The bonfire of environmental regulations, rocketing water pollution, invasive planning policy and weakened conservation laws. A decade after the referendum, Britain looks much less environmentally friendly.
It’s now 10 years since the UK voted to exit the European Union. A momentous and hugely divisive event, which has been retrospectively chronicled and analysed via myriad documentaries and articles this month. But very little has been said about what the decision to leave has meant for the ecology of a country that is already among the world’s most nature-depleted.
That is until now. The Wildlife Trusts new report, Broken promises, deregulation and declining nature: the UK environment ten years after the Brexit, lays out the stark reality of what happens to ecosystems with rudderless leadership, deregulation, stalemate in-fighting, and self-inflicted economic decline. It makes for bleak reading, to put it lightly.
Among other things, the research lays out how EU leaders have introduced or updated 28 key environmental laws which have not been mirrored by Westminster. This has left the country much more vulnerable to ecological damage, with water pollution just one example of the fallout posing a direct threat to human and animal health.
‘We were promised a Green Brexit, but what we got was a greyer UK. Brexit freedoms have been used to attack the laws that help nature and people flourish, risking a dangerous future and a standard of living below that of our EU neighbours,’ said Matthew Browne, head of public affairs, at The Wildlife Trusts.
‘It could have been very different. Leaving the EU could have provided the UK with the freedom to set tougher environmental laws: to hold water companies to account, to protect wild areas from being bulldozed, to save the UK’s dwindling fish stocks, improve public health and to build greater resilience back into our food supply chains,’ he continued.
Wild species and protected landscapes are also suffering thanks to changes to the Planning and Infrastructure Act. A key step in the bid to build more than 1 million new homes this parliament, Britain’s systems and rules for approving new developments are in such a mess the risks are twofold: treading water, if not drowning, and poor oversight leading to damaging decisions.
Marine life has been hit hard, too. Although there are some success stories in our seas, these are few and far between, especially when compared to the setbacks. Such as a failure to ban bottom trawling, leading to ever-more damage to the ocean floor. Much of which is thought to be irreversible and responsible for triggering an increase in carbon release. Meanwhile, pesticide control has been passed to the Health & Safety Executive with little-to-no budget or resource increase, leaving the organisation overwhelmed and unable to operate effectively. Trace chemical levels in food, and the use of toxins banned on the continent are now realities.
Perhaps most worrying, in terms of making future progress on green issues, The Wildlife Trust’s report shows that environmental regulations have been used as scapegoats for sluggish economic performance far more since Brexit than they were before. This has encouraged more experimentation with deregulation, which has so far failed to boost GDP. A situation described in the analysis as a ‘lose-lose’.
‘The dashing of these promises for a Green Brexit has done more than just harm nature – it’s damaged our economy, health and national security too,’ added Browne. ‘Successive waves of deregulation over the past decade mean fewer green spaces, less wildlife, more pollution and more vulnerability to floods, droughts and heatwaves. The growth the advocates of deregulation promised is nowhere to be seen, and so it’s high time a new course was charted that delivers a better, greener future for all.’
You can read the full report here.
Image: Andy Newton / Unsplash
More on Brexit:
Green and pleasant land: UK environmental policy post-Brexit
Government fails to back post-Brexit climate change legislation
The impact of Brexit on green industries and sustainability, as told by its CEOs