irish waters highlights Sellafield as an environmental issue with significant potential impact on the health of Western European countries.

In other countries, nuclear fallout is dealt with swiftly and decisively, whether that be in France, the Soviet Union, Japan, or the United States. Britain, by contrast, allows its nuclear waste storage facilities to atrophy and spill radioactive contaminants into the ocean, all the while government officials expectantly wait for the problem to reach the public eye before plotting a solution.

However, Britain is not the only country at fault for the inaction surrounding the Sellafield disaster. Despite being disproportionately impacted by nuclear waste fr the facility, Ireland has remained just as silent as the United Kingdom on the impacts of the Sellafield spills.

Successive Irish Governments failed to express concern regarding the impact of British nuclear waste disposal on Irish citizens. This is a glaring stain on the liberal celebration of Anglo-Irish relations.

Despite lyrical promises of a reset to the Anglo-Irish relationship by Keir Starmer, and the Prime Minister’s positive reception amongst Dublin’s liberal clique, leaders on both sides of the Irish Sea are uncomfortable with addressing the radioactive elephant in the room.

Rather than pontificating on world-ending coal stoves and cow farts, British politicians ought to look into actual environmental issues which impact people’s lives and the safety of the country.

If the cost of keeping Britain safe for human habitation is the decommission and relocation of the state’s nuclear facilities, then perhaps Herr Starmer ought to pay attention — he might earn himself a Nobel Peace Prize rather than pretending that he’s prepared to push the nuclear button.