Are we warming to a referendum?
THIS time, the people will not decide. With talks at the COP26 climate summit due to conclude next week, Boris Johnson has already ruled out a referendum on any green targets agreed.
At his news conference at the Glasgow gathering on Tuesday, the PM was emphatic when I raised the possibility of a people’s vote on the Government’s plan for “Net Zero” emissions of greenhouse gases by the middle of the century.
“As for your brilliant suggestion of a referendum, Macer, I think this country has probably had enough referendums to be going on with for a while,” he told me.
His stance may disappoint many voters nervous at the potential economic cost of turning the UK carbon neutral, estimated by the Treasury at more than £1trillion, and moves to ban petrol and diesel vehicles and gas boilers.
An opinion poll last month found 42 per cent of those quizzed wanted a referendum on the Net Zero target while only 30 per cent opposed the idea.
Mr Johnson clearly does not want to follow the Swiss government, which held a poll earlier this year on a proposed new law to help achieve its carbon-cutting targets.
Swiss voters rejected the legislation, which included new taxes on motor fuel and flight tickets, with 51.6 per cent of the electorate opposed to the measure.
MINISTERS can legitimately argue the Government already has a mandate for the plan. “We will lead the global fight against climate change by delivering on our world-leading target of Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,” said the Conservative manifesto before the party’s landslide 2019 general election win.
Yet even some of the MPs who stood on that manifesto are uncomfortable that extra costs for households resulting from green targets could have damaging electoral consequences for their party. Some fear the issue could allow Reform UK, which grew out of the Brexit Party, to snatch Tory votes with its pledge of a Net Zero referendum.
Reform leader Richard Tice, standing in next month’s by-election in the previously solidly Tory seat of Bexley and Sidcup, told me: “There is a head of steam building on this issue.
“On the doorstep, people say that they don’t want to get rid of their boilers.
“In the same way that people know something was wrong with the EU, their gut tells them that this isn’t right.
Mr Tice insists the fact that all the major Westminster parties back the Net Zero target means voters have never been given a genuine say on the issue.
“If all parties are offering the same thing, then that’s not a choice,” he said.
“I want to reduce emissions. I’ve got a 100 per cent electric car. We are not climate change deniers.
“But we want a net smart way to reduce emissions in an affordable and proportionate way that doesn’t impoverish the nation and doesn’t send hundreds of thousands of jobs to China.”
A petition on Parliament’s website demanding a Net Zero referendum is nearing the 10,000 signature mark that requires a ministerial response. That is some way short of the 100,000 needed to be considered for a parliamentary debate.
Yet while a referendum on the Net Zero target looks unlikely at present, most MPs thought a plebiscite on the UK’s EU membership would never happen.
In his speech at the opening of COP26, the Prime Minister compared the global struggle against climate change to James Bond desperately trying to defuse a Doomsday machine in one of his blockbuster films.
When it comes to the possibility of a referendum on the issue, the most pertinent 007 movie might be Never Say Never Again.