The hidden green subsidies and taxes on electricity bills is the “biggest silent rip-off in Britain” according to Brexit’s Nigel Farage, who has launched a campaign to hold a referendum on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Build Back Better net-zero agenda.
Nigel Farage has said that while the spiralling cost of gas prices in the UK are having a “disastrous effect” on the standard of living for the average Briton, the true scandal is the cost of electricity and the fact that energy bills don’t inform the public of how much they are forking over to prop up the so-called green energy industry.
According to a February report from the government’s own energy regulator, Ofgem, the average household is paying 25.48 per cent of their electricity expenditures towards “environmental/social obligations” or in other words towards the green energy sector.
On top of that, a further 4.76 per cent of electricity bills is committed to paying a Value Added Tax (VAT), a tax which although Prime Minister Boris Johnson previously cited as something which Brexit Britain could cut once freed from the European Union, the government has refused to scrap despite soaring costs.
“The fact that our bills don’t even tell us that 30 per cent of our electricity goes in tax and green subsidies” is the “biggest silent rip-off in Britain,” Mr Farage said on Sunday.
The populist leader went on to claim that the main beneficiaries of the government’s green schemes are “rich landowners who’ve been paid for years to have wind turbines on their land and large foreign giant multinationals who are building these monstrosities out in the north sea.”
The Brexiteer, who has launched a campaign to hold a referendum on Boris Johnson’s net-zero agenda, said that British politicians have never put their green vision to a vote because “they all agree that we must bow down to a teenage girl called Greta from Sweden with no scientific background whatsoever.”
“I think with energy prices going up people will start to notice this gigantic rip-off and I think our MPs should be held to account for what is genuinely rip-off Britain,” he concluded.
Despite the growing costs of energy and other necessary goods amid rising inflation and the war in Ukraine, the nominally Conservative government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson has so far refused to commit to cutting taxes.
While the 2019 election manifesto — on which the present government was elected — vowed to cut taxes, the government instead has implemented the highest tax burden in seventy years, with an expected £12 billion tax hike scheduled for April when National Insurance payments will rise by 1.25 per cent.
When questioned whether Chancellor Rishi Sunak would consider cutting taxes in his Sring Statement next week in response to the cost of living crisis, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove replied: “No.”
“We’re not doing that. We need that National Insurance Contribution increase in order to make sure that we can fund the NHS and social care to deal with the Covid backlog,” he told the BBC.
Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine is likely to contribute to inflation in the UK according to a leading think tank, which predicted that if the conflict is prolonged, inflation could see a “second peak” of eight per cent by the Autumn.
The poorest Britons, who devote twice as much of their budget on fuel and food, will face a heavier burden according to the Resolution Foundation, which predicted a possible inflation rate of 10 per cent for the lowest rung of the economy.
Though the government has claimed it is necessary to raise taxes this year in order to pay for the massive spending increases during the Chinese coronavirus lockdowns, the think tank said that tax revenues were actually £40 billion above expectations.
Research director at the Resolution Foundation, James Smith said: “Until recently, the Chancellor was approaching his Spring Statement with good news on the public finances and little pressure to make any big policy calls. Fast-rising inflation, exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine, has changed all this.
“The chances of a living standards recovery this year are receding as rapidly as inflation is rising, and the risk of another recession is looming into view. The Chancellor will therefore need to make some tough, and potentially expensive, choices in how to respond.”
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