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Azar Majedi ★ Rumours and news about the deep corruption of FIFA* have been circulating for some time. 

This corruption must be examined from different angles. It is essential to scrutinize and expose the role of major international institutions that play a significant part in political, cultural and ideological spheres.

This year's World Cup has created a lot of noise. While Russia has been excluded from the World Cup due to the war in Ukraine, the United States, which is currently attacking Iran, recently occupied Venezuela, bombed Nigeria, officially threatens Cuba and Zambia, and is directly involved in the Middle East war, has been chosen to host the World Cup. Neither the mainstream media nor international institutions nor governments have challenged this double standard.

One important event before the World Cup has either been forgotten or is made to be forgotten: the astonishing fact that FIFA President Gianni Infantino was invited by Trump to the Gaza Peace Summit in Egypt in October 2025! At the end of the summit, Infantino declared: “It was a historic day, really. A historic day for the Middle East...for the world and ... for the peace... For me and for FIFA is very import to be here, to help, to assist, to put ourselves at the disposal of what we can do to make sure that this peace process comes to fruition and best possible end.”

One must ask what FIFA and its president have to do with the peace process, the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the future of Gaza and the region. The answer lies in the money. They have certainly negotiated about FIFA’s investment in the “Palestinian Riviera” project behind closed doors. Another astonishing event is the creation of the “Peace Prize” by FIFA. Infantino presented the first Peace Prize to Donald Trump on December 6, 2025. First, Trump invites Infantino to the Middle East Peace Summit; less than two months later, the newly created FIFA Peace Prize is presented to Trump, and the United States is selected in the draw to host the World Cup.

FIFA's role and contribution in promoting and help establishing the Western imperialist ideology is undeniable. This corruption has been demonstrated more clearly in this year's World Cup. The racist discrimination of the US government in its treatment of some teams and their fans from Africa, the Middle East or Latin America has provoked many protests. FIFA stayed nonchalant vis a vis these major and obvious discriminations. It ignores them as minor issues. The lack of response from FIFA and Western governments has exposed the blatant racism of Western imperialism. Any mask of superior Western civilization, democracy, human rights, equal and progressive laws has been completely torn off. The racist and supremacist culture and bullying policies of America have been laid bare before the eyes of the world.

Football is one of the most popular sports in the world. In many countries, football is a national sport. Many people from all over the world, with different cultures and languages, love this sport. That is why football has become one of the most profitable sports, generating billions of dollars of profit for its owners and managers. For example, it is predicted that FIFA will earn more than $13 billion from this World Cup. (Ticket prices have increased dramatically. A ticket for the final match costs $10,000.) In addition to money and profit, football is an important tool in the hands of the ruling class to impose political-ideological narratives. The World Cup is one of the most watched sports in the world.

If at least a few years ago the World Cup and FIFA were considered respected institutions that consolidated the supremacy of Western culture and politics worldwide, this image has been challenged for a few years now. FIFA’s corruption and theft are being discussed more and more. Perhaps, the first time FIFA and the World Cup faced serious attacks, criticism and revelations was during the previous World Cup. The choice of Qatar to host the World Cup created a huge scandal; because it was proven that the draw was rigged and that FIFA had taken bribes from Qatar.

But even more importantly was the scandal of using slaves to build a stadium in Qatar. The brutal exploitation of migrant workers, which led to the murder of more than 6,500 people, sparked outrage. But despite global protests, the World Cup went ahead without a hitch and no one was prosecuted for these crimes.

Now all the attention is focused on the naked racism of the United States. Examples: The United States denied entry to the Somali referee, Omar Abdulkadir, who had officially travelled to the United States as a World Cup referee and on a diplomatic passport, his phone and tablet were confiscated and then he was put on a plane to Turkey. The Senegalese team was stopped as soon as they got off the plane and each of them was security searched . The Uzbek players were also searched for a long time. The Iraqi team's vice-captain was questioned for 7 hours at the airport; during this time, the Iraqi team and all its staff were detained at the airport, and in the end, the team photographer was expelled.

A number of key management and administrative staff of the Iranian team were not granted visas. The entire team managed to obtain visas only ten days before the first match. The Iranian team is allowed to enter the United States only to play in the match but they have to return to Mexico immediately after each match.

The racist discrimination and in line with the imperialist policy of the United States in the World Cup have caused a complete scandal for the United States, Western governments, and FIFA. Every mask has been torn off and the depth of their political-racial supremacist ideology has been exposed. The shaky edifice of Western civilization has collapsed.

*FIFA is a private organization that is not bound by national or international laws. FIFA sets its own rules and regulations. FIFA’s headquarter is based in Switzerland and is tax-exempt. FIFA's revenue from the 2026 World Cup alone is expected to exceed $13 billion. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has said that 15,000 children are trafficked from West Africa to Europe every year through FIFA pipelines. Traffickers lure parents with the dream of their son becoming a football star, and most of them end up in slavery, with about 25 percent of them left homeless on the streets, where they fall prey to drug trafficking, mafia or sexual exploitation. FIFA has so far taken no action in this regard.

⏩ Asar Majed is the Chairperson of Organisation for Women’s Liberation.

FIFA And The World Cup Scandal ⚽From Slavery To Naked Racism

Irish Republicans who fought fascism in the Spanish Civil War will be commemorated this weekend.

Date: 11-July-2006

Time: 1pm.

Assembly Point: Brian Boru Park, Harts Corner.

Destination: Frank Ryan Memorial, Glasnevin Cemetery. 

 


Remembering Irish Republicans Who Fought Fascism

Christopher Owens ðŸ”– Ban social media for under 16’s!


There’s been a lot of debate around this very subject over the last while. With there being strong evidence suggesting extraordinarily high rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicide and fragility among the cohort known as Gen Z as well as the bemoaning of the death of one's private life, restricting social media in the same way we restrict under 18’s from watching certain films is a conversation worth having. On the other hand, is it simply closing the gate after the horses have bolted and will that ban come back to bite us in the arse in some shape or form?

What’s needed is a Gen Z perspective.

Someone who has grown up with the internet as a constant in their life.

Enter Freya India, stage left.

A well-known commentator on the online sphere, it makes sense that she has written this tome. In the introduction, India lays out her case that:

This is not the story of a generation falling apart. This is the story of a generation being remade, from people into products, from girls into GIRLS®. We did fall apart, long ago. We were pulled apart from the pressure. But then we were remade, the fragments of us forged into products on display, objects to be optimized, things without feelings.

Stating that while her own adolescence was filled with deep seated insecurities, this was a very different form of puberty and it was to do with a development that would shape the world forever:

In the early 2010s, when my friends and I were ten or eleven, social media apps arrived, and everything got worse. All the girls I knew joined Instagram, and the face and body I hated suddenly had to be offered up to the market, ranked and reviewed. Now I had all these girls on my phone to compare myself to, not just from my school but from every school, always there to measure myself against. Sleepovers I wasn’t invited to suddenly had to be scrolled through. Boys I liked were now rating me in front of everyone. My worth was made public, measured in likes and followers. I had constant reminders of how lonely and left out I was, but knew that feeling would only get worse if I removed myself from it all. The very thing hurting me became my lifeline.

Coming from a broken family, shunted between both parents, contacting friends via phone and consuming various influencers every night, she began to feel disconnected. When she tried to articulate herself, she was assured that teenage girls always worry about their appearance, about fitting in, about finding their place in the world. Undoubtedly true, but something was different this time. A kind of crippling anxiety which left her so disconnected that she felt she was observing herself from the outside, akin to an inanimate object.

Thus GIRLS®: Gen Z and the Commodification of Everything, which is a sober and, at times, contrite look at the modern landscape that teenage girls and young women must navigate every day. From social media algorithms categorising and dictating tastes through to loneliness becoming a commercial entity with many girls in therapy and on antidepressants due to romantic pursuit reduced to swiping and dick pics, forming parasocial relationships with influencers advertising themselves consistently.

As she puts it: “Our problems were painfully familiar and yet agonizingly different. I realized that the same adults telling me this was nothing new had no advice to give. Our world was moving too fast for them to know where to begin.”

Something that should stick in all of our craws.

📚 ðŸ“š ðŸ“š 

With six chapters examining different strands of online life (filtering, mental illness, lack of privacy, pornification and alienation), India mixes personal memories with a variety of stats and detailed examples of online behaviour that fits the chosen area. Running to 255 pages with extensive citations, it overloads and overwhelms the reader: if one doesn’t go in with the correct mindset, the endless amounts of examples can render a reader unsympathetic to her cause

I believe the old-fashioned book is still unable to properly articulate and convey the rapid pace of the online world (especially when the notion of being overwhelmed by content is part of the book’s subtext) so I don’t believe this is India’s fault.

Some critics have had a go at her for having a supposed “conservative” worldview. Of course, in the current climate, such accusations are to be expected (although how exactly advising people to not live their lives online and arguing for the protection of children is conservative is up for debate). Others have noted the little blame she puts on the tech companies (with the exception of issues surrounding child porn) but I would argue that she would be of the opinion for social media should be restricted and so adults should be able to recognise and accept the risks involved with Tik Tok.

A well timed, passionate, if at times heavy on the references, book that is an important entry for this topic of discussion.

Freya India, 2026, GIRLS®: Gen Z and the Commodification of Everything. Swift, ISBN-13: 978-1800754706

⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.

GIRLS® 📚 Gen Z And The Commodification Of Everything

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Twenty One

 

Religious Derangement Syndrome @ 5

 

A Morning Thought @ 3194

Sarah Kay ✊ In 1985, at the height of the Cold War, British singer Sting wrote a protest song against mutual nuclear deterrence. 

Calling upon reason, which was scarce at the time, he pleaded to understand that no one is above another – that we all fear death, violence, that we all want the same thing for our children. We all, supposedly, do. We all, supposedly, work toward a society in which they would grow up free and happy.

The Belfast pogroms have tested that theory in two different ways. The non-issue of asylum has been fascinating the United Kingdom, and Ireland, in the most negative way possible. A population ranking under 2%, asylum-seekers have become targets of the most violent of acts, including burning people alive. The Belfast attacker was a 30 year old from Sudan. This was a call to review immigration and our role toward those under international protection. It’s in the name: asylum is not regulated domestically as much as it is the product of a post-war treaty that was meant to address the consequences of the 1936 Nüremberg laws – statelessnesss - and provide for the millions of displaced in Europe: refuge, the right to seek safety and protection.

The current genocide in Sudan should horrify us all. A consequence of the 1994 Rwanda genocide and the 2003 genocide in Darfur, Sudan is suffering unprecedented levels of conflict-related sexual violence. In 2024, Volker Türk, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, commented that:

(The RSF) have killed thousands, seemingly without remorse. They have manufactured a climate of sheer terror, forcing millions to flee. They have let the people who could not - or would not - escape, suffer, destroying medical services and blocking humanitarian aid. 

Ignoring that Sudanese people should indeed be under international protection is dehumanisation on a state scale.

But there are other genocides – in Palestine, in Congo, in Armenia – where the horror continues to unfold; sometimes live streamed into our phones, sometimes spoken about at the tail end of news reports. In 2025, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights announced:

In other areas under M23 control in South Kivu, such as Minova, M23 has occupied schools and hospitals, forced IDPs out of camps and subjected the civilian population to forced conscription and forced labour. Additionally, DRC officials report that at least 165 women were raped by male inmates during the prison break by more than 4,000 inmates from Goma’s Muzenze prison on 27 January, as M23 began its assault on the town.

 As Sting then said, “there’s no such thing as a winnable war, it’s a lie we don’t believe anymore.”

But migration isn’t only about seeking asylum; it is the oldest, and most important, human behaviour. Since the beginning of human civilisation, we have migrated: to find food, to find land, to find water. We have migrated, even more importantly, to find shelter. Through this migration, Darwin’s theory of evolution brought us here, to the point where Jim Crow laws on segregation, a source of nostalgy in many European countries, can become a biological issue. Migration isn’t and will never be a crime, because we have all migrated one way or another in our lives: we studied abroad; we did a work away visa; we visited a friend and overstayed our welcome; we decided to check out a new city because Belfast felt too small. All of this is migration. Moving back with your parents in Dundalk because you couldn’t find a job in the city is a micro form of migration; you wouldn’t have it removed from you. Migration is not the issue; racism is. Only one category of people is allowed to migrate and doing so on the assumption that their chosen form of immigration is the only valid one. Ending immigration has never helped any public deficit or crumbling institutions, in fact, it’s been demonstrated time and time again that immigration has immense economic benefits.

As Sting said again, here’s no monopoly on common sense on either side of the political fence. We believe that those seeking asylum made a choice. We believe that migrants all inherently are bad faith actors in an otherwise open and thriving community. We deny the simple fact of genocide and the direct consequences of global exploitation leading to global inequality. We have no moral or ethical right to denounce what we would continue doing to ourselves: criminal exploitation. Paramilitary recruitment, drug trade, all of which show cruel child neglect in the name of scoring political points. Wouldn’t we want a different future for them, too?

⏩ Sarah Kay is an international human rights lawyer now described as “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States” . . . again.

Do We Love Our Children Too?

Heartlands Tribune ☭ Written by Paul Knaggs.


“No self-respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party who ignores her sex.”
– Susan B. Anthony, suffragette, 1920

MPs from five parties have signed a motion to kill the EHRC’s Code of Practice on single-sex services before it can come into force. Labour supplies the largest bloc. They call it inclusion. It is ideological capture. And the working-class women they claim to represent will remember who stood where.

The Motion That Reveals Everything

On 1 June 2026, a formal parliamentary motion was tabled by Nadia Whittome MP to disapprove the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s statutory Code of Practice for services, public functions and associations. The Code was laid before Parliament on 21 May. Under the procedure that governs statutory instruments of this kind, Parliament has 40 days in which to raise objections. If no objection is passed within that window, the government sets a date for the Code to come into force.

That is the mechanism. Those are the facts. What lies beneath them is something more troubling: a cross-party faction of MPs, organised within days of the Code’s laying, channelling the energies of a professional activist lobby rather than the interests of the constituents who sent them to Westminster.

Continue @ Heartlands.

Betrayal By Motion 🪶 Parliament Moves To Kill Women’s Rights Code

Caoimhin O’Muraile  ☭  What kind of politician is Nigel Farage? 

In my opinion the leader of the far-right Reform UK party is a para-fascist ‘Thatcherite’ who if ever gets governmental power will shed the few sheep’s clothing left and reveal himself and his party as neo-fascists of ruthless capabilities. 

The man is a proven liar: remember the Brexit campaign him and that other clown Boris Johnson led? They hired a coach with the slogan “We send the EU £350 million a week, lets fund our NHS instead”. The figure was false and represented gross not net and did not “account for the UK's rebate (approx. £75 million) or the money the EU spent back in the UK on things like farming subsidies and regional aid”. It was designed to fool the electorate who, as per, fell for it - certainly in England hook line and sinker! On the day the result the UK was leaving the EU was broadcast Farage was on television beaming from ear to ear admitting they had got “that one wrong” referring to the £350 million per week. He all but admitted lying in order the Leave the EU side won. This is the man who, if polls are true, will be the UK Prime Minister in 2029. Let’s hope not.

All bourgeois politicians are to a greater or lesser degree liars. They have to be, it is a dishonest system they will govern. It is a dishonest class of people, the bourgeoisie, whose interests they will preside over and serve but even by these standards Nigel Farage is in a league of his own. He is the man who likes to portray himself as the bloke who is great company in the pub, the man who likes a pint and always has a smile on his face. On the odd occasion Farage is caught off camera his visage without the smile reveals a phoney grotesque image which is nearer the man who would be PM than the nice bloke image who likes a pint. Even by the standards of illusionary parliamentary democracy which is a dirty devious game Farage is in a different division. He would certainly be too much for the comparatively (compared to many parliaments and politicians in other countries) honest Irish Taoiseach and Dail TDs. The likes of Jim O’Callaghan, Twenty-Six-County Minister for Justice, and MLA Mathew O’Toole would be out of their depth with Farage which is why when I read in the Irish Daily Mirror their comments along with former Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, I raised an eyebrow.

On Friday 26th June 2026 the newspaper reported almost laughably 'Reform In Power May Spur A United Ireland.' Firstly let’s get one point of ideology right Reform UK are exactly that, a party to strengthen the UK not weaken it. They are a unionist party and on this subject Farage has already indicated, as leader of that party, his desire to “renegotiate” the Good Friday Agreement. Roughly translated this means tear the thing up and despite not being a supporter of the GFA text myself it is for totally different reasons to those of Reform UK. Nigel Farage claims he wishes to alter the GFA in a “minor” way through renegotiation. Of course the DUP will love this idea and from their point of view who could blame them? 

Jim O’Callaghan said; “a Reform UK government could hasten the timeline for calling referenda on Irish unification” a sentiment shared by Leo Varadkar and Mathew O’Toole. Leo’s rationale for his agreement with Jim O’Callaghan is: “a Reform led government that seeks to double down on Brexit could act as an accelerator towards reunification”. Should this happen any referenda or even a border poll would be at a time of this “reform led government's” choosing, in all probability when they feel a vote to maintain the union is a near certainty. 

Failing that those who innocently believe Farage is a normal politician, even allowing for the accepted level of deviousness, should ask themselves a united Ireland under which flag? Reform UK are very fond of the Union Jack and are unlikely to want one of the three crosses of which the flag consists removed. For those who are unaware the crosses which combine to make up the Union Flag, or Jack, are the Cross of Saint George (England), the Cross of Saint Andrew (Scotland), and the Cross of Saint Patrick (Ireland), now “Northern Ireland” since 1922. 

It is not beyond Nigel Farage to suggest the Twenty-Six-Counties returning to the British Commonwealth Realms, consisting of fourteen countries of the fifty-six member states which comprise the whole commonwealth, with the British Monarch as head of state. Farage would, if this were to happen, bank on the Irish government having all eyes on unification forgetting who will be head of state until it’s too late! Should the Irish refuse this arrangement Farage could possibly use bully boy tactics, like his mate Trump, to force the issue. Should such a “Reform led government” decide on a border poll at their discretion they would make sure it went their way. They could then tell all nationalist groups, including the Dublin government, they’ve ‘had their much wished for referendum or border poll and lost now shut the fuck up about it’!

Nigel Farage is no friend of Ireland despite his friendly overtures towards Dublin. Hitler was once friendly towards Czechoslovakian leader, Edvard Benes, at the time of the Munich Agreement over the Sudetenland. This was until he got his way then the paper smile dropped and a more aggressive Hitler, the real one, came to the fore as Nazi tanks steamrolled over the entire country. 

It was suggested that a rise in “English nationalism” could bring forward any referenda on Irish unity. This again is an illusion because England is the metropolis of the UK in fact the UK could be described as an ‘English Empire’ and any split involving England leaving the union would be, for Reform UK, unthinkable. A reformed UK yes, a UK without England no-way! Speaking at an event in Belfast on the 25th June Mr O’Callaghan suggested:

There could be (a poll in the next four years) if Reform came to power, if they decided they wanted to get out of the European Convention on Human Rights and if that required them to dispense with Northern Ireland, that could occur, but I can’t predict the future. 

You certainly got the last line right, Jim, you certainly cannot “predict the future”. I think your wishful thinking for a far-right government in Britain, one to the right of Thatcher’s government which murdered ten Irish Republican POWs, will benefit Ireland think again. Such fanciful talk is akin to Arthur Scargill promoting a Thatcher led government because they would save the coal industry!

When dealing with Reform UK and Nigel Farage in particular it is like ‘taking soup with the Devil’  always use a long spoon. Look through Farage’s paper smile, the great bloke to have a pint with image, and treat with suspicion at least anything the man says. He and his cohort Boris Johnson, who lacked the basic intelligence to do it alone, conned the English people with their lies about the £350 million per week going to the EU, claiming that money could be spent of the “NHS”. He then went on television laughing at the fact he had pulled it off. Will the Twenty-Six-County administration be a match for this sheep in wolves clothing? Not a fucking hope in hell, more likely he, Farage, could take back the whole of Ireland claiming it to be unified once again under the UK flag!! 

Forewarned is forearmed. And remember, Farage was weaned in the Thatcher tradition of the day, herself a would-be fascist - fortunately her party was not. Nigel Farage the man with racist and fascist views has a party of likeminded people under him. When dealing with this man remember Czechoslovakia and Edvard Benes 1938!! 
     
Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.
I

They Really Do Not Know Nigel

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Twenty

 

A Morning Thought @ 3193

Jim Duffy ✍ Power is back. Oops. Gone again. Darn it. Love going to bed by candelabra. 

I couldn't find the single candle. Oh its back again. LOL Gone again. Either that or the fan is becoming alive on its own or haunted.
 
I have often thought of getting one of my grandparents' old oil maps filled and ready for use in the event of power failures. They used them before rural electrification in our area in the 1950s.
 
The biggest shock in rural electrification apparently wasn't the light, or having radio, but that people realised for the first time how dirty and dusty their homes were. By oil lamps and soft candle lights a lot of the dirt was invisible, especially as thatched houses had small windows so rooms weren't very bright in day time. The first reaction on electric light turning on was to say "oh my god! Look at the dirt and dust everywhere. I never saw it before." It had been invisible in the dimly lit parts of rooms. Now, the light got everywhere and everything could be seen.
 
There were a lot of embarrassed housewives (it was the eta of strict gender demarcation in work) mortified at the state of their homes until they realised everywhere, from thatched houses to castles were in the same boat. So vast amounts of cleaning followed on from the electric light turning on.

On farms, cows were spooked by electric light rather than oil lamps and candles. So were dogs and cats. Even though their eyesight works differently, they could tell that something was different and it took them quite a while to get used to it. I noticed that with my sister's cats. Even though they can see in the dark, in a power cut they kept looking around thinking "something is different." I had to grab Damien when he made a move to walk along the mantlepiece. His tail and the lit candle were liable to collide.
 
Power still gone, after a few spurts. At least that means they are trying to fix it. Thank god for that silver candelabra!

⏩ Jim Duffy is a writer-historian.

Candelabra

Barry Gilheany ✍ Most of my interactions with opponents on social media and on TPQ are ultimately based on abstract concepts and intellectually formed frameworks of ethics be they race and immigration, abortion international relations, Brexit, the Israel/Palestine conflict and its blowback, identity etc. 

But my experience of the latest heatwave to affect Britain (and especially East Anglia where I live) and Europe brings to the table the elements of lived experience and the personal as political. For sweltering in badly insulated apartments during temperatures north of 35 C (with humidity pushing the felt temperature towards 40 C); being enveloped in literally hot air when venturing out; sleep being virtually impossible and the incapacitating of one’s thinking and tasking resources through the inability to focus and concentrate brings home the reality of climate change generated heat. A reality that climate change ignoramuses such as the Irish far right shitposter David Quinn and the media ecosystem of pundits that he belongs to happily deny. I swore at him on X with even more vehemence than I do at antivaxxers, antimigrant bigots, 9/11 Truthers or any other contemporary conspiracist as I felt that his denials were as gratuitously offensive as those of antivaxxers to the victims of Covid.

For, in the Observer view “It’s the climate, stupid’.[1] Commentating on the meteorological events of the previous ten days; the issuing of three red warnings for three consecutive days, the closure of schools, delayed trains, the malfunction of hospital machines such as scanners causing appointments to be cancelled, the busiest ever day for London Ambulance Service in terms of life threatening emergencies and, as tragicomic irony, the cancelation by climate conference organisers of a session on extreme heat because of extreme heat, the Observer drily points out that the debate should not merely be about hot housing and air conditioning but about climate change in its entirety. For it is tautologous (except to the denial lobby of which more later whose shrill tones are becoming worrying louder) to state that climate change touches everybody and every part of the economy. Because of the urgency of it in terms of a medium-term national challenge and the existential nature of it as an international challenge, a proper strategy for the Prime Minister elect Andy Burnham to address has to be near as possible to the top of his to-do list.[2]

However one particular aspect of a proper climate change strategy is currently set to put Labour on the horns of an acute political dilemma. For as part of Britain’s long-term goal to reach Net Zero carbon emissions by 2050 (the fossil fuel industries being the greatest emitters), Energy Secretary Ed Milliband and others will urge Burnham to rule out new North Sea oil and gas exploration licenses. However, excessively high energy prices for British consumers and industry, even before the Iran war they were nearly 90% higher than the median for the EU’s 14 richest countries, due to the UK power grid’s reliance on imported gas when the wind stops blowing and the severe vicissitudes in prices at times of war, is making the transition unaffordable.[3] Energy is intensely political and has become the latest culture war issue that that the Alt-Right has taken up.

Energy prices have been seized upon with alacrity by Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservative Party. At a right-wing conference in London dubbed the “anti-woke Davos”, she singled out the “villain” responsible for Britain’s economic woes. “His name is Ed Miliband, and he has made our country poorer”, Badenoch proclaimed to applause. This gathering had been convened by the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, whose backers include the owner of the Gbeebies (GB News) and an assortment of fossil fuel companies. Among the attendees from the Trump administration was its energy secretary, Chris Wright, himself a former fossil fuel executive, who described Britain’s green policies as a “tragic mistake”. As a piece of comedic irony, as an example of the imitation of art by life in the manner of the film Don’t Look Up, Jonathon Freedland reports that according to those who were there, the thousands of climate sceptics and opponents of multiculturalism and “wokeness” gathered at the conference venue in Olympia, West London were sweltering, fanning themselves against a London temperature that remained stubbornly above 35C while listening to the likes of Wright, using fans distributed in goodie bags and emblazoned with the slogans, “Free speech never felt so cool.”[4]

However beyond the increasingly mainstreaming lunatic fringe of the anti-woke right, the Net Zero consensus has begun to fray. Several trade unions are pushing for the afore mentioned North Sea licences because of the jobs and growth they believe they would generate. Tony Blair made the same case for North Sea drilling in his 5,700 word essay The Labour Party is Playing With Fire Over Its Future and the Future of the Country last month calling for the loosening of Net Zero targets. In Canada, Mark Carney has dismantled numerous multiple green measures and even the European Commission in Brussels is backtracking on its green commitments. But for Freedland, Net Zero is not an optional extra or an unaffordable luxury. It is a lifesaving essential.[5]

To advance Freedland’s proposition, as I wish to do, requires unpacking the question asked by Tony Blair in 1995 “Does our economy need right now the goal of clean energy or cheap energy”. As part of his takedown of Tony Blair’s argument “made using a 1990s map of the UK that no longer resembles the reality of the country in which we live”[6], Nafeez Ahmed gets to grips with what he calls the “Cheap vs Clean’ Fallacy and in the process shows that the North Sea cannot save Britain. He crunches the numbers to prove his case as follows.

Between 2010 and 2024, 14 years of Conservative drilling policy issued approximately 400 new exploration licences. Twenty fields were built which at full exhaustion over their total lifetime production will yield the equivalent of six months of UK gas demand. Au contraire, the most recent renewables auction will offset 50 times that, every year, indefinitely. The Office for Budget Responsibility has calculated a £364 billion fiscal hit from the UK’s continued reliance on global gas markets through 2050. Thus modelled across every realistic price scenario, the Treasury loses money on a typical new North Sea field.[7]

Thus for decades, every barrel of oil or cubic metre of gas pulled from the ground returned many times the energy it took to extract. This ‘energy return on investment’ (EROI) is collapsing for fossil fuels and rising for renewables. The UK’S national EROI peaked in 2000 at 9.6:1 and had fallen to 6.2:1 by 2012. An industrial economy of Britain’s complexity requires a ratio of at least 10:1 to function comfortably. The UK has glided below that threshold for almost two decades, concealing the deficit with more expensive imports from geopolitically problematic regions such as Russia and the Middle East and which are vulnerable to sudden acts of disruption such as the current closure of the Strait of Hormuz.[8]

When researchers reframe the ‘Cheap vs Clean’ energy false dichotomy in terms of what happens if enough solar and wind capacity is built to meet demand on the worst days – the cloudiest weeks of winter when wind drops off – as opposed to average demand, the result is an enormous surplus of generation for the rest of the year. With roughly 800GW of wind, 600GW of solar and approximately three days of grid-scale storage, the UK could become a clean energy superpower – producing two to three times what it currently consumes, at near marginal cost, for most of the year and exporting the surplus into a Europe that needs it.[9] The ideal prospectus for a Chancellor Ed Miliband.

If any there is any idea or policy whose time has come it is surely Miliband’s net zero transition agenda. If ever there was a time for active government to shake off the dead hand of the Treasury in the service of the greater good, it is now. However an unholy alliance of the Unite and GMB trade unions who fear Miliband’s agenda will lead to major job losses in the oil, gas and utilities sectors; leading City figures who fear that Miliband’s desire for expansive public investment to fund the green transition will cause higher borrowing imperilling the UK’s public finances and figures on the political Right such as Badenoch and Farage who see the green agenda as another front in the culture war waged by the liberal metropolitan elites against the plain people of Britain.

While the latter can be dismissed as populist but dangerous froth, the first and second of this trilogy of oppositional arguments need to be addressed which the economist Josh Ryan-Collins does convincingly. He responds to trade unionist concerns by pointing out that as Chancellor, Miliband would control the very fiduciary levers – public investment, industrial strategy, retraining programmes and social protection – which would ensure that workers and communities would not be left behind in the transition. Rather than ambitious climate change policy per se, Ryan-Collins claims that the problem resides in the reluctance of the Treasury to mobilise resources to support affected workers and regions.

References  

[1] The Observer View. 27 June 2026.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Jonathan Freedland Britain burns – and still the climate sceptics refuse to look Guardian Journal 27 June 2026 pp.1-2

[5] Ibid, p.2

[6] Nafeez Ahmed, The Real Radicalism the Moment Requires is at the Level of How the World is Seen. Byline Times July 2026 pp.25-28

[7] Ibid, p.26

[8] Ibid

[9] Ibid.

⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.

Feel The Heat And Act 🌞 Climate Change As The Weathervane Issue Of Our Time

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