Nigel Farage, who led the decades-long campaign for Britain to leave the EU that culminated in the 2016 Brexit vote, has suggested that his next big fight in the political arena could be against Boris Johnson’s Green New Deal, and that he could lead the campaign for a referendum on the prime minister’s Net Zero plans.
A poll published this week and publicised by the Tory-leaning Telegraph showing most Britons wanted a referendum on Johnson’s drastic Net Zero plans — including eventually banning gas boilers and new petrol and diesel cars — may have caused some embarrassment for the prime minister as he is set to host the United Nations’ COP26 climate conference in Scotland from Sunday.
The prime minister is expected to showcase some of the ideas he has for dramatically alerting Britons’ use of fossil fuels at the event to be attended by major world leaders; however, the heads of government from two of the world’s largest carbon emitters, China and Russia, are not expected to bother attending.
Speaking of the prime minister’s green goals, Mr Farage said this week during his GB News show: “I’ve been saying that the rush to Net Zero and the way in which it is being done is going to be ruinous. It’ll lead to yet more huge transfers of money from the poor to the rich, and given that China isn’t going to play the game, anyway, by the looks of it nor is Russia, either, what’s it going to achieve?”
Describing the prime minister’s “revolutionary zeal” for drastically cutting the United Kingdom’s carbon emissions, he continued that Johnson is “pushing for net zero” with almost no opposition from within the House of Commons, bar a few Tory MPs, such as the new Net Zero Scrutiny Group, which includes Brexiteer Steve Baker.
“And yet, just like the European Question, my growing sense of it’s been that out there in the Shires, people are asking, hang on — who’s paying for all of this?” Mr Farage observed in his GB News monologue.
Likewise, until the December 2019 election which facilitated the delivery of a form of Brexit, the House of Commons was dominated by Remainers.
Referencing Telegraph columnist Allister Heath’s call for a referendum on the government’s Net Zero strategy, Mr Farage quoted a subsequent poll by YouGov commissioned by CAR26, which found that 42 per cent supported a national referendum on whether the United Kingdom follows Johnson’s Net Zero plans, compared to 30 per cent against, only 15 per cent of whom were strongly opposed to a public vote.
Twenty-eight per cent said they did not know, and once those votes were excluded, of those that expressed an opinion, 58 per cent were in favour of a referendum.
“This proposal for a referendum is likely to be something of an embarrassment for Boris Johnson given that COP26 is just around the corner,” Mr Farage said, adding: “Clearly, a lot of you out there feel this shouldn’t be done without you being asked and actually, this wasn’t really what you voted for in 2019.”
“This could well be my latest campaign,” Mr Farage tweeted while sharing the segment on social media.
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