Miliband's ‘mad' net zero drive branded threat to national security
Ed Miliband's 'completely mad' net zero drive is a threat to national security, a former head of MI6 has warned.
Sir Richard Dearlove said the Energy Secretary's push to achieve clean power by 2030 and net zero carbon emissions by 2050 risked playing into the hands of Beijing.
China provides much of the renewable energy infrastructure needed to decarbonise Britain's energy grid. It is also the market leader for electric vehicle manufacturing.
Sir Richard, who served as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service from 1999 until 2004, said Mr Miliband was pressing ahead with his green policies in an 'irrational' way.
He told the i paper: ' The problem is you've got the ideological Ed Miliband pursuing zero carbon without a thought for the impact on national security.
'The whole policy is completely mad... He probably thinks: 'I'm dealing with a more serious problem, which is climate change, and that comes first.' It's so irrational. It is seriously problematic.'
Fears around Chinese espionage have grown in the past couple of decades, and Chinese intelligence services are neither subject to independent oversight nor the rule of law.
GCHQ's National Cyber Security Centre previously warned that a Chinese state-affiliated actor was 'almost certainly responsible' for targeting MPs' and peers' emails in 2021.
The Electoral Commission was subsequently compromised between 2021 and 2022, with GCHQ officials once again blaming an agent linked to the Chinese state.
More recently, Christopher Cash, a parliamentary researcher, was charged with carrying out espionage work on behalf of China.
But the Government insisted that Britain needs to co-operate with China despite national security warnings that followed a separate scandal in which it emerged Prince Andrew had formed a close business relationship with an alleged Chinese spy.
Mr Miliband visited China in March for a three-day visit to discuss climate change and the net zero transition.
The Energy Secretary believes it is important to engage with Beijing in the hope that it will take a leadership role on climate change despite a resurgence in its construction of new coal-fired power plants.
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, has accused Sir Keir Starmer and Mr Miliband of making Britain 'dangerously dependent' on China through the 2050 zero emissions target.
Mrs Badenoch used a major policy speech in March to note that the most prominent dozen makers of solar panels are nearly all Chinese.
She added that most wind farms have been produced using Chinese energy.
According to analysis by the Tories, more than 170,000 new jobs in China will be created by Mr Miliband's decisions to accelerate the net zero drive.
Earlier this week, the heir to the JCB empire warned that Mr Miliband's race to embrace net zero was fuelling an exodus of jobs to China.
Jo Bamford, the son of JCB founder Lord Bamford, said the Government should instead focus on becoming a leader in hydrogen to safeguard British jobs.
A Government spokesman said: 'We would never let anything get in the way of our national security. Our energy sector is subject to the highest levels of national security scrutiny.'
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