Tuesday, November 02, 2021
The dark money targetting climate change action
I linked to this article on Open Democracy by Peter Geoghegan a few days ago, but on re-reading it decided that it deserves a more substantive boost.
Mr. Geoghegan, whose book 'Democracy for Sale' is excellent by the way, argues that the UK government's commitment to Net Zero by 2050 is under threat from an organised, well-funded opposition on the Conservative Right, many of whom are veterans of the fight for Brexit, and who intend to pursue similar tactics to achieve their goal.
He says that a classic example of this appeared in The Telegraph this week: the day before the Budget, when it reported a YouGov survey had found a majority of the British public “want a referendum on Boris Johnson’s net zero plans” by the next general election – a majority of those who expressed a preference, that is. The next day, Nigel Farage told GB News viewers that a referendum on Green taxes “could well be my latest campaign”:
Perhaps it’s because I spent so long looking at the dark money behind Brexit, but the first thing I thought while reading The Telegraph’s story was: “Who has paid a professional pollster to carry out a survey on a question nobody is asking?”
The answer is something called Car26.org. This, The Telegraph informed its readers, is a “new campaign group calling for a referendum on net zero proposals and a pause in eco regulations until such a ballot is held”.
Yep, you read that right. No climate change mitigation policies until a referendum on Net Zero. Sound familiar?
Brexit saw vast sums of money spent through ‘astroturf’ groups: campaigns posing as grassroots initiatives with no visible support but a deep-pocketed funder behind the scenes. A 20-something scriptwriter in Manchester spent a fortune on hard Brexit Facebook ads.
Before the 2019 general election nominally ‘third party’ campaigns spent £700,000 pushing Conservative talking points without declaring any donations.
Car26.org looks like it was lifted straight out of the same playbook. It was registered at Companies House only last month. Its public face and director – Lois Perry – is a representative for Reclaim, the culture war party fronted by Laurence Fox, the actor and anti-lockdown, anti-diversity activist, and bankrolled by Brexit donor Jeremy Hosking.
There’s more. At the bottom of the Car26 website – past the description of young people’s involvement in climate protests as “borderline child abuse” – there’s a note saying the site is “powered by Blue Sky”. Blue Sky Strategy is a tiny communications company run by a small group of Brexit veterans, including Rebecca Ryan, who is director of the astroturf Defund the BBC campaign and who used to work alongside Vote Leave’s former chief technology officer, Thomas Borwick. What a small world.
He goes on to say that there are striking parallels between the Brexit playbook and the increasingly vocal opposition to action on climate change:
The taxpayer-funded European Research Group of Conservative MPs – which played a starring role in the UK’s exit from the EU – has largely morphed into the Net Zero Scrutiny Group. The Global Warming Policy Foundation — which long promoted climate change denialism — has been relaunched as Net Zero Watch. Wycombe MP Steve Baker, the “Brexit hardman”, is a leading light in both.
Net Zero Scrutiny Group MPs take pains to stress that they don’t deny climate science. But they do want to slow down – or halt – climate change mitigation policies. This has become the position of far-Right groups across Europe, too.
Just as they did when the Northern Irish border dilemma confronted them during the Brexit negotiations, Tory MPs are endlessly talking up technological solutions to the climate crisis.
Feted Teesside Tory mayor – and Donald Trump fan – Ben Houchen recently warned against Green levies, telling The Sun: “You don’t need taxation. You need to believe in the power of innovation and people to come up with the ideas and solutions.”
This is music to the ears of the oil and gas industry. The financial ties between them and the Conservatives are, no doubt, simply a coincidence.
As openDemocracy recently revealed, the Tories have received more than £1m from the energy sector since the 2019 election; one MP alone, John Hayes, has received £150,000. The former energy minister has likened climate protestors to “radical Islam”.
It’s not hard to see Net Zero replacing Brexit as the major fissure in the Conservative Party in the coming years. While Johnson might wrap himself in Green rhetoric, Tory party faithful – who will choose the next leader – are far more sceptical.
The influential Tufton Street think tanks – fuelled by dark money and anonymous corporate donations – are increasingly vocal on Net Zero. The Institute of Economic Affairs, which once boasted to an undercover reporter that it was in “the Brexit influencing game”, told its newsletter readers this week that it would “continue to challenge the ropey economics” of Net Zero.
As with Brexit, the nation's and, in this case, the world's future is being put at risk by powerful forces seeking to advance their own interests. We cannot let it happen again.
Mr. Geoghegan, whose book 'Democracy for Sale' is excellent by the way, argues that the UK government's commitment to Net Zero by 2050 is under threat from an organised, well-funded opposition on the Conservative Right, many of whom are veterans of the fight for Brexit, and who intend to pursue similar tactics to achieve their goal.
He says that a classic example of this appeared in The Telegraph this week: the day before the Budget, when it reported a YouGov survey had found a majority of the British public “want a referendum on Boris Johnson’s net zero plans” by the next general election – a majority of those who expressed a preference, that is. The next day, Nigel Farage told GB News viewers that a referendum on Green taxes “could well be my latest campaign”:
Perhaps it’s because I spent so long looking at the dark money behind Brexit, but the first thing I thought while reading The Telegraph’s story was: “Who has paid a professional pollster to carry out a survey on a question nobody is asking?”
The answer is something called Car26.org. This, The Telegraph informed its readers, is a “new campaign group calling for a referendum on net zero proposals and a pause in eco regulations until such a ballot is held”.
Yep, you read that right. No climate change mitigation policies until a referendum on Net Zero. Sound familiar?
Brexit saw vast sums of money spent through ‘astroturf’ groups: campaigns posing as grassroots initiatives with no visible support but a deep-pocketed funder behind the scenes. A 20-something scriptwriter in Manchester spent a fortune on hard Brexit Facebook ads.
Before the 2019 general election nominally ‘third party’ campaigns spent £700,000 pushing Conservative talking points without declaring any donations.
Car26.org looks like it was lifted straight out of the same playbook. It was registered at Companies House only last month. Its public face and director – Lois Perry – is a representative for Reclaim, the culture war party fronted by Laurence Fox, the actor and anti-lockdown, anti-diversity activist, and bankrolled by Brexit donor Jeremy Hosking.
There’s more. At the bottom of the Car26 website – past the description of young people’s involvement in climate protests as “borderline child abuse” – there’s a note saying the site is “powered by Blue Sky”. Blue Sky Strategy is a tiny communications company run by a small group of Brexit veterans, including Rebecca Ryan, who is director of the astroturf Defund the BBC campaign and who used to work alongside Vote Leave’s former chief technology officer, Thomas Borwick. What a small world.
He goes on to say that there are striking parallels between the Brexit playbook and the increasingly vocal opposition to action on climate change:
The taxpayer-funded European Research Group of Conservative MPs – which played a starring role in the UK’s exit from the EU – has largely morphed into the Net Zero Scrutiny Group. The Global Warming Policy Foundation — which long promoted climate change denialism — has been relaunched as Net Zero Watch. Wycombe MP Steve Baker, the “Brexit hardman”, is a leading light in both.
Net Zero Scrutiny Group MPs take pains to stress that they don’t deny climate science. But they do want to slow down – or halt – climate change mitigation policies. This has become the position of far-Right groups across Europe, too.
Just as they did when the Northern Irish border dilemma confronted them during the Brexit negotiations, Tory MPs are endlessly talking up technological solutions to the climate crisis.
Feted Teesside Tory mayor – and Donald Trump fan – Ben Houchen recently warned against Green levies, telling The Sun: “You don’t need taxation. You need to believe in the power of innovation and people to come up with the ideas and solutions.”
This is music to the ears of the oil and gas industry. The financial ties between them and the Conservatives are, no doubt, simply a coincidence.
As openDemocracy recently revealed, the Tories have received more than £1m from the energy sector since the 2019 election; one MP alone, John Hayes, has received £150,000. The former energy minister has likened climate protestors to “radical Islam”.
It’s not hard to see Net Zero replacing Brexit as the major fissure in the Conservative Party in the coming years. While Johnson might wrap himself in Green rhetoric, Tory party faithful – who will choose the next leader – are far more sceptical.
The influential Tufton Street think tanks – fuelled by dark money and anonymous corporate donations – are increasingly vocal on Net Zero. The Institute of Economic Affairs, which once boasted to an undercover reporter that it was in “the Brexit influencing game”, told its newsletter readers this week that it would “continue to challenge the ropey economics” of Net Zero.
As with Brexit, the nation's and, in this case, the world's future is being put at risk by powerful forces seeking to advance their own interests. We cannot let it happen again.
