Remember. Remember back to the days that existed before the 2016 Referendum. In fact remember back even much further than that to the 1990’s and the Major administration’s utter and complete disdain for those who questioned the EU project along with the far too slavish alignment of the Blair government with the EU. What do those times and those political environments have in common with each other? The answer as I see it to the question of commonalities is that they both treated those who asked awkward questions about the EU and Britain’s place within it as laughable and inconsequential extremists who could and were mocked. Those who saw negatives in EU membership were described as ‘bastards’ (in the case of John Major’s description of what would later be termed Brexiteers). On the other side of the political aisle, Labourites and others on the Left were describing those in those parts of the country and social classes that the EU had not benefited as being ‘racist’, ‘xenophobic’, ‘Little Englanders’ and ‘ill informed’.

In both cases the political Establishment mocked, dismissed and sneered at those who asked the awkward questions about the EU. Questions such as who, both as social classes and groups within society, benefits from Britain’s EU membership, who controls EU organs and how are these organs controlled and finally is it in the interests of the majority of Britons to be subject to EU control? At one point asking such a question in what would pass for polite or rather politically connected society would have invited contempt and sneers from those who saw the EU as a ‘settled matter’ and whose only response was arrogant mockery and being treated as an intellectual simpleton by those who truly believed that they knew better. Because of issues of class and connections, being a paleo-Brexiteer during the Major and Blair years, would have made you about as popular as a pork chop at a Barmitzvah.

Ultimately the sneering was aimed not always at those proto-Brexit enthusiasts in the political world. It was mostly aimed at those of us that the political Establishment quite plainly saw as ‘plebs’, even though they may not have used that word. That was the energy behind much of the sneering by the EU haves at the EU have nots, for example those in the working classes, who saw little or no benefit and a lot of problems with EU membership.

But the arrogant political Establishment got a bloody nose in 2016 when all those people who had been sneered at, sidelined, mocked and ignored, spoke up and rejected the EU in the Referendum that took place in the June of that year. The people of Britain rejected the approved message of their so-called ‘betters’ and voted to leave the EU.

Over at Comment Central the writer Jayne Adye believes that there is a similar situation where the Establishment is sneering at the rest of us and that is the Net Zero idea. Just as with Brexit we have a situation emerging where members of the Establishment and those whose jobs are linked to the Net Zero project, are treating those who are asking awkward questions about Net Zero in a similar manner to how they treated Brexiteers.

Ms Adye said:

Unsurprisingly, with more and more people questioning this rushed policy towards net zero, many in Westminster have turned to trying to ridicule anyone who questions the reality which has already been accepted within Whitehall. Now that many of us who long ago quite rightly questioned the integration of the European Union and called for Brexit, are leading the charge against un-costed and possibly reckless environmental policies. We have already seen the same old recurrent themes being rolled out – we are supposedly uneducated, far-right people, who are yearning for a return to the past, with no regard for the word of experts. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

It does indeed sound familiar. It is after all probably the same social class, those who benefited from the EU just as they see no downsides to Net Zero because they can afford to live in the sort of world and economy that Net Zero is almost certain to produce. Not for them the choice between heating or eating or having their life options diminished. That grim existence is going to be the lot of those who do not benefit from Net Zero policies or just can’t afford to become one of Net Zero’s cheerleaders.

I believe that Ms Adye is correct. Net Zero is very popular within the Westminster bubble and among the Middle Class Left, just as EU membership was with such people. However the arrogance of this political and governing class might end up finding out at the ballot box just how unpopular their pet Net Zero policies really are. There’s an opening here for a challenger party who can do for the cause of a balanced and affordable energy policy what UKIP and prior to that the Referendum Party did for the cause of Brexit.