Richard Tice and his Reform UK party have sent another shiver of dismay running up the Tory spine (or would have, if such an anatomical item existed) and that of the rest of the political class, by pledging a referendum on Net Zero as part of their programme. Reform is demanding a Brexit-style poll on the lunatic 2050 climate target. In doing so, it is driving a further wedge into the crumbling authority of the elites, aimed at their systemic power base.
The relationship of the political class to the concept of the referendum resembles that of Dracula to a crucifix: only once in the post-War years has the popular will been asserted over Britain’s oligarchy of elites – entitled parliamentarians, civil servants, NGOs, media “influencers”, etc – and that was enabled by the Brexit referendum. That devastating experience, when the common people used their brute numbers to derail the establishment gravy train, denying Tristram and India automatic access to highly-paid sinecures in Brussels, to the embitterment of their parents, taught the ruling class (actually a clique, recruited from various classes) to fear the referendum as a political instrument.
