Labour launches net zero crackdown on boats

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

Now the Net Zero lunatics are coming for your boats!

The Telegraph report:

Labour is implementing stricter net zero measures on fishing boats, canal barges and pleasure craft, The Telegraph can reveal.

Under the maritime decarbonisation strategy, boat owners will be forced to swap out diesel engines, petrol generators and wood-fired stoves for electric motors, batteries and extra shore power hookups.

There will also be tax rises on marine fuel, with new boats required to be entirely electric.

Maritime bosses branded the Government’s plans “completely and utterly impractical”.

Richard Gregson, the owner of Worcester-based Classic Yacht Brokerage, said: “It’s complete nonsense to have net zero on yachts.

“The technology for electric engines on small boats isn’t really there. The amount of diesel a yacht burns in a year is negligible, and even if the diesel engines were replaced it would be offset by the making of electric batteries.”

Read the full story here.

For most, barges, yachts and pleasure boats are hobbies. Where on earth does the Government think ordinary people, who have skimped and scraped to renovate and maintain them, will get the money from to replace engines, batteries and the rest of the nonsense?

As for fisherman, this mad crusade will end up destroying their livelihoods.

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Coach Springer
March 31, 2025 6:16 am

Sometimes, things have to break before they can be replaced. So be it.

Idle Eric
Reply to  Coach Springer
March 31, 2025 6:28 am

Sometimes things get broken and are never replaced.

strativarius
Reply to  Idle Eric
March 31, 2025 8:48 am

comment image

Bryan A
Reply to  Idle Eric
March 31, 2025 12:02 pm

If something doesn’t need fixing, break it until it does.
Time for a Brit Tea Party. Perhaps a Pee Party telling Labour to Piss Off.

Scarecrow Repair
Reply to  Coach Springer
March 31, 2025 4:06 pm

You have to break some eggs to make an omolet. — Lenin

Where’s the omolet? — George Orwell.

Bruce Cobb
March 31, 2025 6:16 am

Maritime bosses branded the Government’s plans “completely and utterly idiotic and asinine”.
There, fixed.

strativarius
March 31, 2025 6:22 am

Would anyone like to buy some oars?

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  strativarius
March 31, 2025 6:57 am

Be careful. Oar locks are steel or aluminum.
Oars are generally wood, so no pellets for the burners.

Reply to  Sparta Nova 4
March 31, 2025 10:35 am

Opportunity for horse owners near canals.

Or maybe I can train my unicorns to tow boats.

Reply to  Oldseadog
March 31, 2025 1:30 pm

They used to tow barges with ox and draught horses.

(with all the associated poop.)

Back to the good old days !!

Reply to  bnice2000
March 31, 2025 9:55 pm

Oh and all the poop used to wash into the canals, keeping them nice and ripe. !

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Oldseadog
March 31, 2025 1:34 pm

Or just put your unicorn in the boat and make it fart until you reach your destination.

Reply to  strativarius
March 31, 2025 9:54 pm

Surely someone must have a way of running them for next-to-nothing off windmill power..

Its so cheap, after-all.

Nick ??

Yooper
Reply to  bnice2000
April 1, 2025 4:50 am

Don’t you mean sails?…. 😉

John the Econ
March 31, 2025 6:54 am

Meh. They’ll just be getting their seafood from China, like everything else.

George Thompson
Reply to  John the Econ
March 31, 2025 12:27 pm

Ain’t it the sad and sorry truth? God help the Brits; their Gov has gone completely bugshit crazy.

John the Econ
Reply to  George Thompson
March 31, 2025 1:24 pm

A century ago, these people were ruling most of the civilized world. Today, they’re scared of the weather. I guess that’s what socialism does to a society.

March 31, 2025 7:08 am

When all of manufacturers have fled, and neither farmers not fisherman can afford to do either, then what? Nothing to sell and no food. Sounds like a third-world country scenario.

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  jtom
March 31, 2025 8:25 am

At this point, the UK should be begging for Klimate Kash from the third world countries.

strativarius
Reply to  Jeff Alberts
March 31, 2025 8:43 am

Have you seen the queue for [UK] reparations?

davidinredmond
Reply to  jtom
March 31, 2025 8:09 pm

USSR (or CCCP), the sequel. On the small screen.

heme212
March 31, 2025 7:08 am

looks like 3 hour tours are about to make a comeback

Reply to  heme212
March 31, 2025 1:22 pm

‘looks like 3 hour tours are about to make a comeback’

Gilligan’s Island?

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip
That started from this tropic port
Aboard this tiny ship.

The mate was a mighty sailing man,
The skipper brave and sure.
Five passengers set sail that day
For a three hour tour, a three hour tour.

The weather started getting rough,
The tiny ship was tossed,
If not for the courage of the fearless crew
The Minnow would be lost, the Minnow would be lost.

The ship set ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle
With Gilligan
The Skipper too,
The millionaire and his wife,
The movie star
The Professor and Mary Ann,*
Here on Gilligan’s Isle.

source: https://lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/gilligansislandlyrics.html

Jeff Alberts
Reply to  Frank from NoVA
March 31, 2025 1:35 pm

Those 60s and 70s show theme songs were the best!

strativarius
March 31, 2025 7:11 am

Batteries for fishing boats, balloons for ICE petrol tanks; the madness is gaining momentum in the UK.

Help!

Reply to  strativarius
March 31, 2025 9:24 am

Net Zero = Economic Death by 1,000 cuts.

Neil Lock
Reply to  strativarius
March 31, 2025 10:03 am

Those whom the “gods” wish to destroy, they first make mad.

But I am not mad, and nor, I suspect, are you.

This, too, shall pass.

Sean Galbally
March 31, 2025 7:58 am

UK has become a dictatorship run by simpletons.

strativarius
Reply to  Sean Galbally
March 31, 2025 8:23 am

[Lefty] Lawyers, technocrats and bureaucrats…

Starmer’s “close friend” Sands, who in 2022 proudly planted the Mauritian flag on the Chagos Islands, has long been at the forefront of efforts to hand the islands over to Mauritius. 
https://order-order.com/2025/03/31/revealed-richard-hermer-met-with-mauritius-chief-legal-adviser-on-chagos/

What puzzles me? Trump’s acquiesence in the matter.

March 31, 2025 8:05 am

Yes, it’s common knowledge that narrowboats are destroying the climate.

strativarius
Reply to  Shoki
March 31, 2025 8:25 am

Canals in England

Canals on Mars

Reply to  strativarius
March 31, 2025 6:55 pm

‘Canals’ on Mars were once considered proof of intelligent life there.

Reply to  Frank from NoVA
March 31, 2025 10:05 pm

It’s the same in the UK.

March 31, 2025 8:17 am

The UK energy policies are even crazier than here in Wokeachusetts!

rovingbroker
March 31, 2025 8:17 am

Next, they’ll be requiring a catalytic convertor for my restored model T Ford.

Reply to  rovingbroker
March 31, 2025 9:14 am

You mean you haven’t got a cat yet?
Unbelivable

Reply to  rovingbroker
March 31, 2025 9:28 am

Restored to original, or modernized?

March 31, 2025 8:24 am

Canal boats could revert to Industrial Revolution type propulsion, i.e. horse drawn, with humans legging the boats through tunnels. Boats on canals and rivers are limited to 5 mph if i remember correctly, this is to prevent wash from boats destroying the banks.

GeorgeInSanDiego
Reply to  JohnC
March 31, 2025 9:59 am

New York City once had 150,000 horses, who eliminated 4,500,000 pounds of waste daily. THAT’S a pollution problem.

Yooper
Reply to  GeorgeInSanDiego
April 1, 2025 4:56 am

Don’t you mean “created 4,500,000 pounds of waste, daily”?

son of mulder
Reply to  JohnC
March 31, 2025 12:44 pm

Horses fart, try again.

strativarius
March 31, 2025 8:29 am

The Miliband future

comment image

Reply to  strativarius
March 31, 2025 7:02 pm

Too Euro-centric. Better to have corsairs from the Barbary Coast raiding your towns for slaves.

Bryan A
Reply to  strativarius
March 31, 2025 7:25 pm

Gotta love those new “Viking Cruise Ships”

Coeur de Lion
March 31, 2025 8:50 am

Are they mad? Of course being arts lefties they have no idea about things maritime- stupid, ignorant, townies.

Greytide
March 31, 2025 8:59 am

This will make what difference? No, I thought NIL too

Reply to  Greytide
March 31, 2025 9:34 am

The UK is spinning its wheels trying to reduce CO2.

If the UK suddenly stopped the production of all CO2 today, it would make absolutely no difference to the Earth’s temperatures. None whatsoever.

Net Zero is Self-inflicted pain which accomplishes nothing.

kwinterkorn
March 31, 2025 9:00 am

The UK and EU countries are dying. Add the Green actions to the strangling of popular democracy in Germany, Romania, and now France with the “conviction” Le Pen and the strange Euro-tolerance of Islamic terrorists.

Douglas Murray is the best voice describing and explaining this.

What will follow may be terrible to watch.

Fortunately most of the world is refusing to go along with the dying European culture—-though the Dem Party in the US would happily do so.

Reply to  kwinterkorn
March 31, 2025 9:37 am

“and the strange Euro-tolerance of Islamic terrorists.”

That is strange, isn’t it.

It’s akin to American radical Leftwing judges defending terrorists and criminals and chastising Trump for jailing them.

March 31, 2025 9:05 am

I wonder when they’ll get round to making the Flying Scotsman run on betteries.

Fran
March 31, 2025 9:08 am

Aside from the fire risk from batteries, its bloody dangerous to be out at sea without reliable power. Give me diesel.

Reply to  Fran
March 31, 2025 9:18 am

Battery powered lifeboats will be a killer!!

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Fran
March 31, 2025 11:48 am

Greta made the trip.
There was an emergency engine aboard, but not used.

Reply to  Sparta Nova 4
March 31, 2025 10:11 pm

Not all of us can afford a £4m yacht, a crew to sail us, a backup team, and 4 transatlantic flights to cross the Atlantic.

Sparta Nova 4
Reply to  Redge
April 2, 2025 8:46 am

I never said it was not dangerous. My point is sailing regulations require a real engine for use in emergencies.

As I understand it, the boat was under sail power, not electric batteries.

March 31, 2025 9:28 am

Time to Net Zero Labour.

strativarius
March 31, 2025 9:46 am

Story tip

Labour MPs who back airport in Kashmir oppose Heathrow expansion https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/03/31/labour-mps-back-airport-kasjmir-oppose-heathrow-expansion/

Shurely shome mishtake?

0perator
March 31, 2025 9:57 am

What would UK government be run like if it was by a sworn enemy? Any different?

Reply to  0perator
March 31, 2025 11:45 am

Yes – it would be an improvement.

Reply to  Graemethecat
March 31, 2025 6:03 pm

just wait until the islamists are running things.

Reply to  0perator
March 31, 2025 1:35 pm

Not long until Islam takes over anyway… then they will find out. !

Reply to  0perator
April 1, 2025 4:18 am

What do you mean, “if”? It already is, since 1066!

Corrigenda
March 31, 2025 11:56 am

This has to be lunatic nonsense.

March 31, 2025 12:12 pm

Lunatics are running the asylum.

March 31, 2025 12:15 pm

The illegally invading “migrant” boats are exempt, of course.

March 31, 2025 12:39 pm

Good thing the UK passed Brexit so they wouldn’t have to put up with Big Government.