Britain is going increasingly cold on misfiring Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s dogmatic eco crusade, says Giles Sheldrick.
Running out of road: Ed Miliband’s Net Zero crusade has met mounting opposition (Image: Getty)
The public is fast running out of energy with Net Zero fanatic Ed Miliband. He dreams of decarbonising the UK’s electricity system by 2030 but judging by the latest figures Britain doesn’t share his obsession.
Like almost everything Labour has done since it took power it has failed to ignite a spark. Electric vehicles sales massively missed a government target last year, despite billions of pounds being shovelled into schemes to bribe Britain to switch.
They accounted for just 473,340 new registrations in 2025 giving them a paltry market share of 23.4% (well below the government’s target of 28%). In short, uptake is too slow and the cost too high.
So difficult is it to now sell an electric vehicle that manufacturers offered £5.5 billion in discounts – equal to more than £11,000 per vehicle sold – in an incentive described as “unsustainable” by the very people trying to flog them.
And why would anyone buy one?
Not only are they prohibitively expensive but they are impractical.
The national charging network is a joke, time-consuming, and the Budget stipulated a future pay-per-mile tax for EVs.
Drive an EV and want to take a family on holiday to the Lake District, but live south of Watford Gap services? Well, the very best of luck with that.
Labour is introducing a pay-per-mile tax for EVs (Image: Getty)
Labour’s dogmatic zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) sales mandate states manufacturers must ensure electric cars make up a percentage of overall sales.
It started at 22% in 2024 and will reach 80% by 2030 when sales of new petrol or diesel cars will be banned. Hybrids will be allowed until 2035.
Given the state of the country under Labour, where train services rarely work, the roads are potholed, and people are struggling to keep their heads above water, does anyone seriously believe this will work?
Sir Keir Starmer has been bombarded with tens of thousands of letters demanding the 2030 ban be scrapped, describing it as an “undemocratic imposition”.
They argue Labour is making Britain sleepwalk into an economic Armageddon due to its fixation with virtue signalling and ill-informed green policy.
It now seems inevitable that the 2030 cliff-edge target will bankrupt the economy, wreck personal finances, destroy jobs and automotive manufacturing, break the national grid, and prevent the development of more effective clean transport choices.
It is nonsensical because it will make life harder and more expensive.
Even the EU realises this and has delayed its deadline for the ban of petrol and diesel cars from 2035 to 2040.
Misfiring Miliband is under increasing pressure to row back on his eco crusade, not least because of the perilous state of the public finances.
The Energy Secretary’s blinkered vision sees Britain as a clean energy superpower with the UK reaching Net Zero – the point at which the balance between greenhouse gases put into the atmosphere and those taken out is zero – by 2050.
Key elements include doubling onshore wind, tripling solar power, and quadrupling offshore wind, but the push for more electric vehicles is a major plank.
Yet, just like the heat pumps he continues to obsess over, the public remains largely unconvinced and sees it as an expensive vanity project to please do-gooders and tree-huggers.
One industry expert summed it up perfectly when they said: “The Average Joe just doesn’t want an electric car. It’s simply not a priority. So Labour and Miliband can obsess over Net Zero all they want, but when it’s not palatable to the public then it’s just words.”
