Liam Halligan

And look at the ban on drilling for new oil and gas in the North Sea.

Again, insane.

Because what we're doing instead, France, is even the Climate Change Committee, which is our kind of in-government think tank that has the legal rights to tell ministers what to do effectively, even the Climate Change Committee says that by...

2030, we're going to still use oil and gas for 50% of our energy.

It will actually be much higher.

Even by 2050, it will be 25% of our energy.

It will actually be much higher.

So even the most woke, green civil servants say we're still going to need lots of oil and gas, even if we hit net zero by 2050.

So why not use our own oil and gas?

Because if instead of using North Sea oil and gas, by the way, the North Sea oil complex employs about 300,000 people, many of them unionized, which is why the unions are upset.

We are importing liquefied natural gas from Qatar and America on ships.

That uses five times the carbon emissions because you've got to pump the gas, right?

You've got to liquefy it, which is a very energy-intensive process, stick it on a diesel ship, go 3,000 miles across the Atlantic, regasify it here, which is a very energy-intensive process.

When we've got oil and gas in the North Sea, to close that down...

just for ideological reasons, because Labour wants to appeal to their trendy urban electorates, who are very wealthy, is madness.

Because they are not only really, now I think, threatening the energy security of this country, they are also...

hammering their traditional blue-collar base that works in these industries.

And that is why that blue-collar base is increasingly looking for alternative political representation.