By STEVE HILTON FORMER DIRECTOR OF STRATEGY FOR DAVID CAMERON
Europe’s dependence on Russia for around 40 per cent of the continent’s gas supplies isn’t some kind of natural phenomenon; it’s a conscious political choice.
As recently as 2010, EU countries actually produced more gas than Russia exported.
But, by 2020, the positions had completely reversed, with Russia exporting nearly three times more gas than Europe produced. Why? Because, being in thrall to the green dogma that has captured the Establishment the world over, European countries cut back on fossil-fuel production.
Energy security was sacrificed on the altar of ‘decarbonisation’ – even if that meant reducing production and the storage of reliable lower-carbon energy sources such as natural gas, or most preposterously, a policy towards zero-carbon nuclear power, which meant it was completely shut down in Germany and left to atrophy in the UK.
Of course none of this is to argue against the environmental cause: After all, I was the author of David Cameron’s ‘Vote Blue Go Green’ message.
A sensible environmentalism, with a focus on conservation and a responsibly managed transition to cleaner energy – in particular one that protects consumers from soaring bills – is something most people would support. However, that’s far from what we’ve seen.
Instead, politicians from all parties have indulged in an orgy of green virtue-signalling, implementing self-harming, counter-productive policies such as Boris Johnson’s ban on fracking for shale gas, with no serious thought given to the long-term consequences.
In truth, it’s even more cynical than that. Desperate to win the plaudits of green activists, these politicians recklessly cut back on their own countries’ energy production and filled the gap not with the much-vaunted ‘wind ‘n solar’ (both are too unreliable), but by importing dirtier fuels from other countries (such as Russia) that are unencumbered by the ‘climate’ zealotry relentlessly pushed by pressure groups and some in the media in the West.
Even more embarrassingly for our idiotic establishment, it turns out that those activists and their media campaigns have been funded by – wait for it – Putin!
That’s not some wild conspiracy theory: It’s Nato’s view.
Former Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in 2014: ‘Russia, as part of its sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organisations – environmental organisations working against shale gas – to maintain dependence on imported Russian gas.’
And, in the same year, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke about ‘phony environment groups funded by Russians to stand against’ energy initiatives such as fracking. In sum, Western leaders handed Putin massive geo-political leverage by making their people dependent on his gas – and were responding to activist campaigns that he had partly funded. How utterly perverse!
And look where that leaves us today. Even as Putin unleashes hell on innocent Ukrainians; as we witness scenes of inhumanity of a nature and on a scale not seen in Europe since the Second World War…
Putin’s oil and gas now flows uninterrupted to Europe, while £500million flows uninterrupted every day from Europe to Russia to pay for it.
