Ed Miliband is facing a dilemma, apparently. Reform UK is suggesting new oil and gas licences in the North Sea as a way to cut fuel bills and they’re steadily gaining cheerleaders – not just in the media, but also in some trade unions.

Labour – having swept into power on a green-friendly manifesto, much of which has already been abandoned, but the kernel of which was to prioritise green over fossil energy – is in a bind. It’s plain that fresh exploration of the North Sea would run counter to the party’s every principle, and particularly those of Miliband, whose legacy will be his career-long commitment to the scrappy, dogged, surely often tedious and dispiriting legislative fight against climate breakdown. And yet, equally plainly, the pressure from Nigel Farage is only going to get more intense: he has framed the issue of North Sea oil and gas versus renewables as an elemental fight between the common man and the elites. The wokerati doesn’t care about your cost of living crisis, while the hard right does.

The war in the Middle East is bolstering Reform’s narrative, reinforcing a sense of scarcity and fear, the perception that we’re all being thrown around by elite whim, and the craving for some bordered independence from the world’s chaotic energy markets. The oil crunch hasn’t even hit yet, since most of the world is living off oil that set sail before Donald Trump’s bombardments started. As prices spike and we find ourselves in yet another cost of living crisis, unleashed by yet another autocratic maniac, no amount of rationalisation will gate off the feeling that the government should be doing more, should have prepared better, should have got us out of this mess. Nobody will be blaming Reform and, realistically, nor could they: Farage makes a lot of........

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