Ed Miliband is riding high in the Labour popularity stakes but friends of the Energy Secretary fear there is a campaign within Government to undermine him and hobble his net zero agenda.
Allies have told The i Paper of their “astonishment” at the “unchecked” hostile briefing which they say has been directed against the former Labour leader – apparently more loved than ever among his party’s membership.
There are dark suggestions that outriders for the Number 10 chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney – or at least people who think they are acting on his behalf – may be out to get Miliband as part of a wider strategy to “unpick” net zero to see off the threat of Reform UK.
Friends of Miliband say that such a move would be an act of self-harm which would blow a hole in Starmer’s case for re-election and result in Labour haemorrhaging votes to the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party. And they are alarmed at the anonymous negative briefing they see coming from his own side.
A quote provided to The Sunday Times in January epitomises this egregious behaviour, as far as his allies are concerned. A colleague was reported to have said: “The only minister who really knows how to work the system and get officials delivering what he wants is Ed Miliband, who has been there before. And Ed is the one minister we don’t want to be a success if we want to win the next election.”
The remark caused shock within Miliband’s circle, The i Paper has been told. An ally said: “That people brief like that – ‘we want him to fail’ – and he’s one of the mission ministers. There is a sense of incredulity about the scale and content of the anonymous briefing.”
The ally said the briefing had gone “unchecked” by Number 10, with other ministers such as the Attorney General Lord Hermer and the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson also being targeted.
Miliband’s popularity with Labour party members is clear. When the LabourList website published its first ever polling last week on party members’ favourite Cabinet ministers he finished right at the top of the league table.
But that hasn’t quelled the concerns of Miliband supporters. What worries them is the idea that this is not just run-of-the-mill Westminster backbiting, but part of an orchestrated campaign to undermine the Energy Secretary.
They join the dots between recent announcements such as the slashing of foreign aid, Starmer’s bashing of quangos and cuts to the welfare budget (something which Miliband was reported to have spoken out against in Cabinet), and see an emerging strategy of Labour moving to the right to contain the threat of Nigel Farage’s Reform.
Fears targeting net zero part of a wider agenda
The Miliband ally said: “I’ve heard people suggesting that after welfare and aid, they’re looking to target net zero, and that this is part of a bigger agenda of neutering possible attacks from the populist-right.”
Miliband has already had to stomach Labour’s decision, made last year while in opposition, to ditch the £28bn green investment plan that he had been such a big supporter of. Party insiders said then that keeping the plan was “not good politics”.
The Energy Secretary and his green agenda have long been seen a weak spot by Labour’s opponents. The Conservatives – who have ditched their commitment to achieving net zero by 2050 – label him an “eco zealot”.
And they have accused him of misleading voters over his claims that an expansion of renewable energy would cut consumer bills by an average of £300 a year by the end of the decade.
The Tories also claim he is blind to cost of living concerns and argue that policies such as stopping new licences for oil and gas exploration in the North Sea endanger Britain’s energy security and act as a drag on growth.
Miliband is unquestionably committed to net zero and if Starmer did decide to turn against the policy, he would probably have to remove the former Labour leader from his post ion first.
The ally of the Energy Secretary said that his popularity among party members would make it “very hard to sack” him, but added: “I don’t think it’s impossible”.
Miliband’s decision to speak out against benefit cuts in Cabinet has left him open to the charge of being a troublemaker – although those close to him stress his loyalty and belief in party discipline, having had to deal with Labour infighting when he was party leader.
They say that it is necessary for ministers to sometimes speak their mind in Cabinet but strenuously deny that leaks to the press about the comments came from his side.
A Labour MP thought that it was a “real possibility” that net zero could be watered down, with the “massive headwind” to the UK economy from Donald Trump‘s “global trade war” providing the Government with a convenient excuse to dial back ambitions if Starmer wanted.
Numerous straws in the wind have followed Starmer’s decision to downgrade the green investment plan. At the start of this year, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves backed a third runway at Heathrow despite Miliband’s opposition.
There were reports that GB Energy’s budget could be cut in the Spending Review – later denied by the Treasury – and a scaling back of the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate which requires carmakers to increase electric vehicle sales is also expected.
However, the ally of Miliband’s believed that the Prime Minister did not personally want to “backtrack any further on net zero”.
“The people who want to unpick net zero are not necessarily doing the bidding of the Prime Minister,” they said. “I think it is part of a bigger political strategy which is creating tensions all over the place.”
McSweeney seen as being behind anti Reform plan
As to the person driving the strategy that “Reform is the real threat”, the Miliband ally pointed the finger at Starmer’s chief of staff, McSweeney – although they reserved judgment on whether he had anything to do with the negative briefing.
“There are people who sometimes think they’re doing Morgan’s bidding and do it in a rather blunt and clumsy way, which is not necessarily him, or what he would like,” they said.
As the minister responsible for plans to “make Britain a clean energy superpower” – one of Starmer’s six national “missions” – Miliband is in the engine room of government. And since Labour returned to power last July, he has been responsible for a blizzard of activity.
Long-stalled solar farms have been signed off, the moratorium on onshore wind turbines lifted, a clean power plan for decarbonising electricity generation published. Legislation to set up the publicly owned GB Energy is working its way through Parliament, and last week it unveiled its first project, to cover school and hospital roofs in solar panels.
The activity has won him plaudits. A Labour MP said that among Cabinet ministers, Miliband was “probably one of the most effective at getting action through” Whitehall, while also praising him as a “massive despatch box performer”.
A friend said that Miliband’s previous experience of government had put him “in very good stead”, with other ministers “slightly in awe of how he gets things done”.
“He doesn’t have the wool pulled over his eyes by civil servants who say ‘you can’t do that’.
“If there’s a blockage he picks up the phone to another minister directly, he doesn’t wait for days and weeks for meetings to be arranged between officials.
“He’s very clearsighted about what he wants to do and he gets on and does it.”
But others see this single mindedness as a weakness. Miliband, claims Conservative MP and former Climate Minister Graham Stuart, sees climate policy “as some sort of religious crusade” and is therefore “a real danger to our ability to maintain the political consensus to deliver net zero.”
“The danger of someone who puts their zealotry ahead of practical implementation is that it will create more and more enemies, not only of him … but actually of the project overall,” Stuart said.
Ditching net zero ‘would be error for Labour’
On net zero, supporters of Miliband and his clean energy drive more broadly argue that ditching the commitment would be highly damaging to Labour.
John McTernan, who worked as Tony Blair’s political secretary in No10, said: “It would be an error to water down net zero.
“Labour got a massive mandate in 2024, and the policies that were voted for had two major bets on growth.
“One was housing, planning and infrastructure reform to get the country building again. The other was to transition rapidly to a carbon neutral economy.
“If you want to achieve change as a government, you shouldn’t retreat from the sound of gunfire, you should prosecute the case.”
In terms of the electoral implications, some of Miliband’s allies argue that the threat of Reform is overstated while risk from the progressive wing of politics is underpriced.
The argument goes that any retreat from net zero would result in Labour bleeding votes to the Lib Dems and the Greens, with even a small swing to those parties potentially gifting the Tories a large number of marginal seats without having to increase their own vote share.
More broadly, Miliband’s supporters point to polling showing that GB Energy is one of Labour’s most popular policies and that net zero continues to command support across voting demographics as evidence that any retreat would be politically short-sighted.
Some around Miliband are confident that the Government will stay the course on net zero, echoing McTernan’s argument about the centrality of clean energy to Labour’s growth agenda.
They point to the fact that Miliband’s Department for Energy Security and net zero (DESNZ) secured the biggest increase to its budget of any department last October.
Starmer’s decision to personally front announcements such as new funding for carbon capture and storage, and to take time out of his schedule last November to fly to the COP climate summit in Azerbaijan are also cited as evidence of the Prime Minister’s commitment.
Still, there is an acknowledgement within Miliband’s team that to protect net zero from external and internal political pressures, the case for decarbonisation needs to be grounded in hard-headed arguments about energy security and higher living standards rather than just airy environmental idealism.
A source close to the Miliband said: “For five years we’ve built a climate agenda that is rooted in the economic change people want to see, prioritising energy security, good industrial jobs, public ownership.”
If net zeroand Miliband’s future really are on the line, he gives every indication of being up for the battle.
The source close to him said: “We will fight the Conservatives and Reform on an argument that they want to make the UK eve more dependent on Putin. They don’t want to take back control – and they oppose British ownership of new clean power.”
No10 was approached for comment.
How Miliband stuck around after crushing defeat
Miliband’s career to date has already seen its fair share of highs and lows.
Reaching Gordon Brown’s Cabinet while he was still in his thirties, he took on and beat older brother David for the Labour leadership in 2010, becoming the youngest leader in the party’s history.
For a time, it looked like he might well oust David Cameron from No10 and pull off the feat of returning Labour to government after just one term.
However, when the exit poll for the 2015 general election dropped, it was crushing for Miliband and his team, with Labour shedding seats and Cameron’s Conservatives winning an outright majority.
During the hiatus of Jeremy Corbyn’s hard-left leadership, there was a sojourn for Miliband on the backbenches and a podcasting side-hustle.
But when the Labour moderates reclaimed control of the party in 2020 in the form of Starmer, Miliband returned to the Shadow Cabinet as shadow business secretary – a position he held until he was reshuffled to the energy brief in 2021.
Admirers of Miliband praise his decision to stay in politics.
Tom Baldwin, who served as Miliband’s head of communications when he was Labour leader, told The i Paper: “He deserves enormous credit for sticking around.
“The aftermath of the 2015 election was difficult for everybody involved, and it would have been very easy for Ed to have walked away from politics.
“I think what he’s shown by staying the course is what we always knew – that he’s in politics for the right reasons, because he wants to change things.”
McTernan said that Miliband had “grown since he lost the 2015 election”.
“Some people retire hurt from battle, but he fought hard and has come back,” McTernan said. “As steel is tempered in the fire, he’s come back tempered from the defeat, stronger.”
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Miliband faces Labour inside job to undermine him and stifle net zero, allies fear )
Also on site :
- Palestinian activist Khalil denied release for son’s birth, wife says
- Education Ministry rehabilitates 70 schools since Assad regime’s fall
- The $6 billion Vatican Bank was beset by scandals, disastrous investments—and ties to the mafia. How Pope Francis tried to fix it