solar farm farmland

When Ed Miliband was shadow secretary of state for climate change and net zero, it was mildly entertaining to watch him massacring Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ In The Wind on his ukulele, against a backdrop of Nottinghamshire wind turbines.

But now he holds the reins of power as secretary of state for energy security and net zero, that comedy has turned into a horror show.

Since coming into office, Miliband has gone into full-speed green authoritarian mode. He instantly overturned the Planning Inspectorate by greenlighting a solar farm in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, the equivalent of 2,115 football pitches. He also gave the go-ahead to another two titanic solar farms in fertile, horticultural Lincolnshire.

The Italian government wisely banned solar panels on farmland, but here ‘net zero or bust’ clowns are clueless about food production and ingredient integrity. They’ll tell you to eat ultra-processed fake food concocted from globally sourced ingredients and additives over straightforward traditional foods produced in British fields, if that meets their absurd targets.

The UK is just 61% self-sufficient in all foods, yet politicians like Miliband are alarmingly relaxed about reducing this already perilously low level of food security. ‘Don’t dig for victory’ suggests itself as an apt net zero slogan.

In sparsely populated areas where – game meat aside – there is no food potential, solar and wind farms might make sense. And there are plenty other developed places where panels and turbines could be sited. South Korea has a 20-mile motorway with a solar panel strip down the middle. Motorways and car park roofs offer extensive space for installations.

But if we surrender long-established farmland to the ‘green energy before everything else’ brigade, we’ll never get it back. Fewer farmers mean less food, a further erosion of our resilience against global pandemic, plague, and war. British produce will become less available and even costlier than it is now, a luxury for those who can afford it.

Can we trust this Labour government to keep the lights on? Probably. But can this government be relied upon to keep home-produced food on our plates? Absolutely not.

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