On these pages today is an amazing piece of data that helps explain why the ANC got hammered. It is that the number of people choosing to walk to work is up by over 50% since 2009. That is not because the number of people working is up by much – in fact, that number is up by just over 10%. Why so much walking? It’s not a lifestyle choice. It is that millions of lower-skilled workers cannot afford the taxi and bus fares, so to save money they walk. Life is getting harder for the poor.

The Constitutional Court, very rich South African donors and European donors, taxpayers, and governments have made it harder still. Last week the Constitutional Court slammed shut the door on South Africa exploiting its oil and gas reserves on the grounds that this might be bad for the environment and that it threatened the spiritual ties that traditional communities have to the sea. That is woke climate ideology gone mad. The lobbying and advocacy that led to that was driven by rich South African climate activists and funded in large part by European donors while being encouraged by European governments.

Their collective actions will do more to sustain the legacy of apartheid and keep black South Africans down than any other private or foreign action directed at South Africa since 1994. If that is not racism of the highest order and in its purest form, what is? It is allowing your euro-biased ideological obsessions to override the best interests of South Africa’s poor.

It is certainly colonialism of the worst kind. In the first wave the Europeans came and took Africa’s resources away from the Africans. In the second, contemporary, wave the Europeans prevent the Africans from using those resources as Europe did and still does. We hope the collective of Europe’s ambassadors read this with shame – all of you who had a hand in this are racists and we hope you cannot sleep thinking of what you have done. What are you doing coming to South Africa as our guests and then organising politically against our economy to deny us the right to use our own resources? Are you mad?

That an African government decades after the end of colonial rule tolerates this is madder still. And that an African court made up of judges appointed by African politicians then endorses it should be too fantastical to be true. Does the government have absolutely no self-respect? Dictated to from Europe like a white-gloved servant of the colonial era, to do just what the white master commands. That’s on the money.

The government is much to blame – the ANC and the DA both. Both have endorsed the idea of net zero time and again, laying a climate of official endorsement that the court could go along with. That’s mad in a country with a 50%+ unemployment rate. Do none of you know what will happen if no one has a job? Do you not care about the suffering of millions of people – the ones walking to work are the best off, they have jobs. There are as many who do not even have a job to walk to. You will have your precious half a degree of warming or whatever you care about at the cost of millions of people’s suffering. It is an inhuman cruelty.

Politicians from both parties are privately cross with the court. But then why do both parties support net zero? They want net zero and a thriving oil and gas industry? And democracy is the best system of government? China and Russia don’t have this confusion.

What has been lost? Well, if it had not been for empowerment rules and now all this net-zero madness, then South Africa today might have been one of the world’s top-20 oil and gas producers. Imagine what that would have meant for the economy, especially given the turmoil in the Middle East. And think what it would have meant for South Africa’s international standing – with that heft, the big powers would have to take you seriously, and South Africa would be a serious and powerful country.

Oil and gas were so important because they are a catalyst that could have spurred a national industrial recovery. Nothing else, not even mining, could have done that as easily and on the same scale. Industrial jobs and those in factories near cities are the bridge poor people need to get their children into the middle classes. No other kind of job does that. South Africa does not have that bridge – manufacturing’s share of GDP has halved over the past 30 years. Oil and gas were the way to change that.

The rich are terrified of the MKP’s growth. Well, that is what net zero gets you. As Duduzane Zuma points out so correctly: what did they expect from a country where so few people have a job? Net zero is essentially a marketing campaign for the MKP, and if you or your business or your political party ever endorsed it then understand that actions have consequences.

What to do about the MKP now? You take it seriously and engage with it – and with respect. It is a perfectly legitimate outfit in a democratic parliament. And it is well run – the leadership churn is a device. It is plausible now that the MKP will grow to reach parity with the ANC. Don’t even think of trying to interfere and gerrymander it and buy its leaders, as South Africa’s richest did with the ANC – especially after 2007. They were all fools, fiddling with things they did not understand, and they caused great damage – as they have now done again with oil and gas.

Could the MKP help turn South Africa around? There is a lot on the young Mr Zuma’s shoulders now. Will he be driven by what sat behind the ANC’s pre-2008 success and know what lay behind it and the EFF’s post-2008 failures and what defined that watershed? Or will he repeat the same post-2008 mistakes and go the same way? His party does not have a net-zero policy and that is a very good start – keep it that way and the odds may turn in his favour.