UK Government Insists Fracking Goes Ahead

There are a lot of miffed off people in Lancashire, UK who would perhaps like to put their energy in to petitioning their local council to secede from the UK government over a recent fracking debacle. Residents from the Lancashire area have recently seen a decision by their regional council to prevent fracking in their local area overturned by the UK government. It seems that there is a genuine reason for the residents to feel agrieved and we all know how futile the efforts of those espousing to take up civil disobedience and/or illegal actions, in a bid to prevent the fracking from going ahead, will be.

This fracking debacle in Lancashire has brought about an urgent situation with plans to go ahead by Cuadrilla, the fracking firm, in Spring of 2017. Lancashire County Council decided not to frack, but the UK government has said, "good golly old boy. We must frack in your region. Have you gone mad?"

For those Lancastrians whose faith remains strong in the “democratic process”, they can see that they have two groups of people who they each must seemingly bow to. One group call themselves Lancashire County Council (or whoever your regional council may be) and the other is the UK government. It is 'popular opinion' that the UK government trumps any decision by any regional council. However, the Lancastrians have recently voted to secede from a third group of people in the form of Brexit, where the unbuckling of a notch on the strap has been promised to take place in two years time. Would it be beneficial for those Lancastrians to lend their consideration to unbuckling one more notch on the strap from those they deem themselves to be subjected to? I think yes, with an emphasise on the consideration.

There are, as there are always, those determined individuals who vow to prevent this type of action at all costs who will make themselves as inconvenient as possible to those whose actions they oppose, but they will undoubtedly fail on this occasion as is so often the case when facing the force of the state, who they already deem themselves as subjected to. I am sympathetic to such people but I do question if those individual's energies would be better spent towards achieving their intended goal by considering the aspect of secession at regional level instead of chaining themselves to some railings or the like. Of course accepting a promise to delay the action for two years, as was previously seen with Brexit, would be out of the question on this occasion.

Democracy Fails The Individual Every Time

If you are a Lancastrian who believes in democracy, as the vast majority of Lancastrians do, then it is clear that on this occasion democracy has failed you. A group of people who live further away than the group of people in your regional council have decided that they know best. This is the exact same predicament which you found yourself in over the Brexit referendum. Which part of your identity is stronger, your Britishness or your Lancastrian-ness? I'm sure that if I heard your voice I could pin point it to a more precise location than simply, “England”.

There are many mistaken conflations when it comes to identities, for instance, you will not stop being European once you leave the EU. Similarly, you would not stop being English if you were to leave the UK government and you would not stop being Lancastrian if you unbuckled yourself entirely from the belt and ended your relationship with Lancashire County Council. States are not the same as geographical bits of land. Your relationship to the state is significantly more fragile than your connection to the land.

Do not dismiss the thought of seceding from the UK government without consideration, even if at first the suggestion does seem preposterous. After all, why should a group of people far away be allowed to approve a test experiment in your local area when your regional council decided that it was not acceptable? Many of your neighbours and perhaps you yourself accepted a similar argument with the EU, what is so different about the UK government? The currency! Ah yes, touchez. The truth is that any fearful scenario of, “how will this work”, or “how will that work”, detracts ones thinking from the underlying moral principle that it is never OK to impose your will upon an unwilling knowledgeable peaceable human being. Take care to scrutinise your own thinking on this matter. It is a profoundly important moral principle.

Fracking is a unique situation because if you consider a human digging under the ground of his own private property it doesn't appear to make much sense to oppose that activity but when you consider the fact that in doing so there is a risk to the drinking water which everybody needs, it is evidently a risk to everybody. There are people who believe the risk is an absolute certainty and there are people who believe that there is absolutely no risk at all and then there are all of those people in between. Regardless of where you fall on this scale one fact remains for everybody and that is that you do require safe drinking water in order to live and that alone deems this to be worthy of your consideration.

Reject Your Principles Or Reject The State

I would discourage you from considering all of the what ifs going forward when considering secession because as I said before it detracts from the importance of the underlying moral principle. There were many unanswered what ifs from history when open slavery was first made in to a criminal act. It was made criminal because slavery was immoral, not because there was a grand plan for what each and every slave could do instead. Sometimes when a bad habit or a bad relationship has been identified you just have to take the decision to end it or cut ties in order to simply allow yourself to move in the direction which you would like to move.

On the other hand, I would most certainly encourage you to consider what you actually think with regards to who you would like to bow to. It might be a metaphorical bow which you make, but make no mistake about the dastardly foundations of your relationship with the state. The state takes from you by force and will escalate the punishment for resisting all the way to risking your death. This might sound dramatic but non-compliance and resistance will be met with the taser. Make no mistake that this carries the risk of death for even the most minor of offences, and it is all initiated by the state.

I'm going to end this article with an anti-climax because I do not actually advocate petitioning the local council to secede from the UK government. I advocate seceding from the local council as well. I advocate seceding all the way down to the individual level in one swoop. In my eyes this business about secession is wasteful of precious time. I will not elaborate further in this article but I will concede that I personally would find secession from the UK government to be preferable to the position which I find myself in today so, if you are truly dedicated to democracy and this is the action which you choose, it appears to me that it is the lesser of many other evils, which is an oh so common position one frequently finds themselves in when participating in democracy (the lesser evil is obviously still evil).

What I absolutely do advocate most of all is for each individual who cares to, to consider their own thoughts on when is it ever OK for one to force their will upon an unwilling knowledgeable peaceable human being because the state violates this principle constantly and if it stopped violating this principle then the state would cease to exist. This is true whether its the UK government or your local regional council. If you find that you have some exemptions for a particular victimless crime I would prompt you to scrutinise your own thoughts a little further and ask yourself what you would want to be done to a loved one if they were the culprit to your exemption to this basic moral principle.