I wonder what our pro-nuclear greenies will be thinking this week as they listen to President Xi Jinping and George Osborne bombastically declaring ‘a new nuclear dawn for the UK’.

I hope they’ll be feeling as ashamed as they should be.

It may be just a little harsh to blame the meltdown in UK energy policy on a handful of well-meaning but monumentally misguided environmentalists, who chose some time ago to lend their voices to the nuclear establishment here in the UK.

They were warned that it would probably end in tears, and so it has turned out. Here’s the indictment against them.

1. Creating confusion

They were warned that their high-profile support would prove to be massively confusing for many people, including a large number of environmentalists who were persuaded (often against their better judgement) that if the likes of George Osborne and his pro-nuclear buddies had decided that nuclear is ‘a necessary evil’, then that was good enough for them.

Personally, I suspect that this may even have influenced Friends of the Earth as it went through a hugely damaging ‘review’ of its own anti-nuclear stance a couple of years ago. Happily, under new CEO Craig Bennett, that deeply damaging equivocation has been set aside – and FoE will be first to be tweeting its disdain for George Osborne’s latest nuclear shenanigans this week.

There are even those who think that the pro-nuclear greenies are one of the reasons why Greenpeace’s campaign against nuclear power here in the UK has been anaemic at best, and utterly irrelevant at worst.

2. A failed technology

They were warned that EdF’s EPR (the reactor of choice for Hinkley Point) had already proved to be a total plonker at both Flamanville in France and Olkiluoto in Finland. And that it would inevitably prove to be a total plonker here in the UK. And so it has turned out.

To be fair, even they eventually woke up to that ineluctable reality, shamefacedly putting out a statement on September 18th:

“Hinkley C bears all the distinguishing features of a white elephant: overpriced, overcomplicated and overdue. The delay that was announced recently should be the final straw. The Government should kill the project.”

3. Devastating impact on sustainable energy alternatives

They were warned that any kind of pro-nuclear positioning would be devastating for the genuinely sustainable alternatives they simultaneously purport to support.

And that any kind of ‘both / and’ story (ie we need both lots of nuclear and lots of renewables) would be totally abused by a Government that cares only about nuclear – and about fracking.

And so it has proved to be, as Osborne has trashed the prospects for renewables here in the UK, has consigned to history our zero-carbon agenda for the built environment, has ridiculed the importance of energy efficiency, and, in the process, has guaranteed that we have literally no chance whatsoever of achieving our statutory targets under the Climate Change Act.

4. Supping with the Devil, eat with a long spoon

They were warned that when you sup with these nuclear devils you can never be sure what you’re going to end up with. It’s no surprise to me, therefore, that our pro-nuke greenies have been keeping very quiet about the now inevitable prospect of a huge part of our energy system in the UK being handed over to the Chinese.

Neither Osborne nor Xi Jinping is particularly persuaded by EdF’s case for the EPR at Hinkley Point. But they’re both salivating with excitement at the prospect of giving the Chinese nuclear industry control over future developments at both Sizewell and Bradwell.

How can that possibly work from a sustainability point of view, let alone an energy security point of view? Even the Tories have started to wake up to this particular horror story.

Once captured by the nuclear industry, you don’t get to choose what you think might be the best (ie least problematic) option: you get what you’re given. And as pro-nuclear environmentalists, you get stitched up by an industry that gobbles up people like you for breakfast, that has lied, inveigled and bribed its way into the heart of umpteen governments over decades, often off the back of its still undeniable links to the nuclear weapons establishment.

So just how naïve can you be?

That’s some indictment. Five years ago, the UK was seen to be an indisputable leader in the international diplomacy of climate change. In Paris in a few weeks’ time we will be seen as an out-and-out pariah, sitting alongside the carbon-intensive horror stories of Canada and Australia.

To be sure, that’s primarily down to the Tories, and George Osborne in particular, with a lot of rather forlorn aiding and abetting from the Lib Dems under the last Coalition Government. But maybe they wouldn’t have got away with all that quite so easily if the Green Movement had been a lot more resolute in its advocacy of genuinely sustainable energy solutions.

So for God’s sake, think again before you shift your allegiance to the latest ‘just over the horizon’ dreams now being peddled so enthusiastically by the nuclear industry. In your recent recantation on the EPR front, here’s what you said:

“We urge the Government to scrap this plant (Hinkley C), and use the money promised to its investors to accelerate the deployment of other low carbon technologies, both renewable and nuclear. We would like to see the Government produce a comparative study of nuclear technologies, including the many proposed designs for small modular reactors, and make decisions according to viability and price, rather than following the agenda of the companies which have its ear.”

Elsewhere, you’ve made the case for the Integral Fast Reactor, and your colleague Stephen Tindale (a former Executive Director of Greenpeace UK) is out there proselytising passionately about the Molten Salt Reactor. Others bang on and on about Pebble Bed Reactors, or a variety of new reactors based on thorium technologies *.

Now, time to support the real solutions!

Give yourselves a break, guys! It is indeed just about possible, tens of billions of dollars and decades down the line, that one of these nuclear will-o’-the-wisps may materialise in such a form as to produce a few usable electrons.

In the meantime, that big old fusion reactor in the sky, known as ‘the sun’, will go on producing the wherewithal to revolutionise every aspect of our energy systems down here on Earth at a price that everyone will be able to afford.

And then bring in all the other renewables, reducing in price all the time, as well as a whole generation of new technologies driving both energy efficiency and storage, set to work through distributed micro-grids and the explosion of investment in electric vehicles, and you can see the future emerging right here and now in our everyday lives.

It took you all a very long time to recognise the EPR as the humungous white elephant it has been all along. So, please, think again before backing another whole herd of tomorrow’s white elephants, and get back to doing what you once did really well: advocating for the kind of radical decarbonisation on which our future depends.

That means killing off coal and kerosene first, and then oil and gas, through technologies that are already doing the job, in an increasingly affordable way, for rich countries and poor countries alike.

Jonathon Porritt is Founder Director of Forum for the Future. His latest book, ‘The World We Made‘ is available from Phaidon.

This article was originally published on Jonathon’s blog.

* Author’s note: If you’re interested in reading more about these variegated nuclear pipedreams, then just follow ‘The Ecologist‘. Time after time, Editor Oliver Tickell and his fellow authors have painstakingly dispelled these false hopes and endless promises of nuclear jam tomorrow. For example:

• ‘New reactor types are all nuclear pie in the sky‘ by Jim Green.
• ‘Nuclear power – small isn’t beautiful, safe, or cheap‘ by  Justin McKeating.

‘Collateral damage’. ‘Enhanced interrogation’. What’s the name for those phrases or words that sound relatively innocuous but are actually covering up something that’s very violent or very bad?

Here’s another one: regulatory cooperation. Cooperation is a good thing, right? It doesn’t sound so threatening, but it’s a masterful example of the power of language to make something terrible sound benign.

And it’s nestling at the heart of the trade deal being hammered out between the EU and the USA.

The widespread public concern about the controversial free trade deal known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) can be largely grouped into two main themes.

One is concern that it could mean the privatisation of the NHS, and unease about corporations being able to sue governments in secret courts (ISDS).

But there’s a less well-known aspect of TTIP that could even more fundamentally and negatively affect many aspects of our lives, but it just sounds so boring that people tend to start glazing over as soon as you mention it.

‘Red tape’ – or essential protections for health, environment, labour?

To most people, regulations such as air pollution limits and food safety standards are common sense protections against dangerous threats.

However, to many big businesses, these rules are just red tape or ‘non-tariff barriers to trade’ (NTBs) which inhibit profits. Proponents of TTIP say that 80% of the supposed benefits of the deal will come from getting rid of these NTBs.

Our new briefing shows how regulatory cooperation presents a unique opportunity for corporate interests on both sides of the Atlantic to lobby for these standards to be brought down to the lowest common denominator.

Many of the major corporate interests pushing for TTIP actually think this, not ISDS, is the aspect of the deal that is most important to them. Some supporters of TTIP have even gone as far as to advocate sacrificing ISDS to protect regulatory cooperation. Corporate lobbyists have expressed the hope that regulatory cooperation will make them so powerful that it will allow them to effectively ‘co-write’ regulation with policy-makers.

Campaigners fear this could lead to the EU caving in to corporate demands to allow chlorine-washed chicken, hormone treated meat, or more GM food. There are even fears that it could herald a return to the use of asbestos in certain building materials.

Even if some of these fears do not become reality, at the very least, it will slow down the adoption of new safety standards and regulations, delays that could cost lives, and introduce dangerous or environmentally damaging products into Europe by the back door.

A long term mission of continuous deregulation

Take the cosmetics sector for instance. The EU currently bans the use of 1,377 harmful substances for use in cosmetic products. The US bans just 11. Even a ‘split the difference’ type agreement on cosmetics could lead to hundreds of dangerous substances being approved for use in the EU. This could mean acceptance of additives like lead in lipstick (legal in the US).

After pressure from campaigners, the EU Commission is now saying that it is no longer pursuing harmonisation or mutual recognition of cosmetics standards.  But there has been no such undertaking from the US side, so it is perfectly possible that cosmetics regulation could be ceded to the US side in exchange for something else during the negotiation process.

What’s most dangerous about regulatory cooperation is that it will make the trade deal a so-called ‘living agreement’. This means that negotiators will continue to dismantle regulation behind closed doors for years after TTIP is no longer the focus of media attention.

Put simply, it is a way for EU and US officials to remove the most controversial aspects of TTIP from the main agreement, leaving them to be discussed out of the public eye when the controversy has died down.

How do we know? Because it’s already started

Proponents of TTIP say all of this is just scaremongering, but the reality is that this stuff is already happening. The mere prospect of the deal is already weakening certain EU standards.

For example, US officials successfully used the prospect of TTIP to bully the EU into abandoning plans to ban 31 dangerous pesticides with ingredients that have been shown to cause cancer and infertility. 

A similar fate befell regulations around the treatment of beef with lactic acid. This was banned in Europe because of fears that the procedure was being used to conceal unhygienic practices. The ban was repealed by MEPs in a Parliamentary Committee after EU Commission officials openly suggested TTIP negotiations would be threatened if the ban wasn’t lifted.

Campaigners and concerned citizens on both sides of the Atlantic need to fight to protect hard won standards and regulations to keep us and our environment safe.  Excluding the NHS or any other public service isn’t enough, as the regulatory race to the bottom will affect us all regardless.

TTIP should be opposed in its entirety, not just the ISDS provisions that have gained most public attention so far.

The briefing: ‘Race to the bottom Regulatory cooperation in TTIP: A blueprint for corporate domination?‘

Alex Scrivener is policy officer at Global Justice Now.

This article was originally published by Global Justice Now.

A new study carried out by Sheffield University shows that wind and solar power saved consumers a massive £1.55 billion in 2014.

And this year it will save us even more money – an estimated £2 billion, according to the researchers.

The saving arises because when wind and or solar power kick in with no minimum price (as they have no fuel cost to pay), the most expensive generation on the grid at the time is pushed off.

And under electricity market rules, that pushes down the wholesale power price across the entire system. This is known as the ‘Merit Order Effect’ and has also been observed in other countries including Germany.

The result is to more than halve the cost of the support going to renewable generators under the Renewables Obligation (RO) and Feed-in Tariffs (FITs) – by a massive 58%.

In 2014 these support payments cost energy consumers about £2.67 billion. But after subtracting the £1.55 billion benefit in lower prices, the net cost of supporting renewable power generation was only £1.12 billion.

The study was commissioned by leading green energy retailer Good Energy, whose chief executive Juliet Davenport said: “This analysis puts the bill payer at the centre of the debate around renewable energy subsidies. Let’s give them the full picture and not just half of it.”

Government mission to cut costs is also cutting benefits

Chancellor George Osborne is on a mission to cut the cost of supporting renewable power generation under the ‘Levy Control Framework’ (LCF). That’s the name for the budget allocated to subsidising low carbon energy through the RO, FITs and other mechanisms.

Thanks to the unexpected surge in renewables, the sums paid out under the LCF have increased faster than expected, leading to a projected £1.5 billion ‘overspend’ in the current financial year.

This is why the government says it has announced a series of massive cuts to renewable energy support. At the same time, they have also imposed a carbon tax, known as the Climate Change Levy, onto renewable energy, while also bringing in planning restrictions on onshore wind farms.

As a result large parts of the once thriving UK renewable energy industry are going bust, costing thousands of jobs – 27,000 are at risk or already lost in the solar sector alone – and wiping out the value of companies that are being forced into liquidation.

However the government does not include the benefit to consumers of the lower wholesale power prices, but only the direct cost of the support, which is added onto energy bills – even though the actual cost to consumers is 58% less than it appears thanks to the lower energy prices.

“What is not taken into account is the fact that renewable energy, such as wind and solar, has actually been bringing the cost of energy down for consumers”, commented Davenport. “The bill payer money invested into supporting renewables yields significant benefits, let’s be very clear about that.”

Renewables – a victim of their own success

Another reason why the LCF budget is being overspent is that the ‘top up’ payments to renewable power generators increase as the market price of power falls, in order to pay them the price that’s guaranteed under FIT and the newly introduced ‘Contracts for Difference’ (CFDs).

And average wholesale power prices have been declining from a mid-2012 peak of around £50 per MWh (megawatt hour) to under £40 today.

However one of the reasons for the decline is precisely … the surge in renewable power generation. Solar capacity in the UK has increased from just 96MW in 2010 to over 8,200 MW today. The latest figures show that, in the second quarter of 2015, 25.3% of electricity was generated by wind, solar, hydro and other renewables.

And the greater the success of renewable generators in pushing down the wholesale power price (paid to all generators), and thus the benefit to consumers, the greater the ‘headline’ cost of the renewable energy subsidies they receive.

In other words there is a deep systemic problem at the heart of the UK’s system for renewable energy support. The more successful renewables are, and the more they are reducing our bills, the more they appear to cost. It could be described as ‘designed to fail’.

The report also explored the value of the reduction in overall electricity spending achieved for each additional unit of wind or solar generation, concluding that “if current Merit Order Prices are maintained, new large-scale renewable generation will deliver a net benefit to consumers.”

So allow renewable energy capacity to keep on growing, and the subsidies paid for renewable energy generation will not just pay 58% of their cost as they do today, but will pay over 100% of their cost, putting more money into our pockets than they take out. How’s that for a bargain?

Paul Barwell, Chief Executive of the Solar Trade Association said: “With the Government’s consultation on the Feed-in Tariff review closing this week (October 23rd), this report is very timely. This analysis shows that the net effect on bills of supporting new rooftop solar – under the STA’s ‘Solar Independence Plan for Britain‘ – is zero.

“The £100m we need added to consumer bills over three years will be completely offset by the savings from solar lowering the wholesale price. This is just the evidence that the Government needs.” 

The report: ‘Wind and solar reducing consumer bills An investigation into the Merit Order Effect‘ is published by Good Energy.

Consultation: DECC’s official Consultation on the Feed-in Tariff review closes this Friday 23rd October.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘Renewable energy sacrificed on the altar of corporate profit‘.

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

Tomorrow China’s President Xi is expected to sign a series of commercial agreements on Wednesday consolidating China’s inward investment into UK infrastructure. The jewel in the crown will be Chinese backing for new nuclear power.

The twin reactor Hinkley C, Britain’s first new nuclear power plant since 1995, is to be built by a company jointly owned by the French parastatal EDF Energy and two Chinese parastatal nuclear corporations, co-financed by the Chinese State Investment Bank, for a total current cost of an eye-watering £24.5 billion.

It’s a deal that matters an enormous amount to the hyper pro-market chancellor George Osborne, one for which he elbowed aside his energy secretary Amber Rudd, to take over the nuclear deal with Beijing, which he and David Cameron started two years ago with their charm offensive visit to China.

Osborne said at the fifth UK-China Economic Financial Dialogue on 15 October 2013 – which followed a visit to China the previous month by then energy secretary Ed Davey to smooth the way:

“Britain and China are partners in growth. In the agreements we have made today and the other deals I am announcing this week, we are showing how Britain and China are taking the next big step in our relationship. It means more trade, more investment and more jobs. More jobs in Britain. More jobs in China. And from services to science, from infratrastructure to innovation, we are working together and creating ties between our countries.

“We embrace these opportunities on the basis of shared interests, greater understanding and mutual respect. That has been my approach to today’s dialogue and to the whole of my trip this week.”

The nuclear deep state is the same everywhere

Two academics at the Science Policy Research Unit(SRU) at the University of Sussex, Professor Andy Stirling and Dr Philip Johnstone, argue in a recent article that perhaps this very odd and ideologically perverse nuclear partnership can be explained using the concept of the ‘deep state’.

The focus in particular on the deep state’s overwhelming desire for the UK to remain a nuclear weapons power, and that for that to be sustainable in the long term, we must also maintain a robust civil nuclear programme. Their conclusion: “now is the moment to ask some searching questions about what nuclear policy is doing to British politics.”

A one-time senior British diplomat, Carne Ross – who was the British expert on Iraq at the UN from 1997 to 2002 – developed the idea of the ‘deep state’ in trying to explain how the Iraq invasion plans could have been covered up, as set out by Anthony Barnett on Open Democracy in 2010.

What is striking about nuclear power development – especially in countries also possessing nuclear weapons – is how similar it has been in all major countries, whether the dominant economic structure is capitalist (US), corporatist (UK and France), State Capitalist / communist or Soviet Union (State Communist (now capitalist). The institutional arrangements and secrecy surrounding the development has mirrored each other across all five states.

In their seminal study The Nuclear Barons, published in 1981, journalist Peter Pringle and political advisor and lawyer James Spigelman, demonstrate how across the political divide “the atom offered each country’s decision makers many opportunities to indulge a yearning for power, relish a sense of achievement proclaim a vision for the future … with decisions often frequently distorted by personal ambition and institutional self-interest.”

They went on “As the nuclear revolution expanded, the advocates built special institutions to keep the atom apart from the checks and balances of the normal political process … the atomic institutions became almost totalitarian in their powers often requiring scientists and engineers to suppress information that stood in the way of the nuclear revolution.”

Thus the US created the domineering Atomic Energy Commission (now the Department of Energy), the Soviet Union had the meaningless Ministry of Medium-Sized Machines (now Rosatom), the UK created its Atomic Energy Authority, France its own Atomic Energy Commission (Commissariat a L’Energie Atomique) out of which Areva and EDF grew.

A union of two nuclear deep states?

China Started with Non Ferrous and Rare Metals Company, it developed post war with Soviet Union, and added the Institute of Atomic Energy a few years later: all had primary military nuclear functions, out of which civilian nuclear research, design and development grew.

Last week The Times highlighted UK security service concerns over the security implications of doing nuclear deals with China. “There is a big division between the money men and the security side”, a security source told the newspaper. “The Treasury is in the lead and it isn’t listening to anyone – they see China as an opportunity, but we see the threat.”

Indeed, the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) boasts on its website that it “successfully developed the atomic bomb, hydrogen bomb and nuclear submarines”. As Jeffrey Henderson, professor of international development at the University of Bristol, wrote in a recent article:

“One of the companies involved at Hinkley Point – China National Nuclear – produces China’s nuclear weapons. This means that as well as the Communist Party, CNNC is almost certainly controlled by the People’s Liberation Army (as all Chinese military-related companies are).

“Given geopolitical uncertainty (with rising tensions between China, Japan and the US over China’s territorial claims in the East and South China Seas), allowing such a company anywhere near Britain – not to mention in an industry as strategic as power generation – verges on the insane. Has MI5 been consulted on this, and if it has, what was its advice?”

However, Foreign Office minister Hugo Swire sought to allay security fears in a written Parliamentary answer to Labour backbencher Paul Flynn in a reply last Friday (16 October) stating:

“Security in the civil nuclear industry is of paramount importance to the Government. The UK has in place, robust security regulations which are enforced by an independent regulator, the Office for Nuclear Regulation. These regulations cover sensitive nuclear information as well as holdings of nuclear material and nuclear sites. The Government keeps the regulatory framework for security in the civil nuclear industry under continuous review. The Government welcomes Chinese investment to the UK, including in the nuclear energy sector.”

What he the omitted to mention is the chief nuclear security and safety inspector, Dr Andy Hall, has just abruptly resigned. Why might that be so? In the worst case scenario, ‘malware’ – such as trapdoors, backdoors, viruses or worms – could be inserted into the computer programs that run the Chinese-controlled power plants. These would be incredibly hard to detect amid the millions of lines of code.

What could they do? They might, on command, turn a nuclear power station into a ‘dirty bomb’, like a deliberate Fukushima or Chernobyl nuclear disaster, deliberately timed to carry the fallout to London and make the city uninhabitable for a generation. Remember what Stuxnet did to Iran’s uranium centrifuges.

Imagine: you are a British Prime Minister at a time of rising international tension over, say, China’s seizure of Spratly Island and the installation of a new missile base. Reports reach you of a dangerous malfunction at one of the Chinese nuclear plants that defies standard emergency procedures.

Then the phone call comes through – ordering you to withdraw all UK military and naval assets from the South China Sea, make a speech denouncing US military adventurism in the region, and cast your Security Council vote to veto an anti-China resolution. What would you do?

Long term planning? Or quick-fix desperation?

In an interview with China Daily published today to mark his visit to Britain President Xi praised Britain’s “visionary and strategic choice” to become China’s best friend in the West. He added:

“China is ready to pursue cooperation of various forms with the UK and other countries in international production capacity and equipment manufacturing to synergize respective strengths … There should be no swing doors or glass doors that are placed as non-economic or non-market­ based barriers.”

That last bit was an oblique reference to criticisms of Chinese human rights: whatever concerns the UK may have, they must not get in the way of business. And Osborne is happy with that, clearly determined not to let the niceties of human rights get in the way of his new ‘Golden Age’ grand project.

In China last month he announced £2bn of new government guarantees for the new Hinkley C project – with UK taxpayers now also liable for around two thirds of the total project cost. With the vast majority of investors put off by the risks associated with the project, critics of the scheme have argued that desperation rather than long-term planning has driven the generous terms delivered to China by the UK.

In his deal struck at last month’s seventh UK-China Economic Financial Dialogue, Osborne concluded the following detail:

“22. In the important field of nuclear energy: Both sides welcome the strengthening of the partnership in civil nuclear energy since the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding on civil nuclear energy cooperation dated October 2013.

“The UK side warmly welcomes and supports Chinese investment and participation in the Hinkley Point C project and progressive involvement in the UK nuclear newbuild market, including leading the development of other UK nuclear site(s) as fast as practicable, and supports the deployment of Chinese nuclear reactor technology, subject to meeting the requirements of the UK’s independent regulators.

“The China National Energy Administration and the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change agreed to enhance communication with each other with a view to facilitate the enterprises of both sides to explore cooperative opportunities in China, UK and other third countries, and to assist Chinese investors with understanding UK requirements and coordinating on regulatory, legal and electricity market issues, flowing from investment in UK new nuclear build.

“23. The UK and China welcomed the extensive collaboration carried out across the nuclear fuel cycle, including in decommissioning, nuclear fuel transportation, and waste management under the MOU on Enhancing Cooperation in the Field of Civil Nuclear Industry Fuel Cycle Supply signed in June 2014.

“CAEA and DECC will continue to strengthen coordination to support relevant enterprises to secure more tangible results from cooperation in this area and looked forward to the signing of further commercial agreements / contracts.”

‘We see no conflict’ with US ‘special relationship. But others do …

But the Department of Energy and Climate Change is reticent to explain just how these deals will work out in practice, with minister for nuclear issues, Andrea Leadsom, giving the same vague composite answer on 16 October to three probing questions asked last week by Paul Flynn MP, stating:

“The Joint Research and Innovation Centre (JRIC) is envisaged to be the subject of a commercial agreement between the National Nuclear Laboratory and the Chinese National Nuclear Corporation.

“These two organisations are still in the process of negotiating such an agreement and will need to consider details on the structures, funding, governance and accountability of the JRIC. As such, it is too early for Government to be able to comment on the outcomes of such a negotiation.

“We continue to maintain an interest in developments of these discussions and will work, where appropriate, with our counterparts in the Chinese government to ensure that outcomes are mutually beneficial to the research landscape of both nations.”

Not all are convinced. The Financial Times reports today that “The plans to open critical UK infrastructure assets up to the Chinese drew private criticism from western diplomats based in Beijing, who criticised Downing Street for ‘doing an Osborne’: a reference to the chancellor’s five-day warm-up tour of China last month when he said the UK should ‘run to China’.”

It added: “According to several of the diplomats, the regular encrypted cables sent back to European and North American capitals over recent weeks have been filled with snide remarks and criticisms of the UK’s kowtowing in the run-up to Mr Xi’s state visit.”

In an interview with China Central Television on Friday, David Cameron dismissed doubts, asserting: “We see no conflict with having that very special relationship (with the United States), with wanting to be a strong partner for China as the Chinese economy continues to grow and China emerges as an enormous world power.”

Be very, very careful

But the truth is that there is every reason for the UK to be very, very careful. What is taking place is no union of equals, but one in which the UK, as supplicant, is being forced to yield to Chinese industrial and economic power.

And in return for its money, China is getting a lot back: command of critical UK infrastructure; a stonking great foot in the door of our nuclear establishment, with clear links to our nuclear weapons programme; the silencing of criticism on human rights and other divisive issues; a security wedge between the UK and its long-established ally the USA; and the real possibility of nuclear blackmail.

What that all adds up to is a package that is severely prejudicial the UK’s future independence and sovereignty and undermines those very ‘British values’ that our government claims to represent.

Of course what is taking place this week is largely ceremonial. Most of the deals signed will be of the form of ‘memoranda of understanding’ and ‘heads of terms’ that are not in themselves legally binding. What really matters is what follows.

And there are obstructions ahead. Legal challenges to the support package for the Hinkley C plant have been filed with the European Court of Justice, and more appear likely to follow in the wake of any firm proposals to support the Chinese involvement at Bradwell and Sizewell.

Those elements of the UK’s deep state that are deeply uneasy at the Chinese involvement in the UK’s nuclear power stations will also be doing all they can to derail the deal. As old hands in politics and the civil, intelligence, military and security services they are good at getting their way, quietly and effectively.

So never mind the parades and speeches. It may all come to nothing. And for those who believe in a sovereign and independent United Kingdom, we must surely hope it does, and do what we can to that end.

Dr David Lowry is Senior research fellow, Institute for Resource and Security Studies, Cambridge, MA, USA.