Unite union points warning over Labour’s web zero plans | Politics | News | EUROtoday

Labour’s largest union backer has attacked the Government’s web zero drive. Unite warned that the plans threat changing into a “political millstone” across the occasion’s neck.

It comes after Labour former prime minister Sir Tony Blair voiced criticism over insurance policies to realize web zero by 2050. The union referred to as on the Government to “deliver an industrial strategy underpinned by a fully-funded workers’ transition, or net zero will become a political millstone around Labour’s neck”.

General secretary Sharon Graham stated: “Unite will not be towards web zero, nevertheless it won’t be achieved with out critical funding in new jobs.

“Unite has warned time after time that all the rhetoric about a joined-up industrial strategy and future jobs must be backed up with serious investment that actually delivers. What is Labour waiting for? The time to act is now.

“If they fail to do this, then Labour cannot expect workers to support their net zero plan.”

In a foreword to a report by his think tank, the Tony Blair Institute (TBI), published earlier this week, the New Labour prime minister argued that the current climate approach “isn’t working”.

Sir Tony said: “People know that the current state of debate over climate change is riven with irrationality … any strategy based on either ‘phasing out’ fossil fuels in the short term or limiting consumption is a strategy doomed to fail.”

He added that most political leaders “would like to start taking some of the hysteria out of the climate debate but are reluctant to be the first to do so”.

His intervention was seized on by political opponents, together with Reform UK chief Nigel Farage.

Downing Street has rejected Sir Tony’s declare that “hysteria” is taking part in a component within the worldwide debate on local weather change.

Asked whether or not present Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer believed hysteria was current within the worldwide debate on local weather change, his spokesman stated: “I don’t think so, I mean, I think we’re taking a very practical and pragmatic approach to this here in the UK.”

He said the Government’s net zero policy would help with jobs growth and investing in the industries of the future, adding: “The PM has said previously that we will deliver net zero in a way that treads lightly on people’s lives, not telling them how to live or behave.

“We are focused on our mission to be a clean-energy superpower.”