London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s anti-car ULEZ tax scheme is part of a wider “war on individual liberty” against the British people, Laurence Fox told Breitbart London.
On the campaign trail in Uxbridge, as he seeks to replace Boris Johnson in the House of Commons in the by-election on Thursday, Reclaim Party leader Laurence Fox has found that the issue most concerning to voters in the London suburb is Mayor Sadiq Khan’s expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ).
Mayor Khan’s supposedly climate-inspired initiative is set to expand the £12.50 (~$15.50) tax per day for driving anywhere in all 32 boroughs of the capital next month, in a move that opponents have noted will disproportionately impact the working class, many of whom need to drive or commute in London to earn a living.
Yet for Fox, hiding behind the green veneer are the hallmarks of the craven desire for authoritarian control.
“There’s a war on individual liberty,” Fox told Breitbart London. “It’s like all great pieces of social engineering, it’s very slow. It’s boiling the frog, the frog doesn’t know it’s getting boiled. And those people that can see it for what it is, and can see what’s coming, are waving the flags and trying to warn people, but a lot of people want to bury their heads in the sand and hope it all goes away. But the problem is, it’s not going to go away.”
“You can’t just get in your car and go somewhere without being fined or taxed in some way, but where does it stop?”
The actor turned political campaigner, who stared in the Breitbart original film My Son Hunter, went on to note that the very same people who bought into the government’s urging to buy diesel cars to protect the environment are the same people who are now being told that they can’t drive their supposedly more environmentally friendly cars in London without being taxed for the privilege.
“We’re in a cost of living crisis, we’re about to go through a major financial crisis towards the end of the year, energy bills are going to be off the charts, inflation is out of control and people can’t afford their lives.
“So then, on top of that, they say we’re going to charge you an extra 60 quid a week just to for the privilege of owning a car or a van to get to work. It’s really criminal.”
“But I think people are becoming aware of the fact that it’s just taxation in the name of false salvation,” Fox said.
So far, the most visible aspect of Khan’s expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone — which had previously only been confined to the heart of London — has been the installation of licence plate-reading street cameras to monitor which cars enter and exit the green tax zone.
Perhaps taking a cue from the Yellow Vest protesters who rose up against the carbon tax plans of Emmanuel Macron, members of the British public have deployed unorthodox means of civil disobedience over the plan, allegedly destroying the cameras in droves.
“I think they’ve reached the limit, I think people a lot of people are aware with the ULEZ cameras, all the implementation of this 15-minute cities thing about ‘we’re going to make it so easy for you, that everything will be within 15 minutes of where you are’. But if you build the control mechanism before you build the infrastructure, then it gets it just reminds people of what you are doing.”
“Don’t build the cameras before you built the shops.”
It’s no coincidence for Fox that the establishment’s quest for control has come in concert with the de-banking of figures such as Nigel Farage and indeed his own political party, given persistent challenges to the blob orthodoxy on issues such as the green agenda, transgenderism, and before that lockdowns and vaccine passports.
“We had our bank account and I’ve had threatening calls from my bank to shut my personal bank accounts out,” Fox said. “It’s a scary time. People thought COVID was bad in terms of control and power but that’s just like a mild inconvenience compared to not being able to bank or transact. What does freedom of speech mean? It can’t mean that you are not free to eat unless you say the right thing.”
Yet, despite staring down the barrel of encroaching tyranny, the Reclaim chief said that he is hopeful, saying: “The stuff that I’m talking about is resonating with people, otherwise, we wouldn’t be appearing on polls.”