Boris Johnson’s Build Back Better green agenda to radically transform the British economy with the use of wind power and other ‘green energy’ sources is a “big mistake,” former President Donald J. Trump has said.
In a sit-down interview with Brexit’s Nigel Farage in Florida to be aired on Wednesday, Mr Trump said that while he personally “got along” with Boris Johnson, he fears that the British PM has drifted to the “liberal side” of politics, despite leading the British Conservative Party.
“He’s making a big mistake,” Mr Trump told the Brexiteer turned GB News presenter in leaked comments reported by The Telegraph.
“I’m surprised that he would allow that to happen because you have one of the most beautiful countries in the world. And you’re destroying it with all these wind turbines all over the place.”
“Once they’re there for a couple of years, they start to rust and wear out and look terrible, look even worse,” Trump said, adding: “Environmentalists are liking this stuff. I think they hate the world.”
The former president has long been against the implementation of wind energy in Britain, dating back to a lengthy lawsuit over plans to construct turbines off the coast of his Aberdeen golf course in Scotland.
“I think it’s a shame what’s happened in Scotland, in the UK, all over the place. You take a look, I think Ireland has been better about it,” he told Farage.
Explaining his opposition to the supposedly green energy, Mr Trump continued: “Wind is the most expensive form of energy. And remember, every 10 years, you have to replace those monsters.
“And a lot of times they don’t bother, you know what they do, they just let them rot. They kill all the birds, they are so bad.”
Despite previously being likened to President Trump by the mainstream media, Mr Johnson, in fact, politically aligns more closely with neoliberal Democrats in America.
In contrast to President Trump, Johnson has pursued left-wing policy aims, such as higher taxes, free trade with China, and has been weak in the face of illegal immigration like his current counterpart in the White House, President Joe Biden.
Both Biden and Mr Johnson have been at the forefront of the so-called Build Back Better movement, which the PM has said should seek to radically transform the economy in the wake of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. In a speech last month, Johnson even went so far as to quote communist dictator Vladimir Lenin to promote his green vision for Britain.
While the UK government has admitted that it has enough natural gas to last the country fifty years in the Bowland Shale deposits alone, the Conservative government ended support for fracking in 2019, despite the widespread use of the technology in America being credited with lowering the nation’s carbon footprint and reducing dependency on foreign energy suppliers.
In contrast to Trump’s pro-fracking agenda, Mr Johson is seeking to quadruple the amount of wind energy produced offshore to meet his target of achieving ‘net-zero’ carbon emissions by the year 2050, the cost of which is expected to be in the trillions.
The reliance on so-called green energy has left Britain vulnerable to the whims of other nations, including nuclear-energy exporter France, which recently threatened to cut off electricity to the British Crown Dependency of Jersey amid the ongoing post-Brexit fishing dispute.
UK gas prices have also increased as a result of the European energy crunch as a result of Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly holding back gas supplies.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka