People will need to “change their behaviour” on their energy usage to prevent being “blackmailed” by Vadimir Putin, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said on Wednesday.
Mr Hunt, the globalist head of the Treasury Department, said that the war in Ukraine has demonstrated that people need to “take responsibility for their energy bills.”
“They are going to have to think about how they reduce their energy consumption. It is a national mission to make sure we can’t be blackmailed by people like Putin when they do things that disrupt our energy supplies,” he said per The Times of London.
The government’s finance chief said in response to this, Britons should look to reduce their energy usage by 15 per cent in order to save £500 on their energy bills. In his autumn budget, Hunt changed the Energy Bills Support Scheme, which currently subsidises £500 from the energy bills of millions, will come to an end in the Spring of 2024.
Former Prime Minister Liz Truss, who was ousted from power by Hunt and others, had promised the public that energy bills would remain capped at around £2,500 for the next two years, however, in his autumn budget, Mr Hunt said that from Aril bills will rise to £3,000 and that the cap would expire one year later.
“We’ve got this national ambition to reduce energy consumption by 15 per cent. That isn’t just at a national level, that’s for every household. The £500 we’re offering people to help people save next year, if people do the 15 per cent, they could save that £500 themselves in the years that follow.
“We’re trying to help people to help themselves. We do need people to change their behaviour.”
Though the UK only receives around 4 per cent of its natural gas directly from Russia, because of failures from successive Conservative governments to attain energy independence, the country is still reliant on continental Europe to meet its energy needs and therefore vulnerable to the shocks caused by the Ukrainian conflict.
While the government is now demanding that the poeple change their behaviour, it is apparently unwilling to change itself to help ease the bruden, such as by lifting fracking restrictions so that the country can take advantage of its own natural resources rather than relying on others. Indeed, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak used one of his first acts to reinstate the ban on fracking and has since gone on to raise windfall taxes on energy companies in order to fund its green agenda.
Sunak has also suggested at the COP27 climate conference that the UK would be open to paying climate “reparations” to nations such as Pakistan, despite the public struggling under the strain of the cost of living and energy crisis.
Meanwhile, Britons are facing the prospect of rolling blackouts this winter, with the government even reportedly begining to conduct emergency meetings to plan for the potential chaos that could ensue from widespread power cuts.
According to a report from , the government will begin embarking upon a public awareness campaign, telling them to begin rationing their energy consumption through methods like turning down their boiler temperature and shutting off unnecessary radiators.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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