Tice vehemently disagrees with this assessment, telling GB News that Starmer’s net zero commitments will have ruinous effects.

He said: “Starmer’s obsession with net zero will drive energy prices and bills up, not down. We will hold them to account for that. And he refuses to answer when the bills are coming down. They won’t. At that point, I think everyone will say this whole net zero is killing jobs, killing industries, killing our economy, and it’s got to stop.”

How does Starmer plan to reach net zero?

A key part of Labour’s election campaign was to transform Britain into a “clean energy superpower” by ensuring that the country’s electricity grid is completely decarbonised by 2030.

The UK had originally set a target for 2030 under previous governments, but this was delayed to 2035 by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

As part of this pledge, Labour reinstated the 2030 deadline for banning the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in the UK.

It has also set the same deadline for doubling the UK’s onshore wind capacity, tripling solar power, and quadrupling offshore wind.

This will require the rapid deployment of renewable energy sources, batteries, and new infrastructure, including 1,000 km of new power lines and pylons, and 4,500 km of undersea cables to connect offshore wind farms, according to a new report by the National Energy System Operator (NESO).

Even the GMB union, which GB News columnist Kelvin McKenzie affectionately calls Labour’s “lapdog”, has criticised these ambitious environmental policies, particularly the target for 100 per cent clean power by 2030, warning that such plans might lead to “power cuts and blackouts” due to their perceived unviability.

The main concern is that the cost of rapidly overhauling the current power system will get pushed onto consumers.

According to the NESO report, the UK will need to invest an average of £40 billion per year in energy infrastructure to achieve its clean energy targets by 2030.

The report suggests that this investment, equivalent to one per cent of GDP, can be achieved without increasing costs for consumers or compromising energy security.

A separate report by the conservative-friendly think tank Policy Exchange offers a more bleak analysis.

Utilising economic modelling from Aurora Energy Research, the report suggests that Labour’s plan to decarbonise the grid by 2030 would require an additional investment of £116 billion over the next 11 years compared to a business-as-usual scenario.