AL Gore slams British politicians as “cowards”
Former vice-president of the United States and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore has slammed British politicians as “cowards” for not allowing a second referendum over Brexit.
The remarks were made on Thursday when the US democrat statesman and environmentalist was the keynote speaker at the Climate Change Leadership conference in Porto.
“The UK’s politicians are cowards for not allowing a second referendum over Brexit in order to reconsider its exit from the European Union” he said, adding that “one of the posters that most influenced Brexit was the one that showed an endless line of refugees with the slogan ‘The EU has Failed’.
“I don’t want to comment on that, but as a politician I will say that I think that the politicians in the United Kingdom are cowards for not permitting a second referendum,” he said at the two-day conference held at the Alfândega do Porto.
He said that the refugee crisis did not just result from the Civil War in Syria, but also the drought that the country was suffering from as well as many years of war.
“The worst drought in the region for 900 years that has destroyed 60% of the harvests and 80% of cattle, leading thousands of civilians to flee in search of food.
“The effects of climate change are a threat to peace and stability” he added, saying that as food and water got scarcer, so would the refugee crisis.
“Large swathes of the Middle East and North Africa will become inhabitable and will contribute towards migrational pressure” said Al Gore adding that by 2100 Africa would have more population than China and India put together.
“If parts of these territories become uninhabitable, where are these masses going to go? Care to take a guess?”