The problem with Brexit is that there wasn’t much the EU would do to us that our own establishment wouldn’t do to us without being instructed by Brussels. This is particularly true on the matter of energy. Not only would we promptly implement EU directives, our own parliament took the opportunity to heap more misery on us. This is also true of a number of European states who have gone beyond implementing the combustion plant directives and closed vital baseload electricity generation facilities.

Consequently, Europe is more dependent than ever on Russian gas, and in the UK, by way of Ed Davey’s decision not to build more gas storage, the interconnector from France is at times the only thing preventing rolling blackouts across the country. Now that France is having technical difficulties with its nuclear plant, the situation is somewhat precarious. We’ve seen several days of lamentable performance from wind turbines and we’ve been firing up every spare bit of kit in the country to cope with peak demand – at exorbitant prices.

Ukip has warned for more than a decade that our obsession with intermittent and unreliable renewable energy would drive millions into fuel poverty, while giving up our energy independence. We needed large scale investment in nuclear over a decade ago but instead we’ve bet the farm on a technology that could never replace baseload generation, which has to be backed up by gas. You didn’t have to be Nostradamus to know that sooner or later, global gas price volatility would hit Europe hard. It’s hard to think of greater post-war strategic blunder.

Though the EU is rightly blamed for the Large Combustion Plant Directive (that saw us blow up our ageing coal fleet and made equivalent replacements prohibitively expensive), politicians in the grip of eco-hysteria have left us massively vulnerable to power cuts and geopolitical blackmail. Already, heavy industry in Europe is being asked to power down to preserve energy over the peaks of winter, but it may not be enough to keep the lights on.

Had we simply replaced our old coal stations with newer ones we would not be in this mess. New generation coal burners are four times more efficient than those they replace, which would still count toward our “climate obligations”. But then it is necessary, now more than ever, to demand a reappraisal of climate dogma being that it all rests on statistical models and assumptions which have proven about as accurate as recent epidemiological models.

The consequence of this full spectrum policy failure is a collapsing gas retail sector, massive liabilities for the taxpayer and household bills that could see the elderly forced to choose between heating and eating. Labour will no doubt call for funds to be made available so that the poorest need not freeze, but Labour’s energy policy is still directed by Ed Miliband - who is one of the original architects of this disaster under Gordon Brown. They will cushion the symptoms of their failures but won’t fundamentally rethink their approach.

This, in part, was what Brexit was meant to address. I know from my many years of campaigning for Brexit that energy security and affordability was a central Eurosceptic concern, knowing how dangerously foolish EU energy policy really was. Why the Tories took Brexit to mean we should double down on Net Zero, expanding the offshore wind industry, defies all explanation. More than any lapse in Covid compliance, this ought to be a confidence issue for the Tory party.

The Tories are set to inflict considerable pain on struggling households, pushing us toward electric cars and heat pumps for which there is little organic market demand. Nobody asked for this nor were we asked. They won’t put Net Zero to a referendum because they know damn well what the public would say.

Ultimately the Westminster parties have conspired to deny voters a choice. You get the same agenda regardless of who you vote for. That’s why UKIP isn’t going away. Even Richard Tice’s hobby party wants more of the same. The Reform Party website says “We will boost the solar and wind renewable sector using a new government owned Renewable Bank; the panels and turbines must be made here in the UK to save and create British jobs. This will also mean dramatically lower utility costs”.

It should be noted that at peak demand over the last few days wind and solar output was very close to zero. Boosting wind may create a few jobs here and there but that says nothing of the job losses caused by unsustainable energy costs and the hostile environment for energy intensive industries. It says a lot about the Reform Party that they’re not prepared to go up against the media blob on contentious issues such as immigration and and climate, yet these are the key battlegrounds in politics for the next decade. We might therefore ask, what the hell is the Reform Party even for?

Only a radical and urgent change in political culture, across the entire establishment, is going to keep the lights on. Half measures won’t cut it and only UKIP is willing to break from the cosy establishment consensus. The fight to “take back control” isn’t over.