Tory MP Esther McVey Thinks Net Zero is a “Dud” Having Spent Years Inflicting it On the British Public

A person identifying as the Conservative MP Esther McVey told Mike Graham on his morning Talk show earlier this week that “Net Zero was a dud”. Surely this could not have been the Esther McVey who is a leading light in the Conservative Environment Network (CEN), a Green Blob-funded activist group promoting a no ifs, no buts 2050 Net Zero policy. This calls for “accelerating” the transition away from fossil fuels in the power, transport and heating sectors in order to deliver “lower, more stable bills for consumers and greater energy security”. Perhaps Talk’s strict vetting process to weed out imposters failed on this one occasion, or maybe McVey is just demonstrating how fluid opinions can be in the hands of a modern politician. Readers can decide after considering the thoughts of Groucho Marx: “Those are my principles and if you don’t like them, well I have others.”

Current events are making a mockery of every UK politician in the ‘Uniparty’ that supported the crazy hard Left New Zero fantasy over the last 20 years. The electricity blackout across Iberia last Monday, which experts have blamed on unreliable wind and solar energy, sent shock waves through the political class. The problem of fluctuating frequency gets worse the more renewable power is loaded onto the system and will not go away. Almost certain blackouts are on the way for any grid that follows the potentially catastrophic renewable policy. Now Conservative politicians like McVey are running for the hills since they suspect, rightly, that any UK blackouts will be blamed on them.

The wily politician Nigel Farage from Reform has already set the political trap by popularising the term Net Stupid Zero. McVey is suddenly speaking of the poverty that Net Zero will cause, shamelessly noting that for the Left the policy was one of “hope over reality”. It is as if McVey never sat in Cabinets run by Net Zero fanatics Theresa May and Boris Johnson, and hasn’t spent the last decade campaigning and voting for the whole ghastly collectivist project. Quite how she kept a straight face on Graham’s show and claimed the Right including herself was always sceptical about Net Zero and the costs it imposed on people will forever remain a mystery. She is still part of a Green Blob activist group that thinks, like the Mad Miliband, that Net Zero will somehow lower bills and provide a de-industrialised UK with energy security.

What will Sir Christopher Hohn, a significant funder of CEN and a past paymaster of Extinction Rebellion, think of McVey’s statement that after the “disaster” in Spain and Portugal the best thing that Sir Keir Starmer can do is sack Ed Miliband and “ditch Net Zero”? And what are we to make of McVey’s remarks, given CEN’s claim that it is a forum for conservatives in the UK and around the world who support Net Zero. It can only be concluded that CEN’s claim shows the eternal truth that a week is a long time in politics.

It was all so different a year ago. The Conservatives were still in power and a third of the Parliamentary party could indulge their luxury virtue signalling and sign up for the CEN. The billionaire-funded operation was said to support a network of “Net Zero champions” inside Parliament, “to make the positive case that Net Zero is an economic opportunity as well as a moral responsibility”. Running all this moral flim-flam was Ben Goldsmith, one of five trustees of Hohn’s fund, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. Another major provider of CEN cash is the Clean Air Fund, also heavily supported by Hohn. Financial support also came – and still does – from Gower Street, whose largess also runs in the direction of Extinction Rebellion operations. Funding is provided for XR old hands Gail Bradbrook and Stuart Basden to help “make good on the potential of Extinction Rebellion”. Meanwhile, Gower also provides cash for the World Environment Crimes Unit, which is building a database on individuals “holding back action on climate in the UK”. It must be hoped that the talkative McVey is not about to be added to its list.

These days the CEN seems to have fallen on harder times. Just 50 Conservative MP are signed up, and perhaps make that 49 in future given McVey’s recent remarks. But that is still a significant percentage of the current Conservative party whose leadership is trying to row back on the 2050 Net Zero commitment. Two names stand out in the list showing just how difficult it will be for the party to present a credible line on Net Zero going forward. Both Simon Hoare and Sir Roger Gale spoke in favour of the recent Climate and Nature Bill, a private member’s legislative attempt that thankfully failed to make progress. This horror bill would have reduced hydrocarbon use in the UK, both domestic and imported, to just 10% in less than a decade. Sir Roger Gale suggested it had a “few flaws”, which was an interesting way to describe almost certain economic and societal collapse. Around 200 MPs supported this destructive bill including all the Greens and LibDems, indicating that reality in large parts of the British House of Commons is still a work in progress.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.