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British factories pay among the highest industrial electricity prices in the developed world — several times what their American and Chinese competitors face. This is not the weather. It is policy.
Britain's net zero programme has been presented as an environmental necessity and an economic opportunity. In practice, it functions as a regressive wealth transfer — from households that can least afford it to an industrial supply chain that is overwhelmingly located in China. The working families absorbing the cost of renewable subsidies through their energy bills are not saving the planet; they are subsidising a geopolitical competitor's manufacturing dominance.
Energy-intensive industries — ceramics, steel, glass, chemicals — are paying electricity prices four times higher than their European competitors, driving plant closures and offshoring jobs to countries with no meaningful environmental standards. Britain is not reducing global emissions; it is simply relocating them, while destroying the working-class communities that once made things for a living.
The government's legally binding net zero commitments are driving up energy bills and threatening manufacturing jobs whilst wealthy households absorb costs comfortably. True conservatism must prioritise energy security over virtue-signalling environmental targets.