Dear Mr Pursglove
As this is the first time I have written to you since the general election last week, I must congratulate you on a personal level for holding your seat of Corby and east Northants (despite my and many others’ best attempts to get the vote out for Labour and Beth Miller). Given that we might be going back to the polling stations fairly soon (who knows?), I’d like to get your views on a number of issues which will influence my vote in your constituency. So this is the first of several letters you will get from me over the next few days.
Environmental protection post-Brexit.
As you may recall, I voted Remain in the EU referendum and one of my reasons for doing that was to ensure the maintenance of current level of environmental protection.
I read this passage in the Conservative manifesto with alarm: ‘Once EU law has been converted into domestic law, parliament will be able to pass legislation to amend, repeal or improve any piece of EU law it chooses‘ as this is completely opaque about what would be kept and what would be ditched.
The Prime Minister has appointed Michael Gove as SoS for DEFRA, and fairly recently Mr Gove was quoted as saying that aspects of the EU Habitats Directive (which was, by the way, drafted by Stanley Johnson) are ‘absurd’. He was referring to the protection given to rare and precious habitats in his own constituency of Surrey Heath.
I’m assuming that a Conservative administration will weaken the protection given to species and habitats until DEFRA or the Conservative party assures me otherwise.
Could you please:
- seek clarification from DEFRA on this issue?
- let me know your own views on this matter?
- be aware that unless the next Conservative manifesto is clear that the environmental protection given by the Birds and Habitats Directives will be maintained post-Brexit then the Conservative Party is likely to lose even more support in future elections?
I suppose that a soft Brexit (which isn’t exactly my preferred option, nor yours) might be a way to deliver environmental protection in a post-Brexit UK, but the other is for the Conservative Party to join Labour, LibDems and Greens in promising to maintain the environmental protection afforded by the EU Habitats and Birds Directives.
I look forward to getting your own response to these points and those of DEFRA.
Yours sincerely
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