This piece was prompted by the article by Dave Kellaway entitled We Need To Talk About the Labour Party on the ACR web site 21^st of November 2025.

Labour is in trouble. Starmer’s popularity is in free-fall – due to self-inflicted wounds and unprincipled retreats. Labour has a thumping 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. Negativity piles on negativity, creating a cycle with its own logic.

As Andy Beckett wrote in The Guardian on December 25, trying to make sense of it: 

In the online spaces where political opinions are increasingly formed, debatable facts, rumours, myths, outright fictions and raw emotions surge back and forth, erupt into geysers of outrage – and then subside into stagnant pools of disillusionment.

The spectacle of Boris Johnson throwing drinks parties in Downing Street, which he had banned in the rest of the country, and spot fines dished out by the police to Johnson and other ministers for breaking laws they brought in, runs deep. Voters are looking, in some cases nihilistically, for someone to punish rather than for who can run the country and on what principles.

The consensus on net-zero is gone. The Tories are on catch-up with Reform, which is impossible. They now favour the abolition of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), an international treaty that protects fundamental human rights and freedoms in Europe.

The rise of reform

The rise of Reform UK, led by a fascist (who calls himself a political entrepreneur), has changed the political landscape in Britain. Reform focused initially on Brexit before pivoting to a broader far-right agenda around English nationalism. Despite twenty-three Tory ex-MPs having now joined, making it a realignment of the right in British politics, it is typical of such parties to be dominated by Farage. It is a dangerous development.

It focuses on the small boats, migrant hotels, and the migrants themselves, without which it would not exist as a significant force. It mobilises people onto the streets, prepared to promote violence, and, famously, burn down hotels with asylum seekers in them.

It is also a party of climate deniers par excellence. It has the full fundamentalist Trumpian agenda: from the claim that climate change is a hoax to abolishing infrastructure designed to counter it. It calls for the mass deportation of migrants and the abolition of the ‘Indefinite Right to Remain’ on which many asylum seekers rely.

It is currently around 28 per cent in the polls for the next general election, excluding tactical voting. This, on the face of it, would put them in government (with Labour next at 18 percent). It is a mouthpiece for Putin and the MAGA movement in Britain, led by Trump. Both the May elections and the next general election are already shaping up as ‘stop the fascists’ events.

That Nigel Farage, Mr Brexit, could be in with a chance of winning the next general election is frightening. The key to this is racism and bigotry. Fellow students from Dulwich College have exposed his racism and antisemitism, which included creeping up behind Jewish students, saying Hitler was right, and mimicking gas chambers. He had the hallmarks of fascism at the age of 16.

It is easy to say they are all the same, but, despite Keir Starmer, they are not – and it is crucial that this is understood.

Internal conflict

Labour’s first year in office was characterised by two points of internal conflict. The first was between Starmer and the majority of Labour’s 410 MPs, who defeated the changes to PIPs payments Starmer wanted, leading to a broadly progressive budget in November, including the abolition of the two-child cap.

The other is between Starmer and Ed Miliband – Starmer’s Secretary of State for Energy and Net Zero. Miliband had been implementing a radical energy agenda first set out by Starmer himself in his speech to the 2022 Labour Party conference in Liverpool, when the party was in opposition.

Miliband held the climate change brief under Gordon Brown and oversaw the introduction of the Climate Change Act in 2008, which established the first legally binding framework to reach net zero. He appears to have radicalised around the environmental agenda, much like the Tory nominee Alok Sharma for president of the Glasgow COP. It is a powerful argument once confronted.

Labour policies

Contrary to perceived wisdom on the left, inside and outside of the Labour Party – and largely due to the impact of Ed Miliband – Labour has had (and has) a remarkably progressive policy on the energy transition, which includes an upgraded and decarbonised national grid by 2030, net zero by 2050, based on an abundance of clean energy.

This had been made possible by the rapidly falling cost of renewables. Research by Our World in Data shows that the cost of solar panels has dropped by 90 per cent in the last decade. Onshore wind has fallen by 70 per cent, and batteries by more than 90 per cent. We are indeed witnessing the dawn of the solar age. (See my article ‘Solar Power the Key to the Future of the Planet’.)

In Liverpool, Starmer pledged to make Britain a clean energy superpower. Solar power (he said) would be tripled, offshore wind quadrupled, and the Tory de facto ban on onshore wind lifted. New licences for North Sea oil and Gas fields would be refused once Labour was in office – signalling a strategic shift away from oil and Gas and towards clean energy.

When they took office in July 2024, Labour found that the Tories had been sitting on dozens of major infrastructure projects, mostly solar and wind farms, with no intention of processing them. These include the Abingdon reservoir, designed to supply the South East with water during shortages.

Very vocal in opposition to the Abingdon reservoir is the LibDem MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, Layla Moran, who called for Thames Water to be nationalised. This is a very popular demand that I agree with, but it makes no sense as a precondition to a much-needed reservoir, particularly when it will still take 16 years to build once approved.

They also included the Botley West solar farm and three other large solar projects in Suffolk, Lincolnshire, and Rutland. Miliband signed them off within days. A key driver has been new-build houses, where solar panels will soon become a legal requirement. (My article supporting the Abingdon reservoir is here, and my article on Botley West solar farm is here.)

Also pending is legislation on the use of free-standing, easy-to-install “plug-in” solar panels for apartments and balconies. Miliband also wants to introduce minimum environmental standards for new houses, including low-carbon heating systems, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and better ventilation.

He told Parliament that: “Solar is one of the cheapest and most readily deployable energy sources at our disposal. We have secured a record 93 solar photovoltaic projects, the largest number of solar projects ever in an auction, unlocking 3.3 GW of new solar, which is a 20% increase on our installed capacity”.

The North Sea

The crunch came in the North Sea with Equinor’s application to develop Rosebank, a major new oil field, and a smaller gas field, Jackdaw. The Tories approved both in September 2023, but they were then ruled unlawful in January 2025 by the Scottish Court of Sessions on the grounds (no less) that the government had failed to consider the emissions from burning the oil and gas produced by the investment. When Labour decided not to challenge this ruling, Rosebank and Jackdaw were dead in the water.

It was a huge victory for campaigners and a huge strategic shift away from fossil fuel production and towards clean energy. It sits alongside other important strategic decisions made by Labour, including ruling out both fracking and coal mining – both deep and opencast.

Internal tension over Miliband’s role came to a head in the September 2025 reshuffle, when Starmer attempted to remove him from the energy brief. Miliband refused point-blank, and Starmer backed down — which is extremely unusual. This means that the struggle over environmental policy will continue, and key polices advocated in Liverpool will be preserved.

Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth 

Interestingly, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have developed a joint balance sheet of Labour’s first year. They concluded that it has made a strong start. It has, they say:

• Scrapped rules that made it impossible to build wind turbines on land.
• Changed planning rules to favour renewables.
• Approved lots of new solar farms.
• Funded a record number of new clean energy projects. 
• Worked to speed up grid connections, so more clean power can flow into the system.
• Launched Great British Energy – a new publicly-owned company with £8.3 billion to invest in wind, solar, and other clean energy projects.
• The government has kept its promise to stop giving out new licences for oil and gas drilling at sea – that’s a huge win. 
• It also published strong environmental standards that previously-approved new oil and gas fields must meet in order to get the final go-ahead. For the first time, this will force oil companies to account for the climate impact of their product.

The Danish road

Although Starmer ridiculed the Rwanda scheme, he agrees with the Tories (and other establishment parties) on most aspects of migration policy. They both think that there are far too many migrants here, and the more that are deported, the better. They both refuse to defend migrants and asylum seekers and favour the most hostile environment possible.

They are both vague about safe routes that would make the small-boat crossings from France unnecessary. Both favour the reopening of detention centers like Campsfield House near Oxford.

The latest mantra is to follow Danish social democracy on this. According to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, asylum will be a temporary arrangement to be withdrawn when circumstances change. Asylum seekers can then be sent back ‘home’, including children born in this country. It is the most racist set of measures introduced in Britain in the postwar period. We are told there will be safe routes for those seeking asylum here, but the assurances given are unconvincing.

Some Labour MPs are swayed by the argument that this is the way to deal with right-wing populism, since it declined in Denmark once such a policy was adopted. The problem with this is that it plays to the tune of right-wing populism and Nigel Farage. It is at best a dangerous gamble.

Tommy Robinson – a vile Nazi sympathiser – recently mobilised 150,000 people in the UK on an openly racist platform. It was the biggest such mobilization in British history. Robinson and Reform maintain tactical organisational separation. But their politics are basically the same. Robinson is welcomed to the White House by Trump, and his legal costs are being paid by Elon Musk.

Labour’s 2024 manifesto

Most of Starmer’s Liverpool speech went into the 2024 election manifesto, with the exception of the £28bn, which was soon dropped – something that was made easier by the falling cost of renewables.

It was by far the most consequential manifesto that Labour has ever had in terms of carbon reduction and the energy transition, including 2019. It calls for net-zero by 2050 and the decarbonisation of the national grid by 2030. Details can be found in the “Clean Power 2030 Action Plan” published by the government in December 2024. It opens with the following statement:

“The electricity network is a critical enabler for delivering clean power by 2030 and accelerating towards net zero. To ensure we have the necessary network in place, we need to accelerate the build of new network infrastructure and fundamentally reform the grid connection process. Measures to accelerate infrastructure build are covered in the ‘Networks and Connections’ chapter of this Action Plan.”

Only China, Denmark, Canada, and New Zealand have matched the British Labour government on grid upgrade. 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.

China

The BBC programme Future Planet provided in-depth information about the ultra-high-voltage grid that the Chinese are installing. China is already producing (it says) more clean energy than any other country. Now it is rolling out an ultra-high-voltage grid to match.

Whatever you think about China’s state capitalist ideology and autocratic rule, the huge contribution it is making to the clean energy transition is undeniable. China produces around 80% of the world’s photovoltaic panels and batteries, and 70% of its electric vehicles.

China’s national grid is enormous. It is operated by two main corporations: the State Grid Corporation of China and China’s Southern Power Grid. It is undergoing a massive investment programme to modernize to accommodate large amounts of renewable energy, such as solar and wind, which China is now producing.

China is also way ahead in the production of computer chips necessary for the green transition, as well as in the mining of the rare earth minerals needed for the manufacture of everything from mobile phones to solar panels, TV sets, electric cars, and bikes.

Starmer’s policy retreats

There have also been damaging retreats. The first (in October, just three months after the election) was on airport expansion, including a third runway at Heathrow. It was defended on the basis that it would stimulate growth. It caused outrage in the Labour Party. Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, railed against it on Facebook:

I remain opposed to a new runway at Heathrow because of the severe impact it will have in terms of noise, air pollution, and meeting our targets. I remain unconvinced that you can have a new runway, delivering hundreds of thousands of additional flights every year, without a hugely detrimental impact on our environment.

Feargal Sharkey, the Irish punk singer of the Undertones, is now a ferocious environmental activist campaigning to clean up Britain’s polluted rivers and waterways, and is also the president of SERA, Labour’s environmental campaign. He is strongly opposed to Heathrow expansion on the basis of its impact on climate change. 

Most surprising, however, is an open letter issued by Ken Penton and Lisa Trickett, the co-chairs of SERA, to Starmer himself. It was the first time that this ultra-loyalist body has criticised the Labour leadership in this way—and on growth, which is close to a religion in Labour leadership circles. (My article on the subject.)

This was followed, in July, by the insane decision to fully back the Sizewell C nuclear power project. It is eye-wateringly expensive and extremely dangerous. None of the problems of nuclear power have been resolved, including what to do with the waste and how to protect nuclear installations in a war zone such as Ukraine.

Starmer also doubled down on Carbon Capture and Storage, which is equally insane, given that 20 years of research has shown that it simply does not work at the scale required. It simply raises the question: why produce the emissions in the first place?

Ed Miliband has, of course, supported all of these retreats, but the contradictions in his position remain. The operational date for Sizewell 2 is 2045, but in reality, it is quite a bit later. Even the first “Small Modular Reactors” to be located on Anglesey are not expected to be online until 2036, which means in reality 2040. By that time, the battle over emissions will be won or lost.

The Green Party

Zack Polanski’s victory in the Green Party leadership election could hardly be more welcome. He has radicalised the Green Party, doubled its membership, and opened a long-overdue discussion.

His contention, however, that Labour is only marginally better than the Tories – or even than Reform – is not only ludicrous but counter-productive when it comes to electoral tactics.

Polanski’s position, which ranges from “I am here to build the Green Party” to being in favour of “some form of electoral alliance with Labour and Your Paty might be possible” is far too passive. It would be a disaster if the green vote let the fascists into government. Avoiding this means either an electoral pact with Labour to keep Farage out or a change in the electoral system to proportional representation before the election.

There is likely to be some form of electoral arrangement between the right-wing parties, the Tories and Reform, and there must be the same between the progressive parties — Labour, the Greens, the Liberal Democrats, and YP, if it exists then, plus the SNP and Plaid. This should happen for the May elections, and then again for the general election.

Polanski is also – I gather from his YouTube appearances – opposed to solar farms on the basis that they destroy biodiversity when constructed on agricultural land. This is a big mistake. In my article on Botley West, I quote Chris Goodall, who is an ecological journalist and a member of the Green Party, who, on his blog Carbon Commentary, reminds us that:

Intensely farmed agricultural land has truly awful levels of biodiversity. Large, over-cultivated fields with few hedgerows are always terrible for nature. Unfortunately, much of the land that Botley West will use has been farmed excessively and will benefit from a switch to hosting solar panels; ploughing will stop, as will the use of fertilisers and pesticides.

Goodall is right.

In any case, the amount of land needed to meet net-zero by 2050 in Britain is only between 0.04 and 0.06 per cent of available land – less than is currently in use for golf courses.

Green Party members and branches, however, are heavily involved in opposition to major renewable energy projects across the country, particularly solar, a problem Zac Polanski needs to address. (My article supporting the Botley West solar is here.)

Exit strategy

Zac Polanski offers no exit strategy from fossil fuels other than denouncing the biggest polluters as the biggest polluters and ending the subsidies they receive. This is all well and good, but what happens next? To close them down without an alternative in place is to invite opposition in defence of jobs.

The most effective way to cut carbon emissions – whilst respecting social justice – is via carbon taxes, i.e., making fossil fuels more expensive than renewables as a part of a wider policy to transfer wealth from the rich to the poor. The best way to achieve this is via a fee-and-dividend scheme along the lines proposed by the renowned climate scientist James Hansen in his 2012 book Storms of My Grandchildren, where he sets it out in detail.

Not in my backyard

Nimbyism is a massive problem. It is impossible to build new public strategic infrastructure in Britain – from water supply, to on-shore and off-shore wind, or ground-mounted solar – without organised challenges, most of which are imbued with the politics of nimbyism.

A prime example is the upgrading of the national grid, the Great Grid Upgrade as it is officially known. This is a £35b project to modernise and expand the grid to connect multiple clean energy sources. It involves new substations, overhead lines, and under-sea cables, as well a new state-of-the-art control centre to manage an increasingly complex network.

Yet organised opposition is routinely mounted, often by Tory, LibDem or Green Party MPs or councillors, both the new grid and the renewable energy projects themselves.

There must be proper public scrutiny of such projects, of course. But there must also be a way to go ahead eventually if that is what the majority want – particularly where nationally important infrastructure is concerned – otherwise we will have no place to live. (My article supporting the Abingdon reservoir can be found here)

The Botley West Solar Farm – on Blenheim Palace land and investment – will be the biggest such project in Europe. The public consultation is finished, and the final decision will be taken sometime this year. It has a capacity of 840 KWs and would generate enough electricity for the whole of Oxfordshire or a city the size of Leeds. Yet it has been opposed at every stage by the local authorities involved, particularly by the Lib Dems and the Greens, who are strong in the countryside.

The Greens say that, while they are not opposed to solar power in principle, it is not the right place everywhere, and it is too big. Meanwhile, we have a climate emergency.

Planning and Infrastructure bill

The Planning and Infrastructure bill, which had its first reading in March last year and is currently in the House of Lords, is key to upgrading the national grid by 2030 and to meeting net zero by 2050. It introduces the concept of Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) and is designed to enable decisions on the 150 such projects proposed before the end of this Parliament.

The left is opposed to the bill, to the extent that it is aware of it. Yet its defeat would make the clean energy transition (in Britain) impossible on a time scale that would meet the needs of either the planet or its inhabitants.

George Monbiot, who speaks for a big section of the left on ecological issues, writing in the Guardian of April 24, 2025, described the bill as “Labour’s great nature sellout”. It would be, he said, the “worst assault on England’s ecosystems in living memory” and he goes on, “the kind of anti-scientific, pro-corporate scrubbing of expertise we see in Donald Trump’s US”. Just as the US is captured by a billionaire death cult”, he says, “our government is opening the door to the same forces”.

His conclusion – that Labour is worse than the Tories when it comes to the environment – is brain-deadism. The Tories are climate deniers, while Labour has the ambition of a decarbonised national grid by 2030 and reaching net zero by 2050 – even if it is doing so by internal conflict. It was ever thus.

Conclusions

The energy transition, once carried through, of course, 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 international markets, the case will be very strong to vote for Labour.

The left — and the far-left in particular — have a blind spot when it comes to Labour’s environmental policy from Starmer’s Liverpool speech to the work that Ed Miliband is doing, which is important both domestically and internationally when it comes to leading by example.

Those who say Labour is no different from the Tories, or even Reform UK, should think again. In fact there has seldom been more clear water between left and right in British politics than today, despite the retreats which have taken place. .We should not, in any case, define Labour just by the retreats of its leaders, but what it has to offer in terms of the future of the climate emergency and indeed the planet.

The problem is that the Labour leadership routinely refuses to defend its own policies, particularly on the environment. This was even the case with Starmer’s 50-minute New Year interview with Lara Kuenssberg, where Starmer only made a couple of passing references to the environment and Labour policy in that regard.

Labour’s energy policy is – even when the retreats are taken into account – still superior to that of any of its rivals, including the Green Party, when it comes to decarbonisation, the energy transition, and the upgrading of the national grid to make it possible.

Meanwhile, we have to keep the fascists out. Whilst making the case for electoral reform, we need to build a coalition of progressive forces that can stop Farage and Reform UK in their tracks, both at the May 7 elections, when over 5,000 local council seats will be up for grabs, and the elections to the Welsh Senedd and the Scottish Parliament on the same day.

We then have to repeat it at the general election, which most likely be held in 2029.

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