Just stop Labour’s ban

Climate change zealots belonging to the organisation Just Stop Oil sought to disrupt the premiership rugby final at Twickenham on Saturday, just a few days after staging a similar stunt at the Chelsea Flower Show.

On both occasions they found spectators hostile to their antics, not because people don’t care about the issue but because everyone knows that the UK has done more to decarbonise than almost any other industrialised country.

Yet the targets that have been set by the Government for achieving net zero emissions are both unattainable and hypocritical since we will always need gas and oil as backups on windless days. Otherwise, the lights will go out.

Politicians know this, and yet they continue to burnish their green credentials rather than acknowledge the reality of our energy vulnerability. If we “ just stop oil” then we will just end up importing it from somewhere else, such as the Gulf or even Russia. Oil and gas still provide the lion’s share of the country’s overall mix and will continue to contribute well into the future.

Half-baked efforts by the Government to tempt energy giants back into drilling have been wrecked by punitive windfall taxes and the lack of any certainty surrounding future project development. Some 90 per cent of operators are cutting back their activities putting thousands of jobs at risk.

Yet Sir Keir Starmer is reportedly preparing to ban all new North Sea extraction, even though the shortfall will have to be imported from countries with greater emissions. If Labour is serious about wanting to form a government they need to start acting like one and not as cheerleaders for a tiny, tiresome pressure group.