Ed Miliband accuses Nigel Farage of peddling 'nonsense and lies' over steel crisis

He said both Reform UK and the Tories were prepared to concoct falsehoods to “pursue their ideological agenda”, ahead of local elections next month.

The row has intensified as a study revealed the UK’s rollout of wind and solar power over the last decade has made its electricity supply “more British”, with significantly less reliance on imported gas.

Last year, just under half of Britain’s electricity supply was powered by foreign energy imports, said researchers at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, down from 65 per cent in 2014.

The figures come as energy security is increasingly in the spotlight in the UK, after the bills crisis in 2022 and 2023 caused primarily by spiking international gas prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Experts say if the UK had been less reliant on imported energy, prices would not have jumped as high.

Former Labour leader Mr Miliband also warned if an anti-net zero agenda was followed, it would not only risk “climate breakdown” but “forfeit the clean energy jobs of the future” in Britain.

Referring to price rises that began in 2022, he said: “Our exposure to fossil fuels meant that, as those markets went into meltdown and prices rocketed, family, business and public finances were devastated. The cost of living impacts caused back then still stalk families today.”

Following Government action to take control of British Steel from its Chinese owners last week, the Reform leader accused Mr Miliband, of pursuing “net-zero lunacy”. He said efforts to cut carbon emissions had made it harder to source coal required to keep blast furnaces at the company’s Scunthorpe plant running after supplies were shipped from abroad last week.

The Government has said a Cumbrian coal mine, which critics claim could have been used as a domestic source, would not have produced material suited to British Steel.

“We’re living through a period of net-zero lunacy, something that the Conservatives signed us up to, wrote into law and believed in, as if somehow it was their new religion,” Mr Farage told a campaign event last week. “And this, of course, is now being followed by Red Ed, who is the high priest of this who was determined to cover our agricultural land in Chinese slave-labour made farms, solar farms, and to despoil as much of our coastline as he possibly can.”

He has also said the UK should be “self-sufficient in oil” and gas. Climate groups have argued the North Sea is an aging basin, meaning its reserves will decline regardless of Government policy as well as being expensive to extract.

Mr Miliband said Reform and the Conservatives would “make up any old nonsense and lies to pursue their ideological agenda” and that breaking free of reliance on overseas supplies is also a matter of “national security”.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is expected to double down on his Government’s commitment to clean power at an International Energy Agency conference this week in London.

Meanwhile, Mr Farage, who wants to abandon the commitment to achieving net zero by 2050, told The Sun on Sunday newspaper that the policy could become “the new Brexit”. “This could be the next Brexit – where Parliament is so hopelessly out of touch with the country,” he said.

Since becoming Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch has also cast doubt on the 2050 target previously passed by her own party, saying she believes it is “impossible” without a “serious drop in living standards or by bankrupting us”.