Labour's push for Net Zero has been blamed for "destroying” British jobs by the head of one of the largest Labour-supporting trade unions.
Gary Smith, general secretary of the GMB union, compared Sir Keir Starmer's premiership to Margaret Thatcher's, saying energy policies were “closing factories, hitting investment and hitting jobs".
The Union boss has once again hit out at plans to phase out North Sea oil and gas in a direct attack on Ed Miliband's suggestion that the economy will benefit by turning to clean energy.
He branded the suggestion as “utter nonsense" and described the policy's impact as "shameful".
Mr Smith told the Radio Times: "Sacking thousands of workers who currently work in the North Sea is economic madness.
"The impact they’re having is shameful. It’s more akin to Thatcher and what she did to Middlesbrough in the 1980s.
“We’re losing jobs in places like Aberdeen. But remember, many oil and gas workers come from areas like the northeast of England too.
"Putting these people out of work, stopping future generations going to work in decent, well paid, unionised jobs, that’s just crazy."
Labour's push for Net Zero has been blamed for 'destroying' British jobs
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He also suggested that Labour's energy policy has led to the surge of support for Nigel Farage's Reform UK.
Mr Smith argued that GMB workers were "angry and frustrated" about the economy and the fall in living standards.
The GMT boss said: "[Labour] are going to have to reflect on one of the issues that does drive our members to Reform, and that is current energy policy.
“It is closing factories, it’s hitting investment and it’s hitting jobs."
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Gary Smith, general secretary of the GMB union, compared Sir Keir Starmer's premiership to Margaret Thatcher's
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Mr Smith added: "And whether people in the Labour Party like to hear that or not, it’s true.
“Closing down North Sea oil and gas, and the impact that energy policy is having on the manufacturing industry in this country, is a disaster for many working people, and it is driving people towards the arguments that Reform put forward.”
A Government spokesman said: "Issuing new licences to explore new fields cannot give us energy security and will not take a penny off bills.
"The lesson of yet another fossil fuel crisis is the UK needs to get off the fossil fuel rollercoaster and on to clean homegrown power we control."
The Union boss has once again hit out at plans to phase out North Sea oil and gas in a direct attack on Ed Miliband
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They added: “This will protect jobs now and create the next generation of skilled jobs, including over 40,000 new clean energy roles in Scotland by 2030.”
Mr Smith added: “We have to be frank about it. Labour’s policy is not delivering jobs that we have been promised.
“We have been promised tens of thousands of jobs, and actually the jobs in the renewable sector are invariably being created in places like China, not here in the UK.
“It’s simply not good enough that we import all the batteries from China, we import our solar [panels] from China, we import, effectively, the wind farms from China. It isn’t good enough.
“I simply say to the Labour Party in its entirety, your current policy on energy is madness and it is having a negative impact on our members.
"And it’s driving them into the hands of Farage and those other opportunists on the right.”
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