Conservative MPs have backed a campaign against raising fuel tax led by a Reform UK politician and lobbyist who has publicly claimed that “man is not responsible for global warming”. 

Howard Cox, director of the lobby group FairFuel UK, yesterday led a delegation to 10 Downing Street to petition against a mooted 7p rise in fuel duty in the government’s upcoming budget, which will be announced on 30 October.

He was joined by a group of Conservative MPs including GB News host Esther McVey, Saqib Bhatti, Greg Smith, Bradley Thomas, James Wild, and Shivani Raja, according to a photo posted on X by journalist Christopher Hope. 

The petition stated that “increasing fuel duty is economic and political suicide and will not save the planet”. Transport produced 26 percent of the UK’s total emissions in 2021 and was the country’s largest emitting sector.

Cox has stood for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in two separate elections this year, running as the party’s London mayoral candidate, and its parliamentary candidate for Dover and Deal in July’s general election. 

Reform UK campaigns to entirely scrap the UK’s net zero emissions targets, and advocates for new fossil fuel drilling. The party is gaining in the polls, and Farage has said that he wants to replace the Conservatives as the leading right-wing movement in British politics.

FairFuelUK is an influential group with allies in Parliament and the media, leading joint campaigns with The Sun newspaper. Cox has claimed to have successfully used his political contacts to secure a fuel duty freeze for the past 14 years. 

However, Cox has increasingly cast doubt on established climate science.

Last November, Cox said in a post on X: “It is arrogant to think that we, as human beings, can make any difference to this planet.”

In August 2022, in response to a TalkTV segment in which Reform UK‘s Richard Tice criticised the views of climate scientist Dr Gerald Kutney, Cox tweeted: “I am now even more convinced man is not responsible for global warming”.

Climate scientists working at the world’s foremost climate science body, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have said that “it is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet”.

All five of Reform UK’s parliamentary MPs have signed a letter sent to the Chancellor Rachel Reeves endorsing FairFuel’s campaign calling on the government to keep fuel duty frozen.

“The 14 year campaign to freeze fuel duty, and subsequent decisions of consecutive chancellors to do so, has cost the taxpayer in excess of £130 billion,” said Ralph Palmer, UK electric vehicles lead at the advocacy group Transport and Environment.

“While sold as a policy to support low income drivers, it’s estimated that only 4.6 percent of the cut actually went into the pockets of those on the lowest incomes. Instead, these policies have overwhelmingly benefitted the richest in society. The policy is poor value for money and is little more than a political gimmick. It’s a no-brainer for the chancellor to break the cycle.”

FairFuel’s Tory Backers

FairFuel UK is supported by Craig Mackinlay, the former Conservative MP who continues to lead the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, which rallies parliamentary support against climate action and net zero. 

Mackinlay, who was given a peerage after standing down in July’s general election having contracted sepsis last year, formerly chaired the Fair Fuel for UK Motorists and UK Hauliers All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG). The APPG has not yet been re-registered following the election.

Yesterday’s fuel duty stunt was not the first time that Tory politicians have cosied up to Reform candidate Cox. In January, then Conservative Net Zero Secretary Claire Coutinho met Cox and praised his work. 

Cox has campaigned against traffic and anti-pollution schemes including Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) and ultra low emission zones (ULEZ). 

As DeSmog reported, Cox attended an anti-ULEZ rally ahead of May’s London mayoral election organised by a group which had promoted conspiracy theories about “climate lockdowns”.

FairFuel has also lobbied against government plans to phase out petrol and diesel cars, publishing a report in 2021 attacking electric vehicles. 

Cox declined to respond to DeSmog’s request for comment.