Can the VAT rate on Electricity be Reduced?

Sinn Féin suggested recently that the VAT rate on electricity, currently at 13.5%, be temporarily removed to ease the burden on households over the winter. The government have claimed that they can't do that due to EU law. In this post, I will take a quick look at the VAT Directive and try to establish what is actually permitted. 

First of all, there is no doubt that the minimum vat rate allowed is 5%, so that rules out a complete removal of vat :

"The reduced rates shall be fixed as a percentage of the taxable amount, which may not be less than 5 %". 

Next, Article 118 states that certain services cannot go below 12% and this was referred to by the government as applicable to electricity. As electricity comes under Annex 1, it would seem that the government is correct (- -but wouldn't 12% be better than no reduction ? ) :

" Article 118

 Member States which, at 1 January 1991, were applying a reduced rate to the supply of goods or services other than those specified in Annex III may apply the reduced rate, or one of the two reduced rates, provided for in Article 98 to the supply of those goods or services, provided that the rate is not lower than 12 %". 

However, something that has been noticed before is that there is often a grey area with EU law. Article 102 deals specifically with the supply of energy, including electricity and allows for either of the two reduced rates to be applied. In the case of Ireland, the two reduced rates are 13.5% and 9% (for hotels) :

"Article 102

After consultation of the VAT Committee, each Member State may apply a reduced rate to the supply of natural gas, electricity or district heating"

It is remarkable that no reference is made here to the minimum rate of 12%, but as article 102 precedes 118, perhaps it is inferred that 102 can be relied upon alone in relation to electricity. In that case, surely, a reference to the exception under 102 should have been made in 118. 

I am no legal expert and perhaps someone can comment below on what they think. 

We can test the legal recipes in the EU VAT directive by the results. And here, it would seem to be the case that when we look at other European countries, the vat on electricity can be reduced to a minimum of 5%.

- - Portugal reduced the vat on electricity to 6% for low usage households in 2019. Initial figures show that the reduced rate applies to about 42% of customers with the rest paying vat at the higher rate of 23%.

- - Spain have introduced a temporary reduction to 10% for low usage customers until December 2021. After that, the vat will revert to the normal 21% rate. It is estimated that the vast majority of households and businesses will qualify for the reduced 10 % rate. 

- - Italy have a fixed vat rate of 10% on electricity. This proves that the minimum rate of 12% does not apply to electricity as per article 102 . Applying the Italian model to Ireland would mean we could reduce our vat rate to 9% on electricity. 

- - Greece have a super reduced vat rate of 6% on electricity since 2019. This also applies to medicine and vaccines as well as children's books. Their normal reduced rate is 13 % which applies to hotels. It is interesting to see that in Ireland we seem to have our priorities completely wrong with hotels regarded as more essential than electricity. 

- - The UK had along with Malta the lowest vat rate on electricity in the EU with a rate of 5%. One of the reasons for brexit is that they were not able to reduce it to zero. 

- - Luxembourg have a vat rate of 8% on electricity. 

It seems clear that the vat rate on electricity can be lowered to at least 9%. But the government have chosen the spending option as usual which means additional handouts to struggling families. Which in turn will lead to a cycle of inflation as bills rise even more. 

How the EU repeatedly bypassed its Legal Framework and the Rights of its Citizens to implement its Renewable Programme

by Pat Swords

The EU makes repeated claims about the importance of the rule of law, but in reality, it fails to comply with its own legal framework and the rights of its citizens are not considered relevant, when it comes to implementing the New Green Deal. The ideological driven planned economies behind the Iron Curtain, with little regard for either environmental impacts or citizen’s rights, left behind a bitter legacy. In response emerged the United Nations Economic Convention for Europe’s (UNECE) Aarhus Convention on “Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters”, which has been part of EU legal framework since 2005. As the EU Commission has clarified:

“Such agreements take precedence over legal acts adopted under the EC Treaty (secondary Community law). So if there was a conflict between a Directive and a Convention, such as the Aarhus Convention, all Community or Member State administrative or judicial bodies would have to apply the provision of the Convention and derogate from the secondary law provision.”

As part of this Convention on environmental democracy, obligation placed on contracting parties include "fully integrating environmental considerations in governmental decision making and the consequent need for public authorities to be in possession of accurate, comprehensive and up to date environmental information".  That there should, in a transparent and fair framework, be a weighing up of environmental considerations is  no different than a key element of EU jurisprudence, the principle of proportionality, which requires that :

“Measures adopted by EU institutions do not exceed the limits of what is appropriate and necessary in order to attain the objectives legitimately pursued by the legislation in question; when there is a choice between several appropriate measures, recourse must be had to the least onerous, and the disadvantages caused must not be disproportionate to the aims pursued”.

As Recital 15 of Directive 2009/28/EC demonstrates, the EU’s 20% by 2020 renewable target was shared out among the Member States based on the existing percentage of renewables and a ‘fudge factor’ based on GDP. No environmental information existed on what was to be built, where it was to be built, what were the impacts and mitigation measures, etc. Having zero information to quantify the negative impact of carbon emissions, the alleged benefit of the 20% renewable target was related to the expected future price of carbon on the EU emissions trading scheme. A price, which is driven by political decisions related to allocations of carbon credits, with zero relationship to environmental impacts. Hence, what resulted was a circular logic of political target setting in the absence of reasoned decision making, with a complete absence of environmental information to justify the enormous impacts on the European environment and energy markets. 

This glaring democratic deficit was compounded by the supranational dynamics of the EU, where Directives before adoption should first be scrutinised by public participation at the Member State level, such as in Ireland by detailed Regulatory Impact Analysis with public engagement. However, in practice this was by-passed.

After adoption of Directive 2009/28/EC there was only a year for Member States to prepare National Renewable Energy Action Plans (NREAPs) to implement these renewable targets. The Member States essentially left the section on the environmental impacts of these NREAPs blank, as it was an optional requirement in the EU template. Such plans are also subject before adoption to the detailed requirements of the EU’s Directive on Strategic Environmental Assessment (2001/42/EC), in order to establish the justification, alternatives, impacts, mitigation measures and monitoring for unforeseen adverse impacts. This was also bypassed. 

Such legal failures led to a compliance case against the EU at the UNECE (ACCC/C/2010/54) and in 2014 a subsequent declaration of legal non-compliance in International law: Decision V/9g of the Meeting of the Parties on compliance by the European Union with its obligations under the Aarhus Convention. The UNECE recommendations require the EU to:

“…. adopt a proper regulatory framework and/or clear instructions for implementing article 7 of the Convention with respect to the adoption of NREAPs. This would entail that the Party concerned ensure that the arrangements for public participation in its member States are transparent and fair and that within those arrangements the necessary information is provided to the public. In addition, such a regulatory framework and/or clear instructions must ensure that the requirements of article 6, paragraphs 3, 4 and 8, of the Convention are met, including reasonable time frames, allowing sufficient time for informing the public and for the public to prepare and participate effectively, allowing for early public participation when all options are open, and ensuring that due account is taken of the outcome of the public participation. Moreover, the Party concerned must adapt the manner in which it evaluates NREAPs accordingly”. 

As the UNECE documentation records, the EU has since 2014 failed to make any progress to comply with the recommendations above, repeatedly failing to reply to specific questions and advice. Furthermore, at the subsequent 2017 UNECE Meeting of the Parties, it blocked with its 28 votes, a further decision of non-compliance against it. Namely its refusal to provide its citizens with effective access to justice, in order to bring such challenges of non-compliance of EU environmental law directly into the Court of Justice of the European Union. Ongoing UNECE compliance proceedings have further expanded to include Regulation 2018/1999 on the Energy Union and Climate Action and the manner in which the National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) were adopted. Yet again, the legal requirements of Strategic Environmental Assessment were bypassed and the public had no opportunity to participate in the decision-making, when all options were open and effective public participation could take place. 

If we consider the 2018 World Health Organisation’s Environmental Noise Guidelines for the European Region, while these adopted conditional recommendations for wind turbine noise, they make it very clear: “There are serious issues with noise exposure assessment related to wind turbines”.

“Balance of benefits versus harms and burdens: Further work is required to assess fully the benefits and harms of exposure to environmental noise from wind turbines and to clarify whether the potential benefits associated with reducing exposure to environmental noise for individuals living in the vicinity of wind turbines outweigh the impact on the development of renewable energy policies in the WHO European Region”.

Significant negative impacts are occurring on rural populations from the impacts of high-energy sources of low frequency sound (infrasound). There are legal liabilities, as the required Strategic Environmental Assessments and associated monitoring for unforeseen adverse environmental effects never occurred. 

The EU once again fails to comply with International Law

The European Union have once again stonewalled attempts by the UN Aarhus Convention Committee (UNECE) to comply with the Aarhus Convention which protects citizens rights to protect their environment, and is a part of International Law, just like the Geneva Convention on Torture or the 1951 Refugee Convention. The Convention enshrines in law the rights of citizens to public participation, public access to information and access to justice in environmental matters. In 2017, it was found that the EU denied these rights to citizens when Member States such as Ireland prepared their Renewable Action Plans in 2010 (NREAPs), plans which had a serious impact on the environment. Since Member States are now preparing new Renewable Action Plans (NECPs), the Committee has switched it's focus on to them to ensure compliance. Essentially, the UN Committee is acting as a watchdog for the EU, something which the EU is not used to having around.


Regarding the evaluation by the Party concerned of member States’ 2010 NREAPs,
the Committee already made clear in its report on decision V/9g to the sixth session of the
Meeting of the Parties that the information provided by the Party concerned in that
intersessional period did not satisfy the requirements of the last sentence of paragraph 3 of
decision V/9g.

The Committee stressed the need for the Party concerned to address these points. The Party concerned has to date failed to do so. The Committee reiterates its serious concern that, despite having been explicitly invited to do so in the Committee’s first progress review, the Party concerned in its second progress report has still not yet replied to the questions put to it in the Committee’s second progress review on decision V/9g in the last intersessional period.

The Committee regrets the lack of engagement by the Party concerned on this issue.

However, since a proper regulatory framework or clear instructions for implementing
article 7 with respect to the NREAPs was never, and upon the NECPs’ supersession of the
NECPs, now never will be, put in place by the Party concerned, there will remain no proper
framework or clear instructions for any public participation on the NREAPs to be evaluated
against. The Committee thus considers it would be futile for the Committee to spend further
time on reviewing the manner in the Party concerned evaluates NREAPs and more expedient
to instead focus its review on the evaluation of the Party concerned of the member States’
post-2020 NECPs. The Committee underlines that it expects considerably better engagement
from the Party concerned moving forward than that it has provided with respect to the
evaluation of member States’ 2010 NREAPs.

The Committee reiterates its serious concern that, despite having been explicitly invited to do so in the Committee’s first progress review, the Party concerned in its second progress report has still not yet replied to the questions put to it in the Committee’s second progress review on decision V/9g in the last intersessional period. The Committee regrets the lack of engagement by the Party concerned on this issue.

However, since a proper regulatory framework or clear instructions for implementing article 7 with respect to the NREAPs was never, and upon the NECPs’ supersession of the NECPs, now never will be, put in place by the Party concerned, there will remain no proper framework or clear instructions for any public participation on the NREAPs to be evaluated against. The Committee thus considers it would be futile for the Committee to spend further time on reviewing the manner in the Party concerned evaluates NREAPs and more expedient to instead focus its review on the evaluation of the Party concerned of the member States’ post-2020 NECPs. The Committee underlines that it expects considerably better engagement from the Party concerned moving forward that it has provided with respect to the evaluation of member States’ 2010 NREAPs

Essentially when the European Union wants to implement it's plan, it will do it even when its in defiance of International Law. And still we in Ireland wonder why the UK would ever want to leave such an institution. 

Thanks to Pat Swords for the update and all his hard work in this case.

EU's Flawed Position on Climate Change Exposed by Trade Policy

Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament's representative on Brexit, uploaded this video made by the Economist, in support of liberal policy in the EU. The video claims that populists favour domestic production over imported goods implying that liberals such as Guy do not favour domestic production. This is not true because the EU have for example banned US beef and have had tariffs on other non EU beef products for many years to protect EU farmers. But there is a bigger issue here. Guy is a strong advocate for a global climate policy :  

A global climate policy would require a reduction on emissions from shipping and air travel, which would mean more focus on local production of food and goods. So the liberal EU policy of favouring the importing of goods from thousands of miles away over domestic production would naturally result in a global increase in carbon emissions and indeed in pollutants such as sulpher and nitrogen oxides. 

There are signs that the EU will be lifting more tariffs on non EU trade in response to Trump and the populist movement. Recently, the EU signed a provisional trade deal with Mexico which is 5,000 miles away from Ireland.  Countries like Mexico are not expected to meet it's greenhouse emission reductions targets so importing goods from these countries will also increase the carbon footprint there as well as globally (in the seas).  

EU liberal policy will have the unintended consequence of driving global emissions up, not down negating the actions they take on climate here in Europe. 

The European Union Proves Once Again it is Not a Democratic Institution

by Owen Martin

As European citizens who care deeply about the democratic values of the EU, we can only feel a sense of shame that the EU has gone into an international forum with a position that threatened to undermine democracy and accountability in a range of countries extending throughout the wider Europe and Central Asia. And the primary reason for this is the European Commission’s stubborn resistance to having its decisions on environmental matters challengeable before the EU courts in the way that the decisions of national authorities may be challenged at national level [Jeremy Wates, EEB Secretary General].

The EU constantly portrays itself as a beacon of democracy and law in the modern world. But it often does not live up to this ideal. This week, at the meeting of the parties to the Aarhus Convention, an International Treaty which grants the public certain rights in environmental decision making such as access to information, participation and access to justice, the EU failed to accept a ruling made against it in relation to access to justice for citizens. 

The "Remainer" crowd in the UK and the Guardian tell us that it is not the European Union which is the problem but individual Member States :

If the EU does have a democratic deficit, that is because it is made up of countries with their own problems with public engagement in politics. Plus governments have a habit of blaming “Brussels” when things go wrong, which feeds the idea of an unelected, untamed bureaucracy. As one senior EU official puts it: “Anything you like you claim for yourselves and anything you don’t like you blame on Brussels [The Guardian].”

 However, here we have a situation where NGOs from various Member and Non Member States are trying (unsuccessfully) to hold the EU bureaucratic behemoth to account. Indeed, Norway and Switzerland (both outside the EU) were both forceful in their condemnation of EU's refusal to accept the ruling made against them :

Today during the plenary not a single Party or stakeholder supported the EU position. On the contrary, every delegation that spoke on the issue made very explicit that these amendments were not acceptable to them as they would undermine the Convention in the long term without any legal grounds justifying such amendments. 

Any EU decision to call for a vote on this issue would:

• Destroy the consensus-based spirit that is the fundamental bedrock of the Convention.

• Send a clear signal to all other Parties that their views do not count.

• Enable the EU to force the rejection of a legally correct decision on the basis of political motives.

• Undermine the rules of procedure of the Convention.

We firmly believe that the amendments of the decision proposed by the EU would strongly undermine the Convention and its compliance mechanism. [Furthermore] the EU would return from Montenegro with its reputation in disgrace, having lost all credibility as a proponent of democratic norms.

[Statement from Norway and Swiss delegation].

But it gets even worse. As one NGO noted : 

 A day after European Commission President Juncker declared the rule of law to be one of three principles that must anchor the European Union in his State of the Union address, the EU has been heavily criticised for its failure to accept an international panel’s ruling that it is not ensuring adequate access to justice for its citizens at EU level.

I have to be honest. I didn't think the NGOs had it in them to stand up to the might of the EU Commission. I'm happy to be proved wrong. 

The reality is the European Union is just like any large State Power that has ever existed in the world. It dislikes immensely the idea of the individual citizen having a say in it's affairs or challenging it's decisions in the courts. It seeks to consolidate it's power, rather than divest it. We saw this during the Irish vote on the Lisbon Treaty. We are seeing it again in relation to it's obligations to the Aarhus Convention, the ultimate citizen empowering Treaty.

The full statement made by the coalition of NGOs is well worth a read for those interested in the technical details of what happened during last weeks events : 


http://eeb.org/eu-slammed-for-lack-of-respect-for-rule-of-law-on-environmental-justice/

Price of Electricity and Renewables Revisited

Previous work by Willis Eschenbach and Euan Mearns showed the relationship between Electricity costs and per capita installed renewable capacity. A new European Commission report shows the increases in electricity prices since 2010. I put this on a graph alongside the increase in share of electricity from renewable sources [Figure 1].

Figure 1 : Increase in electricity prices 2010-2015 plotted alongside increase in share 
of renewables in electricity generation 2010-2014

So the UK went from renewables providing 7% of electricity generation in 2010 to 17% in 2014 resulting in almost a 50% increase in prices over the same period. Ireland is in the top five increases in electricity prices over this period. Denmark seems to be an outlier (although they started off from very high prices) but most countries who invested heavily in renewables saw a sharp rise in electricity prices. 

Something that struck me was the proliferation of PIIGS countries at the top of the graph. So I labelled the top government indebted countries on the same graph [Figure 2] :

Figure 2: Top 7 member states with highest Government debt as % of GDP 

Greece, Italy and Portugal are the top 3 indebted countries in the EU (Debt of general government, as a percentage of GDP). Most of the countries investing heavily in renewables are also running up the biggest fiscal deficits. They have put environmental sustainability above economic sustainability. However, surely the two are linked ? If capitalism is the driver of climate change then living beyond your means must be twice as bad.

References

_________________

1)  Monitoring progress towards the Energy Union objectives – key indicators - see Page 62

https://ec.europa.eu/priorities/sites/beta-political/files/swd-energy-union-key-indicators_en.pdf

2)  Share of electricity from renewable sources in gross electricity consumption (%) - unfortunately this only goes up to 2014, whereas the prices in 1) goes up to 2015, so if a more recent report comes out I will update this blog. Still, Figure 1 is indicative of the electricity price/ RES-E trend.

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Share_of_electricity_from_renewable_sources_in_gross_electricity_consumption_(%25).png

3)  Risk Assessment of the EU Banking System - See Figure 1

https://www.eba.europa.eu/documents/10180/1315397/EBA+RISK+ASSESSMENT+REPORT.pdf/46d91b9a-f393-4b54-96eb-df06ca01bec5

An Interview with Peter Hitchens

There is currently much debate about Brexit in the Irish media, mostly from the Pro European Union side with scare stories about how Ireland's economy will fall off a precipice should Britain decide to exit the European Union on June 23rd.  The debate, this side of the water at any rate, seems to be devoid of any balance. 

Peter Hitchens is a columnist with the Mail on Sunday and has written several books including The Abolition of Britain and The War We Never Fought. He has kindly agreed to do an interview which includes discussion on Brexit, Energy and Climate and a host of other issues. Questions by Owen Martin.

Q:   I’m probably one of the few Irish people who voted Yes in the original Lisbon Treaty Referendum, but voted No in the second one. The Lisbon Treaty had reasonable stated aims :

•  It shall work for the sustainable development of Europe based on balanced economic growth and price stability, a highly competitive social market economy, aiming at full employment and social progress, and a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment.

The problem was that the European Union simply did not honour its pledge. Going back to the early days of the European Union, was its original intention to be a force for good, e.g. to prevent wars etc  ?

PH: You need to read Christopher Booker and Richard North’s ‘The Great Deception’, and also Hugo Young’s ‘This Blessed Plot’, for a discussion of the origins of the EU. There is no doubt that these are *political* not economic, born out of a desire to create a supranational body which will, slice by slice and generally very quietly,  remove power from national governments. This Utopian project claims to intend to end war. All Utopian projects have such claims. But given that one of the world’s worst wars, the American Civil War, was fought to maintain a supranational government against secession, one has to doubt its validity.

Q:  The Remainers will say that UK has a seat at the table and should be influencing EU policy not pulling out. That with perseverance, you can bring the changes in the EU that are for the better of everyone ?

PH: I have never found this persuasive. Outsiders have plenty of influence on bodies, especially if they have something to give, and something to take away. The old Leninist ‘Who Whom?’ test suggests that a single member of the EU has very little influence. The defence of specific national interests is not allowed for in the QMV system, nor is it meant to be.

Q.     Is there a breaking point for the EU ? A lot of people thought the Greek and Irish crises would spell the end of the Euro and/or EU, and then similarly the refugee crisis but instead it’s 2016 and we are talking about EU expansion.

PH: I think this is a ‘Eurosceptic’ fantasy. The founders and maintainers of the EU have always had a burning political purpose and are prepared , quite properly, to make sacrifices for it.  The EU may well decide to create a ‘Core Europe’ whose members will proceed to a much more complete integration, while second-class members remain much as they are, but that is just a sensible adaptation.

Q.     One of the arguments in favour of the EU is that it helped Eastern European countries such as Poland escape Communism. I also heard the same argument made about Portugal [Note: the Portugal argument was made on BBC Newsnight this week].

PH: I know of no evidence that the EU played any significant part in either process. Portugal, of course,  was never a Communist country.

Q.     Is the rise of the far right and left around Europe a natural reaction to EU’s plans for ever closer union ?

PH: No, it is largely a response to mass immigration. Most people couldn’t care less about ever-closer union..

Q.     In Ireland, we have the whip system. Those who fundamentally disagree with their Party on issues are forced to either conform, run as independent or form a new Party. In the event the Remain side wins, do you foresee a breakaway group formed by Brexitiers from different parties ?

PH: I doubt it. Tories are absurdly loyal to their party, more loyal to it than they are to their country. Why change now?  

Q.     Despite installing hundreds of billions of Euros worth of renewable infrastructure, carbon emissions are rising throughout the EU and the EU is more dependent on fuel imports than it was in the 1980s. Electricity Prices are skyrocketing resulting in industry jumping ship to America and Asia. The recent finding by UNECE Compliance Committee that the EU failed to ensure proper public participation in Ireland’s energy plans has been largely ignored by the European Commission. They now have backtracked on biofuel targets.  It’s environmental policies has been a mess from start to finish, yet as Colm McCarthy has said, when faced with a problem, the modern political solution is to repeat the same mistake double-fold. Even if Britain does stay in, won’t resentment grow throughout Europe anyway ? And isn’t this how Empires throughout history (if we can class European Union as one) collapsed in the end, rather than through plebiscites ?

PH: Possibly. As I don’t take the man-made climate change case very seriously, or regard these policies as being effective in dealing with it even if it is a genuine threat, I don’t much care. Dogma of all kinds drives nations and crowds mad.

Q.     Norway supplies something like a third of EU gas imports and 11% of its oil imports. Norway and Iceland are the third and fourth largest exporter of fish to the EU. Switzerland are one of the top exporters of goods to the EU. All three countries are outside the EU. Obviously, EU needs these countries more than they need EU. But these countries have another thing in common, namely they all have some form of direct democracy (granted Norway’s is only advisory rather than legal). Do you see direct democracy as a better system than plain vanilla democracy we have in Britain and Ireland ?

PH: No

Q.     The British media, and indeed in Ireland, portray Ireland as net beneficiaries of the EU. However, if you do the sums, we received about €9 billion in terms of farm subsidies and road funding but an ex IMF official has stated that the ECB forced Ireland to pay €8 bn to unsecured bondholders which we did not have to pay.  If you throw in EU Directives like Renewable and Water Directives, that have pushed taxes up further, it’s hard to see how Ireland is economically better off inside the EU ?

PH: I do not know enough to comment on this. I had the impression that Ireland, like Poland now, had been an EU favourite (as a pro EU ‘Anglo-Saxon’ state)  and was rewarded with huge infrastructure grants . But I have never looked into it. What a pity so much of it was spent on hideous motorways, and so little on railways and trams.

Q.  If UK do leave the EU in June, do you have any faith in the current British democratic system in solving the problems that you highlight ?

PH: I have no faith in the existing political parties. I have given up any sort of active politics, since the absurd survival of the Tory Party in 2010 when it ought to have collapsed and split. I merely write the national obituary.

Q.  In the event of Brexit, how do you see Irish and British relations ? Will we see borders in Northern Ireland again ?

PH: I hate the word ‘Brexit’, which conjures up in my mind the picture of a disgusting laxative breakfast cereal. I do not think Britain can leave the EU.

Q.  Quite a lot of the arguments made against Brexit both in UK and (particularly) in Ireland refer to the short term negative economic impacts that would result. Is this type of thinking a symptom of the wider culture of today that puts short term gain ahead of long term interests ?

PH: Yes. I am amazed that the fundamental question of independence barely arises. The level of the debate is woeful and tedious, bald men arguing over possession of a comb.

Q.  This week, a small community in Donegal found their local environment, one of the most scenic places in the British Isles, altered forever by a large industrial windfarm. This is a place where one could not get planning permission for a garden shed let alone something of this size.  There seems to be a total disconnect between laws made by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels and the people that they eventually impact on.

PH: Indeed. This is what empires are like. It is a great paradox that the Irish struggle for freedom has ended with Ireland becoming a German province.  The only compensation for a nationalist is that England has become one too.

Q.  You are a vocal critic of the Tory Party in its current guise. One thing they have done though, which no other British Party apart from UKIP would have done is offered a referendum on EU Membership.

PH: This offer was not genuine, and made in the confident belief that the Tories would not win a majority in May 2015.

  

Q.  They have also abolished subsidies for wind energy which the SNP and Labour criticised them over. Are these signs that the Tories still have some capacity to reform in the future ?

PH: Not fundamentally, no.

Q.  Is part of the problem, especially in these times of social media and headline driven media, that a complex message is much harder to get across than a simpler one ? This would apply as much to Parties on the Left as on the Right ? 

PH: A complex message is almost impossible to get across. NB James Carville’s first rule of political survival ‘While you’re explaining, you’re losing’.

Q.  Is the climate change movement simply a new religion ?

PH: It is certainly a new public dogma, and it is a lot more risky to express doubts about it than it is to be a fashionable atheist. But as it does not require its devotees to improve their own selves, it is more of a cult than a religion.

Q.  When J.Corbyn took over as leader of Labour, his aims included renationalising railways and Royal Mail as well as setting up a National Investment Bank to revitalize British manufacturing. It could be argued that these are reasonably sound policies. However, European Competition law would likely not allow him to implement them. Mr Corbyn is now campaigning to remain in EU. Does this show lack of decisiveness on his part ?

PH: Alas, yes.

Q.  Mr Corbyn was once a defender of coal workers rights, but has now bought the Green Party / EU anti-coal climate change line.  Are the traditional Labour Party roots been torn apart and if so, can they ever achieve electoral success again ?

PH: I do not think it has anything to do with electoral success. A party genuinely committed to these aims which fought hard enough might win an election. But few have the nerve to take the risk. Real politics dies when a country is taken over by the EU. All parties are compelled to accept the EU position, or the media and the establishment culture shouts them down and declares that they are ‘extremist’. You know politics is dead when the media spend more time attacking the opposition than they do criticising the government.

Q.  The Greens get about 2-3% of the vote in both Britain and in Ireland but quite a lot of their policies get rammed through nonetheless. How can a minority movement with such little support wield such power ?

PH: Your guess is as good as mine. People want and need to believe in something. So they do.

Q.  I’m in my 30s and can just about remember as a child seeing “Made in England” on the back of spoons and knives. Now, steel factories are closing in Britain. Is it the death knell for British manufacturing ? What is the wider cultural impact from such closures ?

PH: They probably weren’t actually made in England, just finished there. Nicholas Comfort has written an interesting book on the death of British manufacturing industry, a 60-year process of bad luck, incompetence and bad decisions, finished off by the EU.

Q.  England is concerned understandably about the level of immigration into the country. But isn't a certain level of immigration required to maintain a growing economy ?

PH: No .We have a million young people doing precisely nothing, and abort 180,000 healthy babies every year.

Q.  Hillary Clinton, President Obama and Cameron were mainly responsible for the war in Libya which has created so much instability in the world. Yet all three are very popular with voters. Is the reason weak political opposition or just ineffective media ?

PH: Both, but add very poor levels of education, and the dreadful conformism which pervades a society in which TV is the main medium of instruction.

Q.  Are the modern economic ideals of continuous growth really realistic and/or sustainable ?

PH: I suspect not, but I have no expertise in the matter.

Q.  The polls are continuously being proven wrong- the British General Election and the rise of Trump for example. Credit Ratings Agencies have also proven to be completely wrong. Most, if not all, of the predictions made by “climate change experts” have failed to materialize. Are we living in a world where too much faith is placed in “experts” ?

PH: Undoubtedly

Q.  There is increasing discussion in Ireland about the growing rural/city divide, that people in towns and cities should not be subsidizing those who live in rural areas. But while taxpayers subsidize a lot of things they often don’t like, only certain things get singled out. The cost of prisons and foreign aid for example are not up for discussion. Why do you think this is ?

PH: Because such campaigns invariably have a sectional or political purpose, and seek to focus minds on the subject where they want to influence opinion. Huge amounts of money and time are spent on manipulating the public mind. It is one of the prices we pay for the absurd system of universal suffrage democracy. You have to get people to think they want the things they are going to get anyway.

Q.  You’ve written an excellent book “The Abolition of Liberty” which helps explain the rise of crime in the past century. There is also a problem with the massaging of official crime statistics, since proven to be the case here in Ireland too. Was crime more of an issue in elections in the past and why isn’t it an issue now ?

PH: I don’t believe it was. Almost nobody has read my book. If they did, the debate about crime and punishment in our societies would be wholly different, rather than the ignorant drivel we have now. I suspect most people have now got used to living in a more disorderly society than we had before, and one in which all freedom will have to be constrained to cope with this.

Q.  Quite a lot of Irish readers will probably wonder what the function of the Monarchy is in the 21st century although the visit by the Queen to Ireland in 2011 was warmly welcomed here (with few exceptions).  How do you see her role ?

PH: To occupy a space in  politics which politicians will otherwise seek, and should never have, that of respect and love. The constitutional monarchy is like the King on the chessboard, powerless, but also occupying space which no other can occupy. Nobody understands this any more, and the monarchy rests only on the personal popularity of Elizabeth II . I doubt it will long survive her.

Q.  Michael O’Leary (a fervent Remain campaigner) once said that the local newsagent would soon be a thing of the past and this was an example of sound free market economics winning out.  Would you agree ?

PH: Yes. This is why I do not support free market liberalism.

Q.  Would you say it’s harder growing up now than in the 1950s ?

PH: Undoubtedly. The children of today are far less safe, far less free, far less well-educated,  far less in touch with their roots and past, and presented with an economic and political landscape of terrifying uncertainty.

Q.  Albert Einstein is quoted as saying that “it has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity”. Do you see technology as a great enabler or is there a cultural / social cost to relying too much technology ?

PH: I think technology should be our servant, not our master. I wince to see the transformation of humans into zombies by mobile telephones.