Ed Miliband declares World War 3 on UK – doing more damage than Putin | Personal Finance | Finance
Therefore, during the Blitz, the Nazis targeted London’s docks, factories, railways, ports and transport hubs in an attempt to disrupt war production and morale. The Allies responded by bombing industrial areas such as the Ruhr Valley, targeting oil production, refineries and manufacturing facilities.
Vladimir Putin is pursuing the same brutal strategy in Ukraine today. Russian forces hit power plants, electrical substations, fuel depots and industrial areas to weaken Ukraine’s economy and break the resistance of civilians.
War is not just about killing enemy soldiers and civilians, it is about making a country poorer and weaker.
What I did not expect was to find the UK Energy Secretary adopting similarly brutal tactics against our own industrial base in peacetime.
But this is the extent of the damage Ed Miliband has done. In his own country.
In a recent article I jokingly suggested that if he were a foreign demagogue we would have to declare war on him, given the massive damage he was doing to the UK’s industrial base. The more I examine his records, the less funny this idea seems.
Miliband’s most damaging attack is on domestic energy production. It has stepped up exploration of North Sea oil and gas, restricted new licenses, raised windfall taxes and sent a clear signal that long-term investment is not welcome.
As a result, manufacturing in the UK is taking a hit, leaving us poorer and less secure, more dependent on imports. The North Sea has suffered its worst year since the 1970s as drillers responded by freezing investment, the Financial Times reports today.
Grangemouth, Scotland’s only oil refinery and a major petrochemical centre, is closing. If Putin’s forces did this, they’d be handing out medals.
Due to very high energy costs, steel, chemical and ceramic companies are closing their production or shifting their production to more friendly regions; They take important jobs, skills and tax revenues with them.
Our food security is also under threat. Miliband is covering fertile farmland with solar panels and de-farming land in the name of green targets. This makes us more dependent on imports and exposed to volatile global food prices.
Rising energy bills are demoralizing civilians, leaving millions shivering in their homes.
Worse still, Miliband’s energy strategy leaves us dependent on China’s solar panels, batteries and critical minerals. Beijing is not our friend.
Miliband is right on one important point. Renewables will diversify our energy grid and, in theory, make us less dependent on imported gas, which Putin can use as leverage.
In practice, the reckless push to deliver clean energy by 2030 is doing just the opposite. The UK is becoming more dependent on imports as it halts exploration in its waters.
The only way Europe was able to rid itself of Russian energy was to replace it with US gas, thanks to the country’s shale gas revolution. But Miliband banned fracking here.
Britain needs renewable energy and climate change is real. But the self-imposed 2030 deadline leaves Britain poorer, weaker and more vulnerable. Stopping this could save us £14bn a year.
We may not be in an armed war today, but we might be one day. When this happens, we will need every scrap of economic power. Ed Miliband, Rachel Reeves and the rest of this strategically mistaken Labor leadership are destroying our industrial base before we even get started.
