After Brexit, Nigel Farage has net zero in his sights

THE NAVAL AND MILITARY CLUB, a haunt for ex-servicemen high above the Thames estuary, is the sort of venue Nigel Farage has worked for 30 years. In the early 1990s, as an unknown in a fringe movement, he would hone his oratory night after night in pubs, church halls and lounges across southern England, denouncing Brussels with a peroration his regulars learned to mouth in unison.

His gig on February 17th was the same as ever: a grey-haired audience, pints of ale, that raspy laugh. What has changed is the television cameras. Mr Farage has a show, part political manifesto, part light entertainment, four nights a week on GB News, a right-leaning channel. The other change is Mr Farage’s cause. He is agitating for a referendum on net zero, the government’s carbon-reduction policy. It spells higher energy bills and unaffordable electric cars, he tells the audience, to applause.

Mr Farage sees parallels with the EU cause. Like European integration, climate policy inches forward by treaty, drafted by officials at international conferences. Just as with Europe before 2016, there is a broad consensus among the major parties on meeting net zero. “The only debate is, ‘Can we go towards this lunacy more quickly’ ”, he says. UKIP’s roots were Thatcherite, and lamenting emissions rules is a natural extension from denouncing European...