Last year, Reform received almost half of its donations from oil and gas companies
Locals gathered to protest Reform’s decision to axe the climate change committee and cancel all climate-related meetings, following the right-wing party’s takeover of Derbyshire County Council last month.
On Monday, protestors stood outside Matlock County Hall in Derbyshire, holding placards displaying images of flooding, wildfires and ruined crops.
They also displayed a banner that read ‘Reform UK funded by fossil fuels to attack climate action’.
Announcing the decision on 23 May, Reform councillor Jodie Brown and vice chair of the council, said the climate change committee was “an expensive talking shop that produced no measurable results”.
Councillor Alan Graves, Reform councillor and leader of Derbyshire County Council said net zero is “the opposite of a priority for us”, adding that the net zero agenda “is in fact costing every single person in our country a lot of money to heat their houses to use their gas, use their electricity”.
Another Reform-led council, Lincolnshire County Council, has scrapped its flood management committee, also claiming the move will save money.
One protestor, Kerry O’Connor, 37, who is a hotel housekeeper in Staveley, pointed out Reform UK’s clear links to fossil fuel funders. She told Byline Times: “It’s no secret that oil and gas interests are one of Reform UK’s biggest funders and their science denying attacks on Net Zero and other climate policy only serve the interests of their funders.”
In 2024, over 40% of Reform UK’s donations, more than £2.3 million, came from oil and gas companies.
Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform and the party’s energy spokesperson, has openly denied climate science, claiming in an interview in February that it is “absolute garbage” to say that human activity and carbon emissions are the main cause of climate change. He also said net zero “won’t make a difference”.
Tice also argued that vested interests are pushing the “net-zero agenda” because of the significant money involved. Yet his own party taking millions from oil and gas companies doesn’t count as a vested interest?
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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