Yet another Blair decision coming back to bite us?
Or neighbours on the other side of St George's Channel are rather pleased with themselves because "[The Republic of] Ireland has become one of the first countries to be permitted to extend the boundaries of its territorial waters. The State has received final and binding recommendations from the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf that it could increase its continental shelf off the south-west coast beyond the standard 200 nautical mile limit....A coastal state exercises over its continental shelf the sovereign right to exploit its natural resources, including oil and gas deposits as well as other minerals and biological resources, located on or under the seabed". (Source).
While the division of waters around the United Kingdom and the Republic is largely undisputed, I did wonder what the score is vis à vis Rockall. And lo and indeed behold, "In 1997, the UK abandoned any claim to an extended EEZ around and beyond it". This refers to You Know Who (OK, probably not literally) signing the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 25/7/97. That is a fairly substantial chunk of maritime real estate that has been blithely signed away, "relinquish[ing] its right to claim an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 200 nautical miles extending from the rock", by agreeing that "Rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf".
As to the Hibernians, they "regard it as merely an uninhabitable rock without any territorial waters and thus irrelevant when determining the boundaries of the exclusive economic zones of Denmark, the Republic of Ireland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom", and in a written answer, "Ireland claims an extended continental shelf … up to more than 500 nautical miles (926 km), particularly in the Hatton–Rockall area."
Great. Just great.
While the division of waters around the United Kingdom and the Republic is largely undisputed, I did wonder what the score is vis à vis Rockall. And lo and indeed behold, "In 1997, the UK abandoned any claim to an extended EEZ around and beyond it". This refers to You Know Who (OK, probably not literally) signing the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 25/7/97. That is a fairly substantial chunk of maritime real estate that has been blithely signed away, "relinquish[ing] its right to claim an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 200 nautical miles extending from the rock", by agreeing that "Rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf".
As to the Hibernians, they "regard it as merely an uninhabitable rock without any territorial waters and thus irrelevant when determining the boundaries of the exclusive economic zones of Denmark, the Republic of Ireland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom", and in a written answer, "Ireland claims an extended continental shelf … up to more than 500 nautical miles (926 km), particularly in the Hatton–Rockall area."
Great. Just great.
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In fairness, there is fuck all in Rockall except maybe puffins
All very true, but signing away our interests in the waters around it, like good boy scouts, was cretinous.
Personally I prefer St. Kilda.(or Hiort in Gaelic!)
After Blair has finally been locked away in secure, soundproof accommodation, in a jacket with a lot of straps on it, couldn't we just do a blanket rescind of every single thing he signed over the previous 10 years and return this country to normality?
Does territorial control give rights over the air (and space) above it as well as rights to other natural resources exploitation?
Certainly the Falklands war had an element of assertion of geological and exploitation rights and their extension to it.
Rescinding would need to go back further than 10 years unfortunately, to 'return this country to normality'...
Labout tradition, innit? Little Wislon signed away a chunk of our North Sea to Norvege nul points.
HG - Well, yes. But sluicing out everything that had been touched by the mad, febrile fingers of Tony Blair and his destructive one-worlder cohorts would be a good start.
This is disgraceful. We can't surrender Rockall. It even has its own newspaper (which has been going for years and is one of my bookmarks):
http://www.therockalltimes.co.uk/
I very much like Verity's suggestion. After Bliar is gone, can't we just say that he was a bit gone in the head and any treaties he signed should be quietly shredded?
After all, I have to be legally of "Sound Mind And Body" to sign a Will leaving my house to someone, so how can you be a rabid delusional paranoid control freak and still be allowed to sign your whole country away to the EU?
OK, Geoff, fancy, actressy tony is not the one who sold Britain into the EU. That was fancy, actressy Ted Heath. Please keep your actresses straight ... so to speak.
However, Geoff says: After Bliar is gone, can't we just say that he was a bit gone in the head and any treaties he signed should be quietly shredded?"
Point taken. Stealth.
Anyway, Britain has been cursed for around 100 years. When the equivacators got a voice and the one-worlder movement began.
I see Michael Meacher, who I've never heard of, gets reported as spouting scientifically illiterate sentences: "The report says the world's poor will be in the front line against climate change, facing death and injury due to heat waves, floods, storms and droughts."
WELL, THANK GOD!
At last an opportunity for the "world's poor" to STFU and take responsibility for itself!
"World's Poor": You failed because you failed, despite hundreds of billions of Western taxpayer money, penny by penny filched for you, money pumped into the cesspit of Africa to get yourselves free of your "strong men". You failed. Billions that could more productively have been spent in our own countries for our own people(who produced the wealth) So?
The Al Goreians say you are going to face "heat waves, flood, storms and droughts." Except for the droughts deal, it sounds like a spa. Frankly, I think these people should pay for the privilege.
It predicts that the worst affected regions of the world will be the Arctic, sub-Saharan Africa, small low-lying islands, and the deltas of the major Asian rivers.
... Uh, not following here. The Arctic's going to get warmer but sub-Saharan Africa? Cooler, hotter, tidal waves? Or is the whole world, including the Eskimos, in global warming mode? Manufacturers of dakshikis would appreciate some genuine, market-driven predictions.
Michael Meacher, the former environment minister and stalking horse challenger to Gordon Brown, said that neither the Government nor the Tory leader David Cameron had "fully grasped the scale of the challenge, let alone proposed any serious way of meeting it".
If I may, I'll step in here. Chilean Merlot and a yawn.
He added: "Man-made climate change is the single greatest threat facing the world. But so far our policies have been marked by timidity and inadequacy."
I agree. We have to stop these Third World inadequates cooking and heating by cow dung, so toxic it kills sleeping children. We need industrial progress, as we have large-time in India and China to improve people's quality of life. Funny how Africa got left behind yet again! Getting to be a 50-year habit. Hmmm. Wonder what went wrong.
And one-worlder primitives should not be accorded airtime.
Nor the British Sovietesque toxic upper class from an age 100 years ago - although tenacious. Inexplicably, to me, the ghoulish ghost of the Soviet is winning in Britain.
How did I morph into an anonymous?
Verity, I absolutely loved your post. Pure genius. Can't fault a single word.
Anon you must get your own blog
That or post on mine , I have a plan
The Hitch - That wasn't an anonymous, it was me. I don't know how my post got credited to anonymous because filling in that form is routine and reeeeeely easy, and you don't even have to type in difficult sets of letters of verification.
Verity - one of your best, even by your high standards.
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