Nigel Farage hit out at Energy Secretary Ed Miliband over Britain’s “fanatical rush to net zero” at a Reform UK press conference this morning.
The Reform leader said: “We’ve been deluding ourselves that we’re reducing CO2 and saving the planet when actually what we’ve been doing. Is exporting CO2 production, exporting UK manufacturing, exporting well-paid good jobs.
“And I genuinely fear with Mr Miliband that the fanatical rush to net zero is going to make that even worse”
It came as Richard Tice announced plans for a new business, trade and energy “super” department if Reform takes power at the next general election.
Nigel Farage Explodes at Ed Miliband’s Net Zero Push
Nigel Farage has stepped up his attack on Ed Miliband’s approach to net zero, arguing that Labour’s energy strategy risks increasing costs, weakening British industry and leaving the country too dependent on imported energy.
The Reform UK leader has made opposition to what he calls “net zero” policies a prominent part of his political message, particularly as Britain debates energy prices, North Sea oil and gas production and the pace of the transition towards renewable power.
Miliband, meanwhile, has defended the Government’s clean-energy strategy as essential to Britain’s energy security and long-term economic interests. He argues that reducing dependence on fossil fuels will protect consumers from volatile international markets while creating new jobs in low-carbon industries. In parliamentary evidence, Miliband said that moving towards home-grown clean energy was necessary for both energy and national security.
The dispute therefore goes well beyond the personalities of Farage and Miliband. It reflects a wider disagreement about how Britain should produce electricity, manage energy costs and respond to climate change.
Farage’s challenge to net zero
Farage has repeatedly questioned whether Britain should continue pursuing its legally established target of reaching net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050.
His argument is partly based on Britain’s relatively small share of global emissions. Farage has asked what the point is of Britain making major economic changes when other countries continue to produce much larger quantities of greenhouse gases.
The argument has become particularly prominent as energy prices and the cost of living have remained politically sensitive.
In 2026, Farage has increasingly linked net zero to the cost of energy and the future of Britain’s industrial economy. Reform has called for a significant change in energy policy, including more domestic oil and gas production, expanded nuclear power and a different approach to renewable-energy development.
The party’s position is that climate policy should not come at the expense of affordability, energy security or economic growth.
Miliband’s alternative argument
Miliband takes almost the opposite approach.
The Energy Secretary has argued that Britain’s experience following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine demonstrates the dangers of depending heavily on fossil-fuel markets. When global gas prices surged, British households and businesses were exposed to international price movements.
His argument is that renewable electricity generated domestically can reduce that vulnerability.
Giving evidence to Parliament, Miliband said that the transition to clean energy was not simply about climate change. He described it as a question of economic security, national security and employment as well. He pointed to offshore wind, hydrogen, carbon capture and other technologies as areas where Britain could develop new industries and jobs.
That creates a fundamental difference between the two political approaches.
Farage emphasises the immediate cost and industrial consequences of the transition. Miliband emphasises the longer-term costs of continued dependence on fossil fuels.
The North Sea at the centre of the dispute
Few issues illustrate the disagreement more clearly than North Sea oil and gas.
Reform has argued that Britain should make greater use of its remaining domestic fossil-fuel resources. The party says new drilling could strengthen energy security and support jobs in communities that have historically depended on the offshore industry.
Miliband’s approach has been to accelerate the transition away from new fossil-fuel development while supporting existing production within the Government’s broader energy strategy.
The debate has intensified during 2026, with right-leaning newspapers and politicians repeatedly calling for more North Sea drilling. Carbon Brief’s analysis found that UK newspapers had published 63 editorials supporting additional North Sea oil and gas extraction during the first half of the year.
However, the economics are disputed.
Critics of increased drilling argue that British-produced oil and gas is sold into international markets, meaning that increasing domestic production would not automatically translate into substantially lower household energy bills.
Supporters of additional production counter that domestic extraction can contribute to energy security, support employment and reduce dependence on imports.
The disagreement therefore involves both economics and energy strategy.
Reform’s alternative energy programme
Farage’s opposition to Labour’s net-zero strategy does not mean Reform is proposing to abandon all forms of low-carbon energy.
The party has supported nuclear power and has said it wants an energy system that combines different sources. It has also criticised large-scale solar developments on agricultural land.
In July, Reform’s Robert Jenrick attacked Labour’s approach to solar farms, arguing that large projects on productive farmland could affect food security and rural communities. Reform said it would prevent new solar farms from being built on agricultural land and promoted rooftop solar instead.
The distinction is important because the political argument is not simply “fossil fuels versus renewables”.
Reform’s position is that renewable development should be more selective and that Britain should retain greater access to oil and gas while expanding nuclear power.
Labour’s strategy places a greater emphasis on rapidly expanding clean electricity generation and reducing the role of fossil fuels.
Is net zero responsible for high energy bills?
One of the most contentious questions is whether net-zero policies are responsible for Britain’s relatively high energy costs.
Farage and other critics have repeatedly argued that green policies add costs to consumers and businesses.
Miliband rejects that interpretation. He has argued that Britain’s exposure to volatile gas markets was a major reason energy prices rose so sharply during the European energy crisis.
The BBC reported in 2025 that Miliband had accused opponents of net zero of making misleading claims about the policy, while pointing to the UK’s continued legal commitment to reaching net zero by 2050.
The relationship between energy prices and net zero is nevertheless complicated.
Electricity prices are affected by wholesale gas prices, network costs, taxes, market arrangements, generation capacity and government policies. The effect of a particular renewable project or fossil-fuel development cannot therefore be isolated simply by comparing its headline cost.
That complexity has not prevented energy policy from becoming a major political dividing line.
The “next Brexit” argument
Farage has suggested that net zero could become another major political dividing line comparable to Brexit.
In earlier comments, he said net zero could become “the next Brexit” if Parliament became disconnected from public concerns.
The comparison reflects Farage’s belief that energy and climate policy could become a question of democratic accountability as well as economics.
His opponents dispute that comparison and argue that the public continues to support many elements of the transition to clean energy.
The Guardian reported in March that polling cited in its analysis showed more than 60% of respondents supporting climate action, although climate policy ranked below issues such as the cost of living and health when voters were asked about their priorities.
This suggests that the political debate cannot be reduced simply to support or opposition to climate action. Many voters may support renewable energy while simultaneously worrying about the cost of achieving the transition.
Growing pressure on Miliband
Miliband has become a particularly prominent target for opponents of the Government’s green strategy.
At the June 2026 Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch described Miliband as a “villain” in Britain’s deindustrialisation and accused him of making the country poorer. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright also criticised Britain’s energy policies as a “tragic mistake”.
These are political assessments rather than independent findings.
Nevertheless, they demonstrate how personally the energy debate has become associated with Miliband.
Farage’s attacks form part of the same broader political pressure, although Reform’s position goes further than the Conservatives on several aspects of the net-zero debate.
Reform’s criticism of renewables
Reform has also focused heavily on land use.
Jenrick has argued that large solar installations can occupy thousands of acres of agricultural land. He says this could create tension between renewable-energy expansion and Britain’s food-production capacity.
Reform’s proposed alternative is to prioritise rooftop solar and other forms of generation that require less agricultural land.
The Government’s response is that Britain needs to expand renewable capacity substantially if it is to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels and meet its legally binding emissions targets.
The disagreement therefore extends into planning policy, infrastructure and the use of Britain’s countryside.
What the argument means for British energy policy
Farage’s confrontation with Miliband represents a larger debate about Britain’s economic future.
One side argues that net zero can provide energy independence, reduce exposure to international fossil-fuel markets and create new industries.
The other argues that the transition is being pursued too quickly, that it risks increasing costs and that Britain should make greater use of domestic oil and gas while investing in nuclear and other technologies.
There is evidence supporting important elements of both sides’ concerns, but not every political claim about energy policy is supported by the same degree of evidence. Carbon Brief recently published a detailed factcheck identifying 45 claims by Reform UK about climate and energy that it classified as false or misleading.
That does not settle the political debate, but it highlights why individual claims about energy prices, emissions and domestic production need to be assessed separately.
The battle over Britain’s energy future
The dispute between Farage and Miliband is ultimately about more than whether Britain should support net zero.
It concerns the pace of change, the role of fossil fuels, the future of the North Sea, the cost of electricity, industrial competitiveness and the balance between immediate economic pressures and longer-term climate objectives.
Miliband argues that Britain cannot achieve genuine energy security by remaining dependent on fossil fuels whose prices are determined by global markets. Farage argues that the Government’s approach risks imposing excessive costs on households and businesses while Britain’s contribution to global emissions remains relatively small.
Neither argument can be reduced to a single statistic.
Britain’s 2050 net-zero target remains part of the country’s legal framework, while the Government continues to pursue an expansion of clean-energy generation. At the same time, opposition to aspects of that strategy has become increasingly prominent, with Reform making energy policy a central part of its political platform.
As the debate continues, the key questions will be practical ones: how quickly clean power can be built, how much it will cost, how energy bills will respond, what happens to North Sea communities and how Britain maintains reliable electricity supplies.
Those questions are likely to keep Farage and Miliband on opposing sides of one of the country’s most consequential economic and environmental debates.