In early May there was a seismic shift in the UK following the local government elections in England and devolved government elections in Wales and Scotland. As Labour fell to an historic defeat, losing a national level election for the first time in 100 years in Wales, Reform UK surged across the country. They are now the second largest party in the Senedd (Wales), joint second largest party in Holyrood (Scotland) in their first time contesting it, and gained 1300 council seats across England.
These election results come at a time where right-wing populist parties across the world are making electoral gains. Years of spiralling living costs, energy crises, and degrading public services have left people disillusioned with the status quo. For the most part, these parties are often defined by hostile immigration policies, and an ideological opposition to climate policies that move away from rampant fossil fuels.
In the UK, a previous political consensus on the need for climate action has collapsed, despite continued support for it among the public. Since 2022, climate action and support for net zero has shifted from a shared national goal to a political battlefield of the increasingly hostile Conservative Party and Reform UK versus all the other major parties. Whilst the majority of people who vote for Reform UK and the Conservatives aren’t doing so because of their platforms railing against climate action, the success of Reform UK elevates this narrative and makes much more real the threat of a reversal of decades of policy geared towards cutting emissions.
There is an increasingly polarised debate in which anti net zero claims go unchallenged and scrutiny is in short supply. In light of this, Oil Change UK collaborated with Friends of the Earth Scotland and Transition Economics to understand how a complete rollback of climate policy would impact jobs in green energy and the supply chain. If Reform UK is now a genuine electoral force, their policies must be treated seriously.
The results of our research show that Reform UK’s policies, which include cutting GBP 30 billion per year in net zero public spending, raising taxes on renewable energy, and scrapping energy efficiency rules for landlords, would lead to the destruction of nearly 500,000 existing jobs in the UK within 3 years. This is comparable to every teacher in the UK losing their job within 3 years, and would decimate towns and cities unable to deal with the economic shock. By 2040, the UK could forgo up to 1.4 million jobs that the current policies would create or sustain.
In particular industrial heritage regions, such as North East England, East Anglia, the West Midlands, and Inverness and the North East Highlands, would be hit the hardest by job losses. These are all areas that all saw Reform UK massively increase their share of the vote in May’s elections.
Many of these areas are struggling from losing jobs in North Sea oil and gas, coal, and fishing. While it is clear from this research that pulling the plug as they look to rebuild around the green economy would be a mistake, the election results show another stark reality: far too little support exists for communities navigating the energy transition.
Without clear, fully funded plans from the Labour government, it is too easy for those with narrow self-interests to peddle snake oil to struggling communities and paint a fantasy of reversing the job losses from a declining North Sea basin. Whatever the government policy, whatever the governing party, there is no way to bring back an oil and gas boom in a nation that has already burned through more than 85% of its economically viable gas reserves. And that doesn’t even begin to address the moral and economic case for the UK acting to prevent further catastrophic flooding, heat waves, and crop failure through worsening climate breakdown. Or indeed the clear threat to energy security and vulnerability to volatile fossil fuel markets laid bare by recent geopolitical conflicts.
There is no going back. Parties that claim otherwise are betraying the very workers they claim to represent, in order to push through their own narrow interests and line the pockets of the oil and gas bosses that support them. But to build a thriving renewable energy economy with well-paying jobs and affordable energy for all, we need to see the current Labour government not only defend the currently existing jobs, but invest in a proper, worker-led, publicly funded transition to green energy.