Nigel Farage is launching a political movement to campaign for a referendum on Boris Johnson’s controversial Net Zero policy to decarbonise the economy by 2050. The Mail on Sunday has more.
The former Brexit Party leader uses an article in today’s Mail on Sunday to announce that Britain Means Business – modelled on his successful campaign for a Brexit referendum – will call for the abandonment of the flagship green policy, which experts claim could cost £1.3 trillion.
Mr Farage’s intervention comes amid growing disquiet within the Cabinet over the burden the plan will put on an economy already creaking under the strain of the £400 billion Covid crisis and a surge in energy costs exacerbated by the disruption to gas supplies caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In his article, Mr Farage says “the political class in Westminster” has taken the country down a “ruinous path” by committing to the Net Zero target without any public debate being held.
Mr Farage, who has established Britain Means Business with Richard Tice, his co-founder at Leave Means Leave and the Brexit Party, describes the “Net Zero delusion” as “a scandal of epic proportions” which must be challenged.
The former UKIP leader calls for a “plebiscite on this act of appalling self-harm”, adding: “If we are not careful, the only zero will be the amount in people’s bank accounts as we send our jobs and money overseas.”
He writes: “Without any debate, our energy bills have been loaded with green subsidies. Our businesses have been disadvantaged, yet our leaders seem happy to outsource industrial production just as long as they can say it reduces Britain’s CO2 emissions…
“We will campaign for the 5% VAT on energy bills to be removed.
“Green subsidies are shovelled straight into the bank accounts of rich landowners, wealthy investors and foreign-owned conglomerates who own much of the renewable energy sector.”
Let’s hope movements like this can succeed in bringing more hard-headed realism into often fantasy-land debates about Britain abandoning secure, affordable and reliable energy in favour of unready and inadequate technologies.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The Sunday Times reports that some fracking wells are due to be concreted over in a couple of weeks, while in the Mail on Sunday the Conservative MP Lee Anderson says the fracking moratorium is “total lunacy“.
Stop Press 2: Taking a very different line, the Observer ran an editorial saying, “The crisis must not become a reason to drop our commitment to net zero target.” Good to see the ‘climate emergency’ zealots beginning to panic.
Discussion
Comments
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You have to be a cupid stunt to pretend that a referendum settles anything requiring judgment and knowledge.
Good; it is well past time that the Green Nonsense is challenged. NF needs to get some real scientists on board to challenge the puppets/muppets supporting it.
I`m sure Farage is due a “sudden” heart attack soon, would suit the WEF down to the ground.
This ought to be interesting. It’ll be a battle of every single political party and all corporate and social meedja against a tiny fringe minority of millions of normal, sane people.
“experts claim could cost £1.3 trillion” – can someone please post a link to a professionally produced set of accounts that show the cost of transitioning to renewables over the next 30 years?
These will, of course take into account the new price of gas.
The only accounts I’ve seen are back-of-a-fag-packet scribblings that add up all the costs but do not subtract any of the savings and do not account for the fact that that a large portion of energy infrastructure will come to the end of its life in this period and need to be replaced anyway.
This applies to the supporters of fossil fuels and supporters of renewables. Let’s have a decent set of accounts to work from, with all assumptions listed.
As they say “arguments are rife when facts are scarce”.
You are asking for a forecast. They are always wrong.
You cannot run a business successfully unless you project your expenses and income.
The alternative is to guess, which is not what I want from government.
Indeed. I have some experience of that. It’s like laying war plans; they never survive the first engagement with the enemy. I’ll remain sceptical of all forecasts.
I say. Asking a bit much there aren’t we?
Don’t we run the country on back of a fag packet scribblings?
So the Observer sees a crisis and says “carry on chaps” as if it’s hurting no one. They see a crisis caused by net-zero energy policy, and want it to continue, loading the energy-user with extra hundreds of billions of pounds of levies, subsidy and unnecessarily rising costs, all to prevent 0.04% (total) * 3% (man’s) * 1% (UK’s) of CO2 in the atmosphere, i.e. 0.000012% of an inert gas that has no effect on temperature or climate, but feeds our crops, i.e. food production.
They are really nice, kind, caring people in the Observer, aren’t they?
“They are really nice, kind, caring people in the Observer, aren’t they?”
And very, very clever.
Good news. Get the North Sea working again, get fracking and get Rolls Royce constructing its modular nuclear reactors. We MUST have energy independence.
Removing the VAT on fuel would be a small victory; we need to end all green taxes and subsidies for ‘unreliables’.
Given that there is no evidence of the world’s temperature increasing in the last ten years (IPCC 6th Report), the alarmists can only point to an unsurprising one degree increase since the ending of the Little Ice Age in about 1850, and that temperatures are currently less than during the Medieval Warm Period, there will be no global warming to fear and the Climate Change Agenda is a complete self-harming scam.
The only reason that there is an opening for Farage is that after Brexit and Covid, Net Zero is yet another issue where voters are faced with all the major parties saying the same thing, and cannot voice their scepticism. Why is this groupthink happening in politics?
This ths prima facie cause of our time and whatever anyone thinks of Nigel at least he’s out in public talking about it. We need everybody doing ths same thing because the eco loons will fight day and night for their cause. They have lots of funding and at the moment we don’t.
Didn’t we must know that Russia would be blamed for energy prices when the Green Machine was already rolling and in place during last year. The Globalists know exactly how to work the minds of European citizens now.
It would be in Russia’s interests for them to fund our ecoloons in order to end exploitation of our own oil and gas and increase our dependence on Russian gas.
I’ve not had much time for Farage after he was pushing for warmonger Blair to take charge of the vaccine roll out. Big mistake.
Indeed. I was subscribed to his YouTube channel but when he came out with this appalling statement I was both shocked and offended. I unsubscribed immediately. However, and from bits seen on GB News, he appears to have rowed back on support for the injections. I believe he is double perforated but has rejected the boosta. If he knows as much as we on here about the juices I suspect he might be a tad concerned.
For now I forgive that appalling promotion of Bliar and hope he has seen the light.
At the moment he is the best and only man we’ve got.
In this video at the 41 minute, 43 second mark is Nigel Farage advocating that NATO needs to do a lot more on behalf of Ukraine.
He suggests NATO air forces should attack Russian ground troops in Ukraine, but then slyly suggests they should not because it might trigger a nuclear war due to Putin (as Farage implies) being mentally deranged.
Farage is just another Globalist controlled influencer throwing around childish accusations that Putin is insane, and talking out of both sides of his mouth that NATO should attack Russia on behalf of Ukraine, but yet should not because Putin is a lunatic who might start launching nuclear missiles.
The West and NATO played a major role in provoking this war in Ukraine, and Farage knows this, but yet this “man of the common people” hasn’t the guts to use his position of influence to highlight this. Instead, he floats along with the legacy media line.
I think Farage may have exited his home in recent days, licked his finger and put it up to see which way the wind was blowing, and then decided: ah yes, a referendum is a brilliant way to get media… Read more »
A petition already exists (closing date 27 April) for a referendum on ‘Net Zero’.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/599602
Reality bites in Germany – Robert Habeck the (Green) Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action wonders whether it might be worth extending the life of Germany’s remaining nuclear power stations – without Russian enegy imports next winter could be ‘a challenge’:
https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/robert-habeck-gruene-naechster-winter-waere-bei-stopp-von-energieimporten-eine-herausforderung-a-8a5251cb-6cbf-4ea1-9c52-fb9525e125cb
A plebiscite could be a double-edged sword, depending on its wording, for example, “Do you support the green agenda or do you want your granny to die from heat”.
It will be your grandchildren who are impacted.
Farage is an odious individual who cares about no-one but himself. In the unlikely event there was a referendum it would not go the way he would like.
And you know the result of the referendum, how? Will it be rigged?
Hugh Grant has come out against Farage, Nigel must be doing something right. The virtue signalling greens know they are in for a hiding when the votes get counted.
I don’t believe referendums are appropriate for this sort of issue.
What they’re perfect for is matters of taste, where there can’t be a wrong or right answer, such as Brexit.
Brexit was certainly left a bad taste.
They are entirely appropriate, even if non-binding because we have been lied to, are being lied to and will be lied to forever more. The dogs need to feel their chokers.
Despite the inevitable campaign of half-truths from the usual greenistas, crippling fuel bills will make this issue more immediate and real than the Brexit referendum. Bring it on.
Indeed – here’s hoping it will be 2 for 2
This is a big problem we have right now … there is no actual political opposition to most of the major issues in this country – they are all singing from the same hymn sheet whether its climate, covid, immigration … they all say exactly the same thing – groupthink has run amok. We saw this weakness in our political system when during covid everything this government did whether it was further lockdowns, mask mandates or jabbing children – it was simply nodded through without a single question being asked and almost no challenge from the opposition -perhaps if the opposition parties had did what they were supposed to do and actually oppose occassionally then just maybe we would never have found ourselves in the mess we find ourselves today.
Whether you agree with him or not – whether you like him or not – its good that Farage is providing some much needed useful opposition to finally debate this governments zero carbon policies – its good that we have an opposition once again.
I think it is the best news I have heard for a long time. I wish him a lot of luck in his campaign
I do seriously doubt that most British citizens have thoroughly understood the full implications of NetZero.
For whatever reason, people seem to think that achieving zero CO2 emissions is something that can be achieved magically, with little to no cost, and in a manner that will supply energy reliably and safely. Sorry to say, but science says otherwise.
In simplest terms, the sun doesn’t always shine. The wind doesn’t always blow. It is very expensive, and sometimes physically impossible, to store the sort of energy produced by solar and wind generation systems. It is incredibly expensive, bordering on physically impossible, to transmit electricity over very long distances.
These are not opinions. These are cold, scientific facts.
Millions of British people have been made aware of some of the costs implied by NetZero with the announcement of massive increases in the costs of electricity they’ve received in the past couple of weeks. Our reliance on natural gas produced in Europe and Russia is also becoming painfully apparent.
Now seems like a very good time to have a clear-eyed national debate over our national energy policy.
i’m hoping utility bill increases wake a lot of people up, as after two yrs of compliance all they have to show for it is higher bills, fewer jobs and a further degradation of the NHS.
What do you suggest is to be done?
The debate should have started when Labour and Maggie shut the pits.
Just like the lack of a food policy. That is equally criminal.
A sensible energy policy to reduce emissions will be expensive. Not having one will be more expensive and paid by future generations.
Well, OK. But the British people need to understand that climate change is a truly Global phenomenon.
Banning petrol and diesel carts in the UK might, arguably, make a tiny reduction in the amount of CO2 produced here. But in the big scheme of things, that’s not going to make the tiniest difference if China and India continue to burn billions of tons of coal. And if charging the electric vehicles that have, presumably, replaced the petrol-powered ones taxes our electricity grid beyond what it can reliably and safely produce, the result will be a local catastrophe. Needless and self induced.
Consider the British government’s current plans to eliminate gas boilers for home heating. I will note that modern natural gas boilers are extremely energy efficient. They produce trifling amounts of CO2. We have in place a well-functioning, safe, and extremely reliable distribution infrastructure. And, most importantly, natural gas can be stored and transported, safely and cheaply, in massive quantities.
Again, what is to replace them? So-called heat-pump systems are frankly unsuited to a very high percentage of Britain’s housing stock. They require a noisy external compressor and fan system. They also require a level of insulation that simply… Read more »
Zero CO2 will take care of all the trees/plants that depend on it to survive
“Green subsidies are shovelled straight into the bank accounts of [the rich]“.
Seriously, who doesn’t know that’s true? I am struggling to think of a “type”. Perhaps a very naive Green voter might believe otherwise – maybe someone who was in the top decile for naivety inside the 1.6% voteshare the party won in the 2019 election. Turnout was 68%, so that’s about 1 in 900 people. The other 899 know damned well where “green subsidies” go…
The other 899 people may know damned well where “green subsidies” go, but to them it’s a small price to pay for “saving the planet “. Such has been the intensity of the unremitting propaganda it will be very difficult to recondition the minds of the mask wearing net zero zombies. The heroic Tony Heller has been trying for years, although mainly preaching to the converted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0i4V37FRXTo
It looks like you are creating a hybrid super enemy for the sceptics to conveniently attack.
You need a snappier name.for them
Is it only green party voters that understand climate change?
I suspect you don’t know who you are fighting.
”…. understand climate change…”?
You mean understand that the climate has ALWAYS changed? Because there are an awful lot of dimwits out there who don’t even know that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere never has had any any effect on so-called ‘global warming’.
Not enough people know what Net Zero is about to have any meaningful debate.
I think they are about to find out
Coming through letter boxes shortly.
Please supply a concise explanation.
It’s surprising how little a lot of people know about this and the costs involved. If it even serves just to raise awareness and debate it will be doing a good job.
A lot of people also seem to think swapping a gas boiler for an air source heat pump is like for like (in terms of heating efficiency) and similar in cost, lies happily spread by the BBC. When will people realise we can’t run an efficient productive country on a bit of wind and a bit of sun?
People know full well that heat pumps are expensive and the BBC has never said otherwise.
We know it is standard practice to abuse the BBC in sceptical circles, but really it is pathetic.
You probably need to shout TROLL now.
Farage is a very very clever politician, probably the most consummate British politician of the last 20 year’s! He’s never been elected to parliament….well we can put that down to our wholly unrepresentative first past the post electoral system, it maintains a corrupt duopoly that services the needs of a global elite, not the greater British public.
“Net Zero” is a peg he can hang his coat on, an avenue into the “GREAT RESET” of the British political system and potentially the evisceration of the rancid illiberal, undemocratic filth that compose and populate Westminster and the estaishment! If there’s one country in the world that needs to show the rest of the planet the route too the sunlit uplands of small government and direct democracy, it’s this one, coz make no mistake, the English “deep state” in particular, has been the belly of the beast for the last 150 year’s!
Domestic politics are way too boring for Westminster now, the global stage is where they long to be, welcoming in anyone from anywhere without any thought of the infrastructure, now the VOICE in this latest conflict.
Unfortunately not the VOICE of reason.
Interesting that there is such a strong correlation between anti-vaxx campaigning and climate change denial campaigning.
Sceptical principles…
Object
Suspend thinking
Make up misinformation
Repeat misinformation
Never question what you say
Abuse MSM as much as possible
Abuse Blair, Biden, Gates etc
Repeat
You are silly.
I’m never impressed by people who systematically assume the established narrative is correct.
But what really gives a way a small, feeble mind is one that first assumes the established narrative is correct and then becomes very defensive when the established narrative is questioned.
It is clearly a mind that thinks: believe what you are told and don’t question it.
I think “mind” is a very flattering description of what we are dealing with.
But do don’t question it do you???
Objecting to a statement isn’t questioning it.
When you see something you disagree with, it’s fine to ask a question.
Just make the question meaningful.
Read the scientific paper yourself if you have the skills to do so and ask specific questions or challenge the detail. If you don’t have these skills, then choosing to quote some opposing “paper”, which you also don’t understand is fooling yourself into thinking you know something, when you don’t.
Really you just have an opinion, based on what….??????
May I assume, from your comments, that you read and understand scientific papers? [NB One simple question mark is all that’s required when asking a question, not four full stops followed by six erotemes.]
Of course I read scientific papers.
Glad your skills enable counting as high as 6. Well done.
I notice there are no reasoned arguments put forward.
someone who has outsourced their ability to think for themselves to the BBC who will be happy to do it for them and reach the wrong conclusions
I miss Concrete: unlike you, he has a 3 figure IQ and could engage in rational debate.
I suspect he was a Lieutenant.
You’ll never make it to Lance Corporal.
😀 😀 😀
I’m giving you my “post of the day” award.
It is very prestigious – but sadly won’t fit onto a mantelpiece or do much for your CV.
Interestingly I have never done an IQ test, so how do you know the result?
I am pleased to get 100 % disapproval rating. Proof I am right.
You really should get out more.
Good news!
Perhaps Nigel Farage, having been totally fooled by Johnson over Brexit, will have this major retributive contribution to make to British politics to save is from the destructive and impoverishing Globalist Nightmare being planned for us on every front – from Human Rights and freedoms, to health, to food supply and energy – if so he will be a NatIonal Hero, to be remembered for a very long time.
If he fails, we face a very grim future indeed when Johnson and his Cabal, together with his Globalist multi-billionaire chums – “Borg Reset” Darth Schwab , Vax Man Gates and the Trafficker General, Soros, supporter of all Nation destroying causes, run this country and its much abused and betrayed people into the ground.
Where do I sign?
have a feeling if people get to vote it will be stacked in a way so when the vote goes to the climate change lot the state will say “look, look, this is what people want, see, we can do what we want”
Johnson has done exactly what he wanted anyway – citing the (fake)
“science” and his stooge “experts” for his decisions – only a couple of dozen MPs challenge the lies – so he will do it again when they invent their next ’emergency.’to fool the sheep.
Look out for food and energy ‘rationing’, planed energy “outages” and restrictions on private car travel – the blame of course this time will be put on Putin!
Al this is part of the bogus “Climate Agenda “element of Schwab’s “Great Reset” anyway.
In reality it is about shutting down people’s lives and withdrawing their Human Rights.
And quite right too. The thing is: the referendum should be shaped in terms of ‘Abolishing the climate change Act’, rather than just rejecting Net Zero.
You need to be clear about how far away from net zero you want to be, otherwise it’s just a waste of time.