Carrie Johnson’s tweet on post-Brexit environment standards resurfaces

Boris Johnson’s wife has sparked a lot of reactions after an old post she published on Twitter resurfaced.

In a tweet posted in 2017, Carrie Johnson, who is a conservationist, said the former Lib Dems leader Vince Cable was wrong to say that Brexit meant the UK “dilutes environmental standards”.

She added Michael Gove was “clear” that, “if anything, we can now have higher standards” as the UK came out of the European Union.

Reactions

Journalist Tim Walker’s reaction was targetted the recent Tory vote against preventing companies from throwing raw sewage across UK’s waters.

His views were echoed by professor Paul Bernal, who said “raw sewage in rivers and beaches is a great new standard”.

And Jonathan Pie added: “I’m not sure hurling tons of shit, piss and used johnnies in the ocean constitutes higher standards.

“But to be fair I wouldn’t expect you to understand the concept of ‘high standards’ having married a massive turd yourself.

One Twitter user said Carrie’s tweet “aged like milk”, whilst another came up with the slogan “British shit for British rivers”.

Background

The fresh reactions come as Tory MPs have rejected several amendments which would have reduced air and river pollution and raise ministers’ accountability on environment protection.

The news come only days before the UK is set to host COP26, an international climate summit.

Eight policies designed to protect the environment have been voted down on the recommendation of Environment Secretary George Eustice, according to The Guardian.

One of the amendments voted down aimed to bring air pollution limits in line with those advised by the World Health Organisation by 2030.

But the government argued their powers “should not be limited in the manner proposed” upon rejecting the policy.

This is despite the fact that, earlier this year, the European Court of Justice, which Tory ministers intend to scrap, found the UK was guilty of breaching air pollution limits “systematically and “persistently”.

And coroner Philip Barlow had asked for a law change earlier this year to follow the WHO guidelines, after a nine-year-old girl from London became the first person in the UK to have air pollution recorded as the cause of death.

The Tories also rejected efforts to place a legal duty on water companies to ban raw sewage discharges into rivers. Raw sewage was discharged into waters more than 400,000 times in 2020 alone.

Earlier this month, it emerged the UK government has also told its trade negotiators to not let environmental concerns get in the way of post-Brexit deals.

The document, signed by the Department for International Trade, suggests the UK shouldn’t refuse a deal if other countries do not mention environmental safeguards in agreements.

Andra Maciuca

Andra is a multilingual, award-winning NQJ senior journalist and the UK’s first Romanian representing co-nationals in Britain and reporting on EU citizens for national news. She is interested in UK, EU and Eastern European affairs, EU citizens in the UK, British citizens in the EU, environmental reporting, ethical consumerism and corporate social responsibility. She has contributed articles to VICE, Ethical Consumer and The New European and likes writing poetry, singing, songwriting and playing instruments. She studied Journalism at the University of Sheffield and has a Masters in International Business and Management from the University of Manchester. Follow her on: