Nothing says stupidity like Reform's obsession with destroying British jobs | George Monbiot

The net zero economy is booming, so claims that prosperity depends on oil and gas are bunkum – unless you’re a Reform backer with fossil fuel interests, of course

R eally? You want to destroy a million jobs? Vote Reform UK for mass unemployment: is that your pitch? Hammer these questions home whenever you meet a supporter of the party. Or, for that matter, a Conservative, as their party now takes an almost identical line.

The figures are stark . They were compiled not by Just Stop Oil or the Green party, but by that bastion of conservatism, the Confederation of British Industry. They show that the net zero economy now directly employs more than 300,000 full-time workers, while supporting the jobs of 1.1 million. The net zero sector is worth £100bn to the UK already, and is likely to grow by hundreds of billions more. The rest of the green economy directly employs a further 600,000.

This is just the start. In October, the government announced plans to create another 400,000 jobs through its green energy plan, particularly for people leaving the fossil fuel industry, school leavers, ex-offenders, veterans and the unemployed. Training centres and colleges will be built in places badly hit by deindustrialisation. It’s the first realistic plan for a vast increase in skilled manual jobs in many years.

By contrast, in 2023 the UK’s oil and gas industry provided 27,500 jobs, and supported a total of 205,000 . In other words, depending on where you draw the line, oil and gas provided between one-tenth and one-fifth of the employment generated by the alternatives. These figures are likely to be even lower today, as they’ve been tumbling rapidly for years. Despite the new licensing rounds and tax breaks the Conservatives gave the industry, it shed 70,000 jobs between 2016 and 2023 . The Rosebank oilfield, a cause célèbre for Reform and the Tories, would, if extraction is approved, directly generate a grand total of 255 jobs over its lifetime .

Rail against these numbers all you like, you’re up against geology. A fortnight ago, Reform UK’s deputy leader and energy spokesperson Richard Tice claimed “there is decades and decades and decades of gas in the North Sea”. In reality, even if further licences are granted for the North Sea’s potentially viable fields, by 2050 our gas output will fall by 97% from 2025 levels . New licences scarcely affect this trajectory , as so little is left to be extracted. It takes, on average, 28 years between approval and production (by contrast, large-scale wind and solar take around four). Far from meeting UK demand for “decades and decades and decades”, there’s likely to be less than a year’s worth of extractable supply. Reform promises fake jobs in a fantasy industry.

They and the Tories are now competing to discover the outer limits of imbecility. Some Reform candidates simply deny climate science . Tice goes even further, peddling outright conspiracy fictions : “There are loads of scientists who are terrified to speak, because they won’t get any research funding if they tell it as it is.” Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, has been ripped to shreds – by the former Conservative prime minister Theresa May , among others – over false claims she has made to support her abandonment of net zero.

Even in opposition, these parties are seeking to sabotage the net zero economy. Last year, Tice wrote to eight major energy firms , threatening that Reform would “strike down” renewable energy contracts signed under the current government. If you bid for a contract, “you do so at your own risk … the era of unquestioned liberal progressive orthodoxy across the Western hemisphere is over. Prospective investors in the UK’s Net Zero economy would be wise to take note.”