A net zero referendum is the worst idea since the Brexit referendum

I suppose we should thank those 500-odd voters of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, the ones conned into voting Tory rather than Labour by lies about the ULEZ scheme to improve air quality in London. They were scared (misled, perhaps?) into thinking it would apply to all cars and panicked, gifting the constituency to the Tories.

But the politicians who looked at the by-election result and then panicked are beneath contempt. As Rhodes and Corfu burn, as European and American temperature records are broken nearly every day, they have taken one look at Uxbridge and thrown their green policies on the bonfire of inanities.

Labour “rethinking” ULEZ is bad enough, but the Tory party has shown its real colours and they are yellow and red. A cowardly willingness to see the world in flames as long as it means they get to stay in No. 10.

First there was Michael Gove claiming that green policies to save the world must not be a “crusade”. John Redwood using the result to re-open his fight against electric vehicles and for gas hobs and boilers and fracking. Jacob Rees-Mogg telling Rishi Sunak that scrapping green measures – including the pledge to stop new cars that run on petrol being sold after 2030 – was “a real opportunity for us.” Then Grant Shapps decided this was the time to say that the North Sea should be drained of every fluid ounce of oil – turn on the taps lads, happy days are here again! Meanwhile, the Nimby-driven ban on on-shore wind continues, while off-shore is facing a commercial collapse that no one is even talking about.

Then the Sunday Telegraph declared that the net zero target should be the subject of a referendum. Let’s have millions of voters decide whether the experts are right, what could possibly go wrong? Why not have a vote on whether the moon landings were faked and if the earth is flat at the same time?

It is not as if the oil giants and the foreign countries with vast energy reserves would throw money at the anti-climate change vote – secretly that is – through “lobby” groups and “think tanks”. Right wing nutters wouldn’t emerge from the woodwork once again to denounce “experts” and produce spurious claims of their own about sunspot activity and that secret conspiracy of woke hippies who knit their own yoghurt and are traitors trying to hold back the British economy.

Doubtless we would learn that following environmentally responsible policies would be shackling ourselves to a corpse, growth would boom if only we did not have the cost of EU-inspired green taxes and bureaucracy holding us back, that trading with Russia and Saudi Arabia is the way ahead, that we could be a world leader again.

They could even have a large diesel-powered bus touring the country, pumping out fumes and emblazoned with a sign claiming untold riches for the NHS, if only we re-opened the coal mines.

One by-election was all it took to bring all this into the open, to prove that the Tory party and government are only paying lip service to environmentalism, that they are perfectly willing to see their children’s and grandchildren’s lives ruined, if only they can win the votes of the petrolheads and swivel-eyed loons.

When someone is stupid enough to show you what they are really like, believe them.