What is Nigel Farage’s ‘Vote Power, Not Poverty’ group?

Now Brexit has been achieved – to questionable success – Nigel Farage has turned his ire on climate change.

The 58-year-old GB News host and former Brexit Party leader has launched an organisation called ‘Vote Power, Not Poverty’ with the aim of forcing a referendum on the UK Government’s Net Zero plans.

What are the aims of Vote Power, Not Poverty? And how do Farage and his supporters hope to achieve them?

1. What are the UK Government’s Net Zero plans?

   The UK has made a commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

   In October the government released a UK Net Zero Strategy to set out how British businesses and consumers will be supported in making the transition to clean energy and green technology, with the aim of lowering Britain’s reliance on fossil fuels by investing in sustainable clean energy in the UK.

   It follows a series of landmark reports from the world’s leading authority on the climate crisis, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

   The reports, compiled by the world’s leading climate experts, describe how the climate crisis is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet, and calls for urgent, transformative action to secure humanity’s future.

2. Why is Farage opposed to Net Zero?

   According to the organisation’s website: “Our aim is simple. We are demanding a referendum on the life-changing Net Zero plans forced upon us by Westminster politicians.

   “We all care about the environment and want cleaner air. We all want to do our bit. But Westminster’s Net Zero is the wrong bit, at the wrong price, in the wrong timeframe.

   “Our aim is to galvanise the great British public into pushing back against a Net Zero agenda that will destroy British jobs, whilst making us poorer and colder.”

   Experts have denounced it as “disingenuous” and economically illiterate.

   When pushed on concrete details about its aims by the Independent’s Donnachadh McCarthy, the organisation was silent.

   And climate reporter Zoe Tidman analysed how the cost of slashing emissions will not come cheap but – even just in financial terms – the price of unabated global warming will likely be far higher.

3. Why was Vote Power, Not Poverty’s launch cancelled?

   Farage cancelled the launch of his new campaign against net zero after a second venue pulled out of hosting it.

   Organisers of the Vote Power Not Poverty rally said “a wave of abuse, threats and intimidation” had led them to scrap the event, which had been scheduled to take place in Bolton last month.

   The launch of the campaign, which is calling for a referendum on the government’s pledge to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, was originally due to be held at Bolton Wanderers’ stadium but the football club pulled out amid a fan backlash.

   The rally was set to be relocated to 3D Centre, a wedding and function space, but campaign organisers told The Independent on Monday they had cancelled the event entirely after that venue also pulled out.

   “The amount of intimidation the owner was under became impossible,” a spokesman for the campaign told The Independent.

   “It’s even worse than Brexit.”