There is a great deal of talk on the British Right about how best to capitalise on Donald Trump’s historic victory. Some have suggested that the mere presence of a pro-free speech Anglophile in the White House will limit Keir Starmer’s room for manoeuvre: continuing to lock up intemperate old ladies for their Facebook posts will generate more of a PR headache under an anti-woke, Elon Musk-supported Trump administration than was the case with a doty Joe Biden at the helm. Others have speculated that the real advantage of having a fearless, patriotic government across the Atlantic can only serve to stiffen the spines of British right-wingers, otherwise prone to doomerism or over-caution.
While this is all very plausible, the most immediate benefit will likely be a financial one. Everyone should by now be familiar with the reports that Musk is on the verge of turbo-charging Nigel Farage’s efforts to break the frame of British politics with an appropriately large injection of cash to Reform UK. Just days ago, Farage met the tech titan for as long as an hour—to “discuss money,” among other things—at Trump’s famed Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. Less well-known is the fact that, fresh off the plane after jetting back to Britain, Farage swiftly joined a London social gathering, with many other high-fliers in attendance, to celebrate the UK launch of another heavy-hitter from the United States: The Heartland Institute.
Held at the Brooks’s Club and organised by Touchpoint Politics, the event marked the start of a new endeavour. The Heartland Institute is the world’s leading think tank promoting ‘climate realism.’ Founded 40 years ago in Arlington Heights, Illinois, it now has established a ‘beach-head’ in the United Kingdom, from which it may then expand into Continental Europe. Heartland UK/Europe is officially up and running. This expansion, as the Institute’s president, James Taylor told the audience, marks an important moment in the organisation’s mission to fostering transatlantic cooperation advancing individual liberty and economic freedom.
In his role as the night’s keynote speaker, Farage made a typically rousing address, peppered with jibes at the Westminster consensus, and informed the audience of his intention to make the economic self-harm of net zero a central issue in British politics. Given that he managed to raise the salience of Britain’s membership in the European Union—at one time a very niche concern among boffins obsessed with constitutional arcana—by linking it to mass immigration, so too he may have luck pulling off a similar feat with net zero by relating it to less technical, more bread-and-butter concerns like the cost-of-living.
The resources that Heartland UK/Europe can provide, both intellectual and financial, are bound to be invaluable. In truth, this kind of American presence in Britain could neither be better timed nor more sorely needed. Evidence suggests that the UK is currently engaged in a mortifying contest with Justin Trudeau’s Canada to see who can claim the ultimate nagging rights as the most poorly governed, declining nation in the Anglosphere.
Nowhere is our bid for this title stronger than in the British state’s quixotic, utopian obsession with ‘achieving’ net zero emissions. Cheap, efficient, dependable energy is the lifeblood of an advanced industrial economy. Without it, capital is harder to come by, homes are more expensive to heat, and people’s overall quality of life goes down. It was in 2019 that the wretched Conservative Party committed Britain, as a matter of law, to reaching net zero emissions by 2050. Initially carried out under Theresa May, the cause was enthusiastically taken up by Boris Johnson and seems to be even dearer to the hearts of the cosmopolitan trendies now running the Labour government.
The problem with such rigid targets, of course, is that even the most high-minded ends do not generate their own means. Very often, we cannot know in advance whether pursuing a specific goal decades hence is possible. Even if we do know it to be possible, is it practicable? And even if we can say with confidence that it is practicable, what are the costs? Are they worth it? Who will bear them?
Net Zero is framed by its cheerleaders, whether in government or in the media, as the answer to a question. Rarely does anyone pause to consider the interminable list of further questions it provokes about its potential impact on the economy and the lives of ordinary people.
Yet rather than attending to such ‘inconvenient details,’ the Labour government under Keir Starmer has instead dutifully hacked away at the UK economy—and weaponised science—in the hope that some path to this legally in-built destination may emerge. Since entering office, Labour have banned the awarding of new oil exploration licences in the North Sea, committed to spending £8.3 billion on Great British Energy over the course of this parliament, presided over the closure of the last coal-fired power station, instructed the Bank of England to give climate change equal consideration alongside monetary stability, unveiled plans to intensify ‘green’ efforts by turning the electricity grid net zero by 2030, vowed to outlaw new petrol cars by the same year, reinstated a ‘boiler tax’ with heat pump targets for installers and fines for anyone who misses them, and imposed stringent eco-standards on landlords, driving up the cost of rent. It is little wonder that Britain now has the most expensive industrial energy costs in the world.
The Heartland Institute is a long-standing opponent of such weaponisation of science. They view the scientific enterprise as a process and a method, not a moment or a catechism. This is because all true scientists proceed, as the philosopher Karl Popper urged, by “conjecture and refutation”—the idea being that any scientific knowledge we believe ourselves to have grasped, while it may have proved itself against attempts at falsification, should be treated as provisional.
Managerial politics is what happens when claims to scientific knowledge are instead treated as unquestionable certainties and enlisted to justify large-scale social engineering projects. And, in textbook managerialist style, the central planners conscripting the rest of us into whatever mission they happen to prize will for the most part be insulated from the unglamorous consequences of their grand designs.
In the case of the net zero agenda, it is ordinary working people—those for whom the Labour Party claims to speak—who are suffering, and will continue to suffer, most of all. One saving grace is that this means their political loyalties will be up for grabs over the next five years. And now, with the intellectual heft and scientific firepower of The Heartland Institute now behind him, Farage stands an even greater chance not just of winning people over but of actually making it to No. 10.
