Could excessive/unwise EU regulation of the power sector cause the UK power generation sector ruinous problems?

The problem in this complex policy area is that the lead times for taking decisions are necessarily long (power stations cost a lot of money), and decisions once made have to be lived with (because no-one wants to live without power for a few years while governments and power companies weigh options).

As we have seen in South Africa, blunders made years ago over power-generating capacity are having grim results now.

In Europe we have the extra dimension of EU Directives, owing their loyalty to a collective one-size-fits-all vision of what ‘Europe’ needs. Many of these are of course driven by special interest groups. No doubt there are British special interest groups hard at work too, but the unwieldy untransparent processes involved create a context in which capricious outcomes are more likely. See EU confusion over biofuels.

Add to the mix not consensus-based decision-making but EU-style voting, and the chances for any one member-state of a serious foul-up notably increase.

The new Lisbon Treaty significantly extends the areas in which Voting must take place. Hence the need for the UK to be able to lobby hard and well in member state capitals across the EU, as well as in Brussels. Our vital operational national interests are at stake now in a way which was not the case before.

So what does this government and the FCO do? Start hacking back the size and seniority and therefore punching weight of the UK’s EU Embassy network, for the sake of other Policy Goals.

Seriously damaging.

If a private corporation did such damage to other British private and public interests, it could be sued. Why not sue the FCO for this stupidity as and when jobs and livelihoods are lost? I have the names of the senior people involved in driving these decisions, if anyone wants to make it personal – much more vivid that way.

Maybe the voters in Crewe will send a message tomorrow that one of their Policy Goals is to stop the EU turning off our lights?

But if they do, which Party will do anything about it?