A small group of rightwing MPs are jangling Tory nerves and using questions about living costs to undermine climate action
First it was Brexit, followed by a spurt of very successful campaigning to ensure that Britain left Europe on the most stringent and self-harming terms. For a while, Nigel Farage then opposed Covid restrictions. Now, he is reviving his old hostility to action on the climate emergency, with a new vehicle called Britain Means Business, which has spawned a campaign called Vote Power Not Poverty. Both were recently launched by an article in the Mail on Sunday. “Net zero is net stupid,” wrote Farage, who drew a line from the government’s green targets to the rising cost of living and made the case not just for a referendum on the issue, but also the return of fracking and coal-mining.
Later this month, alongside his close ally Richard Tice and the local Tory MP, Farage was meant to be the star of an anti-net zero rally at Whites Hotel in Bolton, Greater Manchester, built into the home ground of Bolton Wanderers FC. Their putative hosts soon announced that the event was “not something the club and business wishes to be associated with”, and pulled the plug: a “Moscow-style rebuke to free speech”, said the organisers. But, as it turned out, this was an irrelevant blip. The event is now happening at another venue, and besides, Boris Johnson is reportedly set to review the current moratorium on fracking – “the first victory for common sense,” says Farage – as part of plans to increase the UK’s production of oil and gas. Johnson’s pretext is Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and what it means for the UK and Europe’s energy security – but he is clearly responding to months of pressure on net zero from the political right, both inside and outside the Conservative party. Brexit was its defining big win; now it has its eyes on another.
John Harris is a Guardian columnist. To listen to John’s podcast Politics Weekly UK, search Politics Weekly UK on Apple, Spotify, Acast or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday.
