How we have reached a dangerous new low in British politics - Yorkshire Post Letters
From: Caroline Snow, Totnes, Devon.
We have reached a dangerous new low in British politics. Politicians taking money from foreign fossil fuel interests to fund their political ambitions.
Like Trump in the US, Reform has openly sought donations from oil and gas executives, taking £2.3m from oil and gas interests up to 2024. 75 per cent of all donations to Reform over six years came from just three rich men, two of whom have links to oil and gas.
This year it took £9m from a billionaire donor in Thailand with business interests in fossil fuels.
The Conservatives have taken nearly £5m from Michael Hintze who holds significant American oil and gas stocks including a US fracking firm, and Kemi Badenoch funded her leadership campaign with money from a director of US oil company Chevron.
To keep the money flowing from their generous benefactors, Badenoch and Farage champion policies that keep us dependent on imported fossil fuels, and pursue the lie that moving to clean renewable energy generated in the UK “will bankrupt our economy”.
They ignore British business leaders and the CBI who report that the clean energy transition is not a cost but a major economic opportunity, with renewables already supporting nearly one million well-paid jobs with wages 15 per cent higher than the national average.
The same politicians try to disguise their allegiance to their foreign financial backers by telling us that “it is futile for the UK to act alone”. A quick reality check shows us we actually risk falling behind: Ireland, Denmark and Portugal all produce more of their electricity from wind than the UK.
Germany produces twice the amount of wind and five times more solar than us, and the Netherlands on a similar latitude generates more solar energy.
These politicians choose to ignore the very real costs of delaying the move away from fossil fuels. Taking oil and gas money from foreign donors is a clear choice to serve foreign financial interests at the direct expense of the British people and the future of our economy.