Vote tactically against the fascists on May 7 — defend Labour’s energy policy
Labour is in trouble. Stamer’s unpopularity is breaking all records. Labour has a huge majority based on just 33.7 per cent of the popular vote. This makes it vulnerable to the 24-hour media which favours opposition parties, and allows the right-wing to set the agenda.
The emergence of Reform UK as a major party with a fascist leadership, based on rabid racism, and the collapse of what remains of the Tory Party into its agenda, changes the political landscape of Britain. Stopping the fascists becomes under such circumstances the number one objective. A Farage government would destroy all the gains of the post-war period.
Reform focuses overwhelmingly on the channel crossings, migrant hotels, and the migrants themselves, without which it would not exist as a significant force. It brings people onto the streets who are prepared to promote violence, including burning down hotels with asylum seekers in them.
Judging Labour
It is wrong to judge Labour – as many on the left do – without taking into account its ecological policies and achievements, which are real and important. In fact crucial.
If looked at simply from its position on immigration – where Labour has no strategic difference with the Tories or indeed with Reform UK, or the conservative instincts of Keir Starmer, or his mad-cap ideas like the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the USA will prevail then you can reach a negative conclusion without much problem. But it does not represent reality.
There is another, very different, wing of the party, led defacto by Ed Miliband, that has developed remarkably strong positions on the climate emergency, emissions reduction, and the energy transition, with wind and solar to the fore, that we ignore at our (and the planet’s) peril. Although all this was first introduced by Starmer in his speech to the 2022 conference, it is hard to believe he wrote it.
It is time the left got behind this policy and started to influence events rather than pretending it does not exist. We can’t defeat the fascists on a dead planet.
It is nonsense to conclude that Labour is “rudderless” and has nothing to offer when it is leading the world in carrying through the energy transition and defending the planet with a net zero target.
Labours energy policy
At the centre of the debate around the May elections is Labour’s energy policy, which is rightly based on the rapid expansion of renewables – in particular wind and solar – and to run down the already declining North Sea fossil fuel operations.
Reform are also hard-line climate sceptics, and the Tories have followed them down that road as well. They both renounce the concept of a net-zero target, are opposed to measures designed to mitigate climate change, and are campaigning for a new round of investment into North Sea fossil fuels
The consensus on net-zero is gone. The Tories are following Reform in calling for the abolition of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), an international treaty that protects fundamental human rights and freedoms in Europe.
The Labour leaders have – at long last – started to defend this policy rather than avoiding it like the plage. Although this is far from adequate the only minister consistently defending it in the past has been Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy and Net-Zero.
Whether looked at from the illegal war being conducted by Israel and the US against Iran, or from combating the effects of the climate crisis – the biggest single threat to life on earth – renewable energy makes perfect sense. It is the only route lower bills and greater energy security.
Rosebank and Jackdaw
Meanwhile the knuckle-draggers of Reform, with the Tories in tow, are demanding that the Rosebank oil field and Jackdaw gas field agreed by the previous Tory government, are now given the green light by Labour. Both of these fields were declared unlawful by the Scottish court of appeal on the perfectly valid grounds that they did not take into account the increased emissions that these new fields would generate. When Labour decided not to pursue them any further, both of these fields were effectively dead in the water.
A Reform government would make us totally vulnerable to both climate crisis and global fossil fuel markets.
It would in any case be difficult to find a legal way around the court of appeal judgment since there is no way of exploiting them without increasing Co2 emissions.
The May elections
With the centrality of Reform and the extra-ordinary growth of the Greens, May 7 is set to be a dramatic day, with Plaid likely to win in Wales, with tactical voting as in Caerphilly, and the SNP likely to win a remarkable fifth term in Scotland. In England, anything can happen including labour being trounced at the polls by the Reform UK and the Greens.
Upgrading the National Grid
Labour is upgrading the National Grid at pace and is committed to decarbonising it by 2030 as a step towards net-zero by 2050 – unless it is knocked off course by the horrors of a Reform led government.
Only China, Denmark, Canada and New Zealand, have matched the British grid upgrade. — which is critical. According to Australia’s Climate Council 11 countries are ‘leading the charge’ on National Grid updating with the UK at the top of the list. All renewable options become possible once the grid is remodelled and upgraded and only Labour is doing it. Those who stand in its way are opponents of the energy transition. They are, as Miliband says, the blockers.
Whatever you think about China’s autocratic regime and human rights record, it is making a huge contribution to the energy transition globally. It is introducing a massive investment programme to modernise the grid in order to carry the large amounts of renewable energy that China is now producing.
China produces around 80% of the world’s photovoltaic panels and batteries, and 70% of its electric vehicles. It is also way ahead on the production of computer chips necessary for the green transition, as well as the mining of the rare earth minerals needed in the manufacture of everything from mobile phones to solar panels and TVs sets, electric cars and bikes.
As George Monbiot points out in the Guardian of April 18th, however:
“Donald Trump has done more to accelerate the energy transition than anyone else alive. Fossil fuel companies bankrolled his presidential campaign to stop the transition in its tracks. But when you back a volatile narcissist, unable to concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time, you shouldn’t expect to control the outcome.
“The war has resulted in a global surge in demand for electric vehicles, solar panels, heat pumps and other fossil-free technologies. Inquiries about buying EVs have risen 23% in the UK since the attack on Iran began, by 50% in Germany and by 160% in France. There’s similar interest in India, south-east Asia and South Korea. Even in the US, where Trump has done everything possible to stymie the technology, there’s 20% more interest than before the war. The same goes for domestic solar panels and heat pumps. People in this country aren’t nearly as ignorant of their own interests as the Mail and the Telegraph like to pretend.”
Monbiot is right about this, but he should think again over his opposition to “The planning and infrastructure Act” that is designed to make much of this possible.
Nuclear power
It is true that Labour’s plans include nuclear energy. It is eye-wateringly expensive, and extremely dangerous. It is an abuse of language to call it clean energy of course. Whilst it does not produce CO2 none of the problems of nuclear power have been resolved, including what to do with the waste, and to how to protect nuclear installations in a war zone such as Ukraine.
Ed Miliband says that he supports nuclear energy, of course, but the contradictions in his positions remain. The operational date for Sewell 2 is 2045, and, in reality, quite a bit later. Even the first “small Modular Reactors” to be located on Anglesey are not expected to be on line until 2036 – which means in reality 2040. By that time the battle over emissions will be won or lost. It is hard to escape the conclusion that he supports nuclear power in order to see it overtaken by a more effective and far safer alternative.
On March 24 the Guardian reported Miliband as saying that more North Sea drilling will put the UK at mercy of fossil fuel markets. He says that only clean power will provide the energy sovereignty that we need. A risk to which he repeatedly makes reference. What followed was a full-scale witch-hunt.
Miliband under attack
On April 3, The Times ‘reported’ that Ed Miliband was about to approve the Jackdaw field for operation, and a governmental denial failed to stop such speculation. He remains under extreme pressure and should be defended.
The ecologist Bill McGuire, writing in the Guardian, said that:
“Reform and the Tories have used the Iran war as an excuse to renew demands that the North Sea be sucked dry of its remaining oil and gas, in order – they say – to end reliance on fossil fuel imports and to guarantee energy security. More sensible heads have argued that the North Sea basin is a field that is way past peak production, and that has only limited amounts of oil and gas left, and that energy security if we move further and faster on renewables…
“We are at a critical point in the climate emergency and are already struggling to meet emissions reduction targets. The UK government must hold its nerve.”
Fiona Harvey, the Guardian’s environmental editor told us that: “New fields like Jackdaw and Rosebank would do vanishingly little to boost UK gas production. Even in the most optimistic scenario, and assuming none of its gas is exported, Jackdaw would provide only 2% of UK demand over its nine- to 12-year lifetime.”
The Mail on Sunday latched onto a poll by Lord Ashcroft that purported to show that the hard right will be strengthened by this debate with a banner head-line that said: “Drill Ed Drill”, and a strap line: “As fuel prices soar, voters tell Miliband to ditch his net zero obsession and untap the North Sea oils and gas that would make ALL our lives easier.
The Greens
The Green Party have suffered egregiously the hands of the FPTP system for many years. They would have been a major party in Westminster since the 1990s but for an undemocratic voting system.
Now an extremely effective relaunch around Zack Polanski as leader it has tripled in size of the party (with Corbyn supporters joining in large numbers) in a few months. This and the now defeacto six party system puts the Green Party in a completely different to any previous election.
This means voting for the progressive party best placed to keep Reform and the Tories out in each constituency. In many places this will be Labour but it will also be the Greens in some places as was the case in Gorton and Denton.
If we can’t get electoral reform before the next election we will need the maximum unity of anti-fascist forces if we are to keep Reform out, and that is not best served by statements such as ‘there is little difference between Reform and Labour’. There is a very big difference, but let’s not go through a Farage government in order to find out. Ultimately Zack Polanski needs to be prepared to step aside and call for a vote for Labour if that’s what it take to keep the Fascists out.
The Green Party is well behind the curve in terms of the production of large quantities of renewable energy via wind and solar. They remain opposed to large solar farms and sit on many of the bodies set up to oppose them. They defend ‘prime farm land’ under conditions despite such land is largely devoid of biodiversity.
At the moment the Labour Party has more to offer in terms of the planet and the energy transition and carbon reduction than the Green Party. In any case the energy transition, once carried through, is irreversible. If Labour is able to say at the next general election that the National Grid is now upgraded and carbon free and that the economy is now running on clean and renewable energy, and is no longer vulnerable to the price of gas on the international market the case will be very strong to vote Labour.
Alan Thornett, May 1st 2026
