Starmer’s Brexit betrayal could spark another UK energy crisis

Energy bills for the average UK household will rise by £111 per year from April – a jump of 6.4 per cent, higher than was forecast by most analysts. That means, since Keir Starmer entered Downing Street in July last year, the average energy bill has risen by £281 – an almost exact reversal of the £300 Labour promised its policies would save us during the General Election campaign. British companies, meanwhile, are paying the highest electricity costs in Europe.

Anyone expecting the latest bad news to prompt a rethink in energy policy is bound to be left disappointed. Ed Miliband, the UK’s energy secretary, has been at pains to deny the true cause of the rising prices. On the contrary, he has doubled down on the very Net Zero goals that have led us here. ‘Net Zero is essential to growth, and money in working people’s pockets’, he claimed only a day before Ofgem announced the rise in the energy-price cap. Then, when the hike was announced, Miliband proclaimed that ‘the single most important thing we can do [to bring down bills] is to stick to our clean-power mission’. Such statements betray an almost wilful blindness, driven by a commitment to green ideology.

That Net Zero is the primary cause of Britain’s energy woes is now undeniable. The dash towards renewables means that how much electricity we can produce domestically depends largely on the weather. When the Sun isn’t shining or the wind stops blowing, we’re forced to fire up otherwise disused gas power plants or import more electricity from abroad. At one point this winter, the energy generated by wind and solar was so low that companies running gas plants could demand 100 times the average price. Meanwhile, at Miliband’s behest, Britain’s plentiful reserves of fossil fuels go untapped and unfracked. New licences for North Sea oil and gas have been cancelled. A newly discovered field of shale gas in Lincolnshire, with enough gas to meet Britain’s demand for the next five to 10 years, will remain in the ground thanks to the government’s soon-to-be-permanent fracking ban.

This Net Zero-driven sabotage of Britain’s energy supplies has been devastating for the economy. Heavy, energy-intensive industries have been hit hardest by exorbitant costs. Since 2021, the output of the UK chemicals industry has fallen by 38 per cent, cement manufacturing by 40 per cent, metals by 35 per cent and electrical-equipment manufacturing by nearly 50 per cent. This is deindustrialisation, delivered by greenism.

As if homegrown climate policies were not damaging enough, the Labour government is also hoping to yoke Britain to the EU’s climate policies, which are even more punishing than our own. Starmer’s much-vaunted post-Brexit ‘reset’ is set to involve signing us back up to the EU’s emissions-trading scheme (ETS). The scheme works by allowing companies to buy credits for the amount of carbon emissions they plan to use each year. They can then trade these credits with other firms should they no longer need them.

Since Brexit, the UK has operated its own ETS. Although the UK and EU carbon prices began at roughly the same level, the two schemes have since diverged, making UK carbon credits significantly cheaper than on the continent. Any merger with the current EU ETS would therefore increase the cost of carbon-intensive industry in the UK. The divergence does mean that British firms exporting to the EU have to pay the difference in carbon taxes at the border, which has led to some trade frictions. Signing up to the EU ETS would mitigate this, but would also increase costs for British-made goods that either remain in the UK or are exported beyond Europe. There is no rational reason for a British government to want to do this.

It gets worse. In 2027, the EU is planning a revamp of its ETS, called ETS 2, which will both impose carbon pricing on a wider range of industries and activities and will issue fewer permits. The aim is to dramatically increase the cost of the carbon permits in order to discourage polluting activities. Even supporters acknowledge that the cost of heating and fuel could rise ‘significantly’ as a result, with the poorest households bearing the largest brunt. A German think-tank estimates that a single person living alone in a gas-heated apartment, and who owns a petrol car, could reasonably be expected to pay an extra €600 per year in new carbon taxes alone.

To sensible, sober heads, signing the UK up to the EU’s ETS might look like an easily avoidable disaster. But we do not have sensible, sober leaders. In the eyes of the Labour government, the EU’s ETS is doubly good. It brings together two of the great shibboleths of the liberal elite – namely, Net Zero and EU integration. Indeed, just as Miliband sees climate targets as a source of future prosperity, Starmer sees Brussels as a font of technocratic rationalism. They think the EU can do no wrong, and that Net Zero can never fail us, despite the mounting evidence to the contrary. By now, it is surely reasonable to fear that no amount of pain for households or industry could ever persuade them otherwise.

If Labour’s Brexit sell-out goes ahead, then Britain’s next energy crisis will likely be made in Brussels.

Fraser Myers is deputy editor at spiked and host of the spiked podcast. Follow him on X: @FraserMyers.