Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has gleefully responded to Sir Tony Blair's Net Zero comments after the former Prime Minister appeared to warn Sir Keir Starmer's strategy is "doomed to fail".
Taking to social media, Farage said: "Even Tony Blair now says the push for Net Zero has become 'irrational' and 'hysterical'. We are winning the argument!"
The Clacton MP, who is campaigning hard to shore up support ahead of May 1's Local Elections, last week described Net Zero as the "new Brexit".
The Reform leader wants the Government to ditch its target of achieving Net Zero by 2050, warning that the costs hit working people and could wipeout the manufacturing sector.
Nigel Farage
PA
Warning against the climate change agenda's impact on Scunthorpe steelworks, Reform UK's deputy leader Richard Tice told PoliticsHome: "People are seeing the destruction of industry jobs in heartlands that were traditionally, socially conservative Labour. Scunthorpe is a dramatic wake-up call for everybody."
However, Farage's latest intervention comes just hours after Blair broke ranks with Starmer to warn against pursuing the current Net Zero agenda.
Blair argued people were “being asked to make financial sacrifices and changes in lifestyle when they know that their impact on global emissions is minimal”.
He added: "Any strategy based on either ‘phasing out’ fossil fuels in the short term or limiting consumption is a strategy doomed to fail."
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Tony BlairPAIn the foreword for a report released by the Tony Blair Institute, the former Prime Minister also labelled the climate change debate as "riven with irrationality", warning strong support for Net Zero is waning.
Blair wrote: "Political leaders by and large know that the debate has become irrational.
“But they’re terrified of saying so, for fear of being accused of being ‘climate deniers’.
“As ever, when sensible people don’t speak up about the way a campaign is being conducted, the campaign stays in the hands of those who end up alienating the very opinion on which consent for action depends.”
However, a Labour MP warned Blair's comments marked an unhelpful intervention for Starmer.
Keir Starmer
PA“We know that businesses see renewables as a key path to economic growth, and it’s not like the Government aren’t already doing things like carbon capture.
"I don’t get the point of pushing something like this – and the unpopularity of Net Zero is just plain wrong,” they said.
Top Tories appeared to sense an opportunity to pile pressure on the Prime Minister.
Shadow Energy Secretary Andrew Bowie said: "It seems even Tony Blair has come to the realisation that Keir Starmer and the Labour party’s mad dash to net zero by 2050 is simply not feasible, or sustainable.
"As Ed Miliband’s net zero zealotry pushes this country’s energy security even further into the arms of China, and their slave labour supply chains, and risks driving up energy bills further and further, only Kemi Badenoch and the Conservatives are telling the truth about energy policy in this country.
"Under new leadership, we have been clear that the cost of net zero by 2050 to families will be far too high, and we must urgently change course. Will Labour now finally be prepared to do the same, and put the national interest above their own ideological dogma?"
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