In the past few weeks Keir Starmer has asserted that Reform UK is his party’s main opponent – but Ed Miliband already knew that. The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero holds the portfolio that Reform’s leader and the party’s deputy – Nigel Farage and Richard Tice – hate the most. Tice regularly calls for an end to “net stupid zero” and Farage has described the government’s clean-power agenda as “lunacy”.
Yesterday, the Energy Secretary fought back. Launching a new report from the Labour Climate and Environment Forum and the Co-Operative Party, the Energy Secretary said that Reform has exposed its “ideological weaknesses” on green jobs.
While in Greater Lincolnshire, Reform’s Andrea Jenkyns, has already made her intention to block clean-power projects explicit (solar farms are her primary target). In Hull and East Yorkshire, the party’s recently elected mayor, Luke Campbell, said he would put local green energy jobs and businesses ahead of party politics. In his speech last night, Miliband said: “We’re seeing a Reform mayor realise the idiocy of Nigel Farage’s war on clean-energy jobs.”
In the report, Miliband pledged “a new vision of community wealth and power” and pointed to other European countries – such as Denmark and Germany – who have adopted a citizen-owned approach to renewable energy. (Half of Denmark’s wind energy is in public control, with 40 per cent of renewables owned by communities in Germany). The logic of this argument – according to insiders close to Miliband – is manifold.
First, it is intended to show the government is “taking back control” of the energy system by bringing power over bills into the hands of consumers, rather than private energy companies. Frustration over persistently high energy bills remains electorally dangerous; it was one of the most-cited issues on the doorstep during the local election campaign. The (soon to be reversed) cut to the winter fuel payment and upcoming benefits cuts, have damaged this government’s credibility with ordinary voters.
Second, it is hoped that Miliband’s community-led vision will drive the creation of green jobs, particularly in communities that have been “left behind”. This could be in the manufacturing and installation of infrastructure, or in the transition of fossil-fuel-intensive jobs to cleaner alternatives. Though this will need to be accompanied by a tangible strategy for skills – for example, to meet the government’s heat pump target, it is estimated the UK will require 37,000 installers by 2030. Though numbers have increased hugely in recent years, there are only 11,000 people in the UK currently qualified to do the job.
Though Labour may not want to admit it, there is a future in which Farage and Tice romp to victory in 2029. Miliband’s push for a “collective energy future”, insiders tell me, is intended to future-proof net zero from Reform-led attempts to dismantle it. This is because community energy projects, as opposed to those led by the public and private sectors, are two times less likely to go bust within their first five years of operation. If Reform takes power in 2029 these projects will have got off the ground, ending the UK’s reliance on imported natural gas, and therefore lowering energy bills. If these projects deliver the benefits Miliband says they will (lower bills, more jobs, increased prosperity), it will make little to no sense for Reform to undo them. That’s the logic, anyway.
[See more: Andy Burnham has made his leadership pitch]
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