At first, it might seem like a strange association.
Net zero minister Ed Miliband used his speech at this week’s Labour Party Conference to outline accelerated ambitions for the UK’s transition to clean energy supplies.
He also billed the future vision of British power — of the utilities kind — as “patriotic”.
You might wonder what makes a kilowatt of electricity particularly British, and Miliband’s talk aimed to draw a clear parallel between the shared future of the people and the future of their energy supplies — which he said would cost less and create jobs.
He also announced what the government billed as a major expansion of the state-owned Great British Energy’s flagship scheme to cut bills — with over 400 solar panels — for schools and hospitals, and revealed a total ban on fracking.
Moreover, he did it with some patriotic gusto, in line with the approach of some colleagues in Liverpool who had clearly been briefed to take a tougher stance, with stronger words.
The resulting headlines focused on Miliband’s attack on Elon Musk, as he called for him to “get the hell out of our politics and our country”.
He had already outlined why he thought “imported US rhetoric” had broken Britain’s climate consensus.
But while he was high on emotion, he was low on policy. In the speech, the fracking ban was essentially the lone point on that front: ”Fracking will not take a penny off bills. It will not create long-term sustainable jobs. It will trash our climate commitments. And it is dangerous and deeply harmful to our natural environment. The good news is that communities have fought back and won this fight before and will do so again.”
Again, communities. Brits taking a stand together, patriotically,
The question is whether the attempt to frame support for the clean energy transition and its pace as in our proud national interest is going to work. Miliband has faced severe political criticism over net zero policies, with the Conservatives and Reform both seeking to capitalise on voters questioning the cost and pace of the energy transition, or even its very rationale.
The politicisation of green policies has been a bone of contention in the EU too, with a broad drive to soften long-term policies emerging since before last year’s elections. This week, negotiations on that front — the so-called omnibus proposals — hit the skids as they became particularly spiky, with some calling for the proposed changes to be introduced faster and others still hesitant over the detail of the potential softening.
As that process was slowing to a crawl, a major poll of 2,500 European business leaders outlined continued support for robust corporate sustainability and due diligence rules, signalling that many companies are actually not in favour of the across-the-board policy changes being discussed.
Understanding what all of this means for UK businesses and European ones operating in this country is not so simple. Patriotism is an easy and potentially poll-boosting word, but one that seems to be entering the fray more as Brussels grapples with the omnibus changes, as well as the UK’s net zero rhetoric.
It may well be just a thinly-veiled word for politicians wanting to reframe a course they’re committed to, in a way that makes it more appealing to voters who appear increasingly opposed to their intentions.
