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Plane party politics
• TWO Islington institutions (among others) that I have been proud to support over the last few years are Arsenal and Greenpeace. I would like to think that Islington’s two MPs would be able to do the same. So when Greenpeace was calling on MPs from all parties to oppose the Labour government’s dangerous plans to expand Heathrow I watched with interest to see what happened. Expanding Heathrow is a disaster for the environment. It is a waste of money at a time when investment needs to be made in sustainable infrastructure and it is bad news for Islington residents, with more flights over us as we try to sleep.
What did our MPs do? Jeremy Corbyn voted with Lib Dem and other opposition MPs against expanding Heathrow. He was not alone in this. Some MPs gave up government jobs for their principles.
But Emily Thornberry did not even bother to vote. Despite being elected to represent our views in Parliament she chose not to do so.
And what particularly disgusted me is that she accused Greenpeace of colluding with the Conservative Party, an unusual claim given that the Conservative Party has nothing more than a rhetorical commitment to sustainability and continues to propagate a political philosophy committed to a vision of the planet as an infinite resource to be pillaged for the short-term benefit of humanity.
Whereas Greenpeace has a proud history of independently-minded campaigning on the environment – unlike Ms Thornberry.
Some people care enough about the environment to rise above party politics. Ms Thornberry is obviously not one of them.
CHRIS GURNEY
N7, Address supplied
• AS an MP I have always been steadfastly against airport expansion because of the impact of aviation on the environment (Where was our MP? February 6). Planes are the fastest-growing source of carbon emissions – and they speed global warming with particular ferocity because of the high altitude at which they emit greenhouse gases.
Along with a number of my constituents who contacted me before the January 28 debate in Parliament on airport expansion, I do not see this question as a Nimby issue. I believe no extra runways should be built in the UK, whether at Heathrow, the north of England, the Thames Estuary or any other region.
I was therefore profoundly disappointed by the decision to proceed with the third runway at Heathrow. But I have also been disappointed that the parliamentary campaign against it has been hijacked by a Nimby lobby away from the genuine environmental movement.
During the debate in Parliament on airport expansion, well-intentioned environmental calls against Heathrow expansion were hijacked by the Conservative-Liberal opposition motion. Their promise to “give full consideration to alternative solutions” was explained by the Conservative Shadow Transport Secretary, who said they “do not rule out the possibility of airport expansion in the South-east” and would support the “proportionate expansion of regional airports on a case-by-case basis”.
This came in the same week that Boris Johnson, the most powerful Tory in Britain, sailed up the Thames in a dredger to publicly announce his grand vision for a four-runway, two-island airport in the Thames Estuary.
So while I disagree with the government’s decision to expand Heathrow, I cannot support the Conservatives, who advocate expanding other South-eastern or regional airports instead. With the Liberals in tow, they seem to have cynically opposed Heathrow on the basis of west London electoral considerations while remaining disinterested or ambivalent about the overall environmental impact of airport expansion.
And while I genuinely welcome the compromises the government has made to strictly cap flights and limit emissions from a third runway at Heathrow, I am not confident it will be enough to protect against the emissions from a new runway.
I therefore listened to the debate in the Commons, I spoke against the expansion of any airports in the UK and I chose to support neither the government’s pro-Heathrow motion nor the Conservatives who back the expansion of other airports in the South-east and elsewhere in the UK. I know others showed their opposition to Heathrow in different ways, but, for me, all airport expansion must be opposed to halt the damage of aviation to our planet.
EMILY THORNBERRY
Labour MP, Islington South and Finsbury
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