In his attempt to save the planet, Ed Miliband is destroying everything in sight, and that includes the political party he represents. Miliband famously led Labour to a humiliating general election defeat in 2015. To avoid a repeat, Sir Keir Starmer wisely kept him away from voters during the 2024 election campaign. He didn’t want to scare them, and he was right. Within days of Labour’s win, we discovered the shocking truth about Red Ed. He really is the nightmare we thought he was.
Weaning the UK off fossil fuels by 2035 was hard enough. Miliband brought that deadline forward five years to 2030 and is throwing tens of billions of pounds we don’t have at achieving it. He also did something I never expected from a British energy secretary. He banned new North Sea oil and gas drilling, costing us billions more. Now we’re all paying the price. The only consolation is that Labour will pay the highest price of all.
The party is haemorrhaging votes as the full destructive force of Miliband’s net zero charge becomes clear. He promised us 600,000 new green jobs. Unfortunately, most have gone to Chinese solar and wind manufacturers, who often use forced labour. At the same time, he’s wiping out thousands of jobs in our own oil and gas industry. Net zero will soon collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. But first, it will destroy the UK industry and Labour. The party may never win power again.
Miliband’s refusal to back the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields is sheer madness. Rosebank contains up to 350 million barrels of recoverable oil. Jackdaw holds enough gas to heat 1.4 million homes a year at peak production. Miliband repeatedly says that drilling for them “won’t cut a penny off energy bills” because prices are set internationally. But that’s deliberately missing the point.
Domestic drilling would generate tax revenues, protect skilled jobs, boost the balance of payments and the pound, and bolster our energy security. Incredibly, it will even cut carbon emissions by reducing imports from distant locations such as the US and Qatar. Incredibly, Miliband won’t drill our own energy, but is happy to buy it from Russia, directly funding Vladimir Putin’s murderous war machine.
Miliband is turning the whole country against Labour. Thanks to him, oil city Aberdeen risks becoming a ghost town. Scottish voters are irate. Across England and Wales, rural communities are furious at plans to plaster fertile countryside with pylons, turbines, solar farms, substations and battery storage plants.
The net zero revolt is spreading, and Nigel Farage is the obvious winner. Every oil worker, engineer and contractor pushed out of work is another potential Reform voter. So is anybody living next to an onshore wind turbine or massive solar farm. Now even Labour’s union paymasters are in revolt.
GMB general secretary Gary Smith has just blasted Miliband’s Net Zero agenda for driving workers into the arms of Farage. He called the assault on North Sea oil and gas “economic madness” and “a disaster for many working people”, as factories close, investment plunges and jobs go. Labour support among union members has plunged by 20% since the election. It’s now tied with Reform at 28%.
Middle-class liberals and eco-activists have bought into net zero, but they’re not the ones losing their jobs. Tens of thousands of working people are watching their livelihoods disappear to satisfy Miliband’s ideological fantasies, and they’ve had enough.
So has Keir Starmer. He tried to get rid of Miliband but failed, just like he’s failed at everything else. Chancellor Rachel Reeves tried standing up to Mad Ed, but was steamrolled. That’s the problem with zealots like Miliband. When their plans backfire, they only double down. He won’t save the world; our emissions are less than 1% of the total. But he will crush British industry, and he will crush Labour. Just as he did in 2015. At least that’s one positive. I hope Nigel Farage has the courtesy to thank him.