Anyone in any doubt over Ed Miliband’s eco zealotry need look no further than the Energy and Climate Change Secretary’s top team. It is almost as if we have Extinction Rebellion (XR) directing the UK’s energy policy.
His special adviser Tobias Garnett formerly led the group’s legal team in a crucial High Court case that ruled the police ban on the activists’ protests was unlawful after they shut down roads around Parliament, superglued themselves to a plane at London City Airport and sparked an outcry by jumping on top of Tube trains during rush hour. Garnett has boasted that “direct action like this may be justified to avert the greater damage that climate change promises”.
Also on Team Ed is socialist Jonty Leibowitz, who advocates a 100 per cent tax imposed on football transfers from abroad and an extra 2 per cent tax on all transfer fees with higher rates from Premier League clubs. He also believes “regional banking should be charged with … financing the energy transition”.
Fellow Miliband adviser Eleanor Salter, who has described XR as “hugely successful”, wrote a 2021 article for the socialist magazine Tribune, in which she argued that “tackling air pollution and climate breakdown requires a fundamental shift … including taking many cars off the roads altogether”.
In another Tribune piece, the self-confessed Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders fan called for a “right to roam” across the countryside, to challenge “the vastly unequal land ownership on this island”.
This would include “the Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller communities” who should not live in “fear of trespass”.
Salter also advocates the “managed decline” of industries that use fossil fuels.
Rachel Kyte, appointed as the UK’s climate envoy by Labour, has previously expressed support for XR, including wearing a badge associated with the group.
No wonder Miliband has struggled to distance himself from XR, which he once compared to the Suffragettes.
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