OPINION

       Ed Miliband is at the centre of a political earthquake (Image: Getty)

       There’s a political earthquake shaking Westminster, and its epicentre is the growing fury over Ed Miliband’s disastrous Net Zero crusade. Across Britain, “Net Zexit” is fast becoming the new Brexit-an unstoppable movement driven by ordinary, hard-working people who are sick of being lectured, patronised, and impoverished by an out-of-touch Labour elite. As a long-time campaigner for common sense and working families, I am proud to say that Reform UK is the only party truly listening to the British public. The writing is on the wall: Labour and “Mad Ed” are on their way out. Reform UK is the future.

       Let’s be clear: Ed Miliband’s green obsession isn’t just an eccentricity-it’s a betrayal of the very people Labour claims to represent. While Miliband prances around solar farms in East Yorkshire, the rest of us are left to deal with the consequences of his economic vandalism. The facts are brutal. Ofgem’s price cap has soared by 6% in 2025, pushing the average annual household energy bill to ￡1,849-a staggering 9% higher than last year.

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       Lois Perry writes on Ed Miliband's Net Zero disaster (Image: Lois Perry)

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       For larger families, that figure can hit ￡2,628. Meanwhile, inflation is biting hard, with the Office for Budget Responsibility warning it could spike to 3.7% by the end of 2025. This isn’t just a spreadsheet problem-it’s real pain for millions.

       And what’s Labour’s answer? More wind turbines, more solar panels, and now, a reckless ￡8.1 billion gamble on carbon capture and storage (CCUS) through the newly minted Great British Energy (GBE).

       Miliband’s claim that Net Zero will lower bills is pure fantasy. Even the boss of British Gas has said current renewables policy “will definitely not reduce the price” for consumers. Labour’s green dogma is pushing working families to the brink-and the public knows it.

       While Labour doubles down on its Net Zero madness, Reform UK is offering real solutions. They are the only party with the courage to say what everyone else is thinking: Net Zero is unaffordable, unworkable, and unfair.

       Their pledge to scrap these destructive targets and focus on affordable, secure British energy has struck a chord with voters across the country.

       The results speak for themselves. Reform UK has taken control of Lincolnshire County Council, swept mayoral elections in East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, and is surging in the polls across working-class Britain.

       Poll after poll shows the cost of living-not climate fanaticism-is the number one doorstep issue. While 70% of Britons might still say they support Net Zero in theory, when it comes to the crunch, they want action on bills, jobs, and security-not more green lectures.

       Now, Labour’s latest answer to Net Zero is a technocratic boondoggle: CCUS. Great British Energy, launched in 2024, is a state-owned entity tasked with pushing Net Zero via so-called “clean energy.” But the reality is that ￡8.1 billion of its ￡8.3 billion budget is earmarked for CCUS in Merseyside and Teesside-part of a staggering ￡21.7 billion, 25-year subsidy plan.

       The 2024 Energy Bill mandates CCUS deployment, embedding subsidies and risk coverage into law and legally binding taxpayers to underwrite all risks, including leaks and financial failures.

       Let’s be honest: CCUS is a fantasy. The technology is unproven, inefficient, and risky. Capture rates in the real world are often just 30-50%, far below the 60-90% claimed in ideal conditions. Worse, the process itself burns more energy-20-30% of a plant’s power is needed to run the capture systems.

       For example, Net Zero Teesside’s 860 MW gas plant could lose up to 200 MW just to operate CCUS, meaning more gas is burned, not less. Scaling up to capture 8.5 million tonnes of CO2 annually by 2028 would require dozens of facilities, each costing up to a billion pounds, with no guarantee of performance.

       The risks don’t end there. Captured CO2 has to be compressed to a supercritical state and piped up to 200 kilometres to storage sites under the North Sea. Pipelines are prone to corrosion and leaks.

       A 2010 US pipeline failure released 15,000 tonnes of CO2, highlighting the dangers. The UK’s HyNet project, with its 60 km pipeline network, is untested at this scale, yet the law mandates rapid rollout by 2028.

       Once the CO2 reaches its destination, it’s injected one or two kilometres underground into depleted oil and gas fields or saline aquifers. But leaks are common.

       Norway’s Sleipner site has documented seepage rates that threaten to negate any climate benefits. The UK’s supposed 78 billion-tonne storage capacity sounds impressive, but it requires constant monitoring for decades-a single leak could release years of captured CO2 in one go. The ￡8 billion indemnity fund is a tacit admission of this risk, yet the legislation ignores who will monitor these sites after 2050.

       And for all this cost and risk, the impact on emissions is trivial. CCUS only tackles point-source emissions from factories and power plants-less than 40% of the UK’s 400 million tonnes of CO2.

       Even if the government’s most optimistic targets are met, CCUS will only address 8% of emissions by 2035, at a cost of over ￡100 billion in subsidies. Maintenance alone will cost millions annually per site, locking taxpayers into decades of funding a technology that does little to solve the real problem.

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       This is not a serious plan for energy security or climate action. It’s a blank cheque for broken technology, a sop to green lobbyists, and a betrayal of working families. For the cost of this CCUS fiasco, Britain could build multiple nuclear plants or invest in real energy security. Instead, Labour is locking us into decades of expensive, risky, and ineffective technology.

       Reform UK’s rise is a direct response to this failure. Their message is simple: ditch Net Zero, invest in affordable energy, and restore common sense. Unless Labour changes course and sacks Ed Miliband, the “Net Zexit” revolution will only gather pace even faster.

       Britain needs real solutions, not more green pipe dreams and blank cheques for failed technology. For the millions struggling to make ends meet, and for the future of British democracy, it’s time for change. Ed Miliband must go-and so must his carbon capture con.

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