Ed Miliband panned for the ‘serious energy damage’ of ‘economically illiterate’ tax
Backlash over windfall levy gaffe after BP profits leap
ED Miliband and Sir Keir Starmer have been criticised for proposing a windfall tax on the profits of energy giants, despite those profits being earned overseas.
It comes after the pair announced their support for a levy on oil and gas firms which, Mr Miliband said, made “excess profits from war”.
British Petroleum’s margins more than doubled after the conflict in the Middle East hiked oil prices.
In a post on X flagged as misinformation, Energy Secretary Mr Miliband wrote: “It would be completely wrong for a government to stand by and allow companies to make excess profits from a war.
Confusion
“That’s why we’re taxing these windfall profits to help with the cost of living. And why the Tories, Reform and the SNP are utterly wrong to oppose the windfall tax.”
Beneath the post, an added context note reads: “The UK’s Energy Profits Levy taxes only profits from UK oil and gas extraction, not BP’s overseas oil trading profits that primarily drove the recent increase.”
Critics called Mr Miliband a “student union activist”, saying the current levy hit “small independent producers, losing thousands of workers their jobs and stopping us making the most of our North Sea oil and gas”.
Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho panned the comments, calling it “classic Ed Miliband”.
She said he “doesn’t understand these profits do not fall under his windfall tax because he has no interest in business or how it operates.As ever it’s economically illiterate.”
She said: “We need to get Britain drilling again and cut people’s bills with our cheap power plan.” Lord Frost, of the Institute of Economic Affairs, said: “Ed Miliband’s comments reveal a fundamental confusion about how market economies work. When energy prices rise because of a geopolitical crisis, companies that produce energy make higher returns – that is not a scandal, it is a signal. It is precisely that signal which attracts investment, keeps supply flowing and ultimately bears down on prices.
Damage
“A minister who calls profit ‘morally wrong’ does not understand the basic logic of the economy.”
Lord Frost added: “The windfall tax on North Sea producers has already done serious damage to domestic energy investment at exactly the moment we need more of it. Rather than grandstanding about BP’s balance sheet, Mr Miliband should be asking why Britain remains so exposed to global price shocks – and whether his own energy policy bears some responsibility for that.”
Labour has long backed calls for energy firms to be taxed more on “excess” profits. But economists have pointed out the profits are earned overseas and would not fall under its existing windfall tax on North Sea producers.
The Energy Secretary has repeatedly defended Labour’s windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas producers, arguing it is necessary to fund the transition to renewable energy.
IT IS apparent the economic illiteracy of the people who now run this country is as embarrassing as it is worrying. Ed Miliband’s call for oil companies to pay more on “excess profits” from war – despite those profits being earned overseas – is all the more alarming because he is Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.
He has been accused of carrying on like a “student union activist”, but many students will have a better grasp of how the economy works than Mr Miliband.
It remains remarkable that this ideologue once led the Labour Party.
And it is scary to think of the chaos he would unleash if he succeeds Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister.
There is a good reason why so many people consider the Lefty zealot the most dangerous politician in Britain.