There is a problem with British politics. Dark money from abroad is being funnelled into our system. A complex web of interlocking charities, thinktanks, advocacy groups and campaign outfits is being bank-rolled to push a policy agenda onto the public that makes us poorer, puts us in hock to hostile powers and undermines working people.

According to the left, Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage are puppets of such shadowy interests: Tufton Street thinktanks bankrolled by oil companies, Christian fundamentalists and perhaps even Russian money. These allegations are well-ventilated and have been exhaustively investigated. Most lead nowhere.

Yet no similar scrutiny is applied to a far bigger lobbying effort – the concerted campaign to push a ruinous net-zero agenda. This is the story of the Dark Green lobby: a network of foundations, research groups and policy shops, often funded through foreign channels. It has been astonishingly successful in shaping policy, controlling debate and overruling elected governments in the courts. It has prevented the exploration of oil and gas in the North Sea, kept energy prices high and made us ever more dependent on Chinese technology.

The politician at the heart of this ecosystem is the Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband. While his policies have been challenged, the network behind him has remained in the shadows.

This is a network of foundations, research groups and policy shops, often funded through foreign channels

This is a network of foundations, research groups and policy shops, often funded through foreign channels

The first objective is to shape policy. The Dark Green charitable foundation which has the most influence is the European Climate Foundation (ECF). Founded in 2008, the ECF describes itself as ‘a grant-making foundation supporting climate action across Europe and beyond’. It supports ‘700 partner organisations’ to ‘broaden political and public support for net zero’.

The ECF hopes to ‘embed climate action in robust, future-proof frameworks that withstand political change’. In other words, sod the voters. The foundation, which is based in the Netherlands, last year spent a staggering €171 million via a huge variety of organisations across Europe, including many in Britain.

Much of this money funds research for perennially cash-starved British thinktanks. The ECF donated £338,000 to the left–leaning Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) last year, having previously funded a programme of work which produced a report arguing for the closure of the North Sea basin. The IPPR told The Spectator ‘all of our research and published outputs are editorially independent’ and pointed out that it has an A rating from Who Funds You?, the thinktank transparency campaign.

The foundation also gave £114,000 to the New Economics Foundation (NEF), the radical left-wing thinktank where Zack Polanski launched his economic vision earlier this year. The NEF was previously headed by Miatta Fahnbulleh – formerly Miliband’s junior minister – who is rumoured to be leading Andy Burnham’s putative policy unit. It has campaigned for fossil fuel divestment and has argued that oil and gas extraction will be a ‘financial burden’.

The ECF also funds the Labour........

© The Spectator