Brexit tidbits from climate conspiracy blogs

Here are some tidbits from around some of the denier blogs following Brexit.  At Anthony Watts' blog WUWT, a lot of the articles have been about UK politics in the wake of the vote to leave the EU. In one article, Anthony had the gall to compare the "leave" vote to a defining moment in the civil rights movement in the USA (archived here). Given that a lot of the "leave" vote was fueled by xenophobia, his article at best showed an appalling lack of knowledge of US history and the threat of a rise in right wing populism around the world, but could more easily be construed as extreme right-wing racists wanting to re-write history. (In a similar vein, Jo Nova points to British imperialism and past colonisation of countries in Asia and Africa to prove that there's no xenophobia in the UK.)

Judith Curry doesn't know much about the UK political scene either. In her contribution to Brexit (archived here) she speculated that Nigel Farage will be the next Prime Minister:

There seems to be a large segment of the UK population that does not support drastic emissions reductions, and if the new PM (possibly Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage) does not support these policies, then we might see a change.  But it may be that Britain’s overall response to climate change may not change.

Nigel Farage leads the UKIP party. He is not eligible to be Prime Minister because he's not a member of the UK Parliament (not the House of Commons or the House of Lords). He is a member of the European Parliament. The UKIP has only one seat in the House of Commons and that's held by Douglas Carswell MP. So it will take a big shift in the 2020 election for the UKIP to get the required number of seats to gain a majority so that Nigel Farage or anyone else in the UKIP could "have the confidence" of the House of Commons.

Incidentally, coinciding with the last general election in Britain, UK voters elected 24 UKIP members to the European Parliament, which is more than that of any other political party in the UK. (The UK has 73 seats in total in the European Parliament.) Those 24 UKIP members have each enjoyed a monthly salary, after tax and insurance, of €6,400.04 (currently $US7082.92 a month or $US84,995.04 a year), paid by the same Europe they want to get away from. That perk will finish in the future, though it's not clear when that will be. Presumably it will be at the latest at the next European Parliament election (in 2019), or maybe within two years of the UK formally notifying the EU that it's leaving by invoking Article 50. All that will be left in terms of formal political power for the UKIP will be the lone MP, Douglas Carswell in the House of Commons and three people (I think) in the House of Lords - at least until the next general election in the UK, which is scheduled for 7 May 2020.

Update: There is some speculation that a general election will be called earlier than scheduled. I don't know what that would mean for current European Parliament MPs. I presume they would have to resign from the European Parliament before they could stand in a UK election.

Judith also wrote how she wants climate science to stop focusing on climate change:

With regards to climate science, scientists from elite institutions are overwhelmingly against Brexit, and the concerns that have been raised are important ones. But the political rise of skepticism about AGW in Europe could be long-term advantageous to getting climate science out of its current myopic focus on human-caused climate change.

That's in line with Judith not wanting to mitigate against the harm that global warming is causing. She says "let them buy air-conditioners"!

In the most recent WUWT article (archived here), Eric Worrall seems to be rejoicing at the recent announcement by Siemens that it is putting a freeze on new wind power investment in the UK until there is more clarity around Brexit. (Existing projects won't be affected.) Jobs, wealth creation, energy independence and clean energy aren't a priority for climate science deniers.