Nigel Farage hit out at net zero “lunacy” after an unprecedented blackout across Spain and Portugal. The two countries were largely brought to a standstill on Monday after a major power outage.
The Reform UK leader warned that “the lights are going to go out here too” if Britain carries on with “renewable lunacy”. In a video on social media platform X on Tuesday, Mr Farage said: “The lights went out completely in Spain yesterday. Now they boast that they’ve got more wind and solar energy than any other country on Earth.
“If we carry on with renewable lunacy the lights are going to go out here too.”
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch earlier suggested the power cuts were linked to a reliance on renewable energy and that the UK’s net zero plans could lead to blackouts.
She said: “Well, I’ve heard different theories about what’s happened.
“Some have said that it’s cyberterrorism, but the more likely issue is the grid – that when you have an electricity supply that’s reliant on renewables, you need a lot of battery storage.
“And quite often, what we’re seeing is renewables running ahead of the storage facilities, which means that when you have surges one way or another, you end up with blackouts.
“And this is one of the reasons why I’ve been saying that the net zero plans we have are not thought through.
“That we’re rushing ahead without having the right infrastructure in place and actually doing things that could end up bankrupting the country or creating blackouts.”
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told Sky News that the UK has a “continued approach” to “resilience” and “security issues”.
She added: “We’ve been looking, as part of wider security reviews across the country, how we deal with both resilience and also different kinds of challenges and threats.
“Some of which can be the traditional security challenges, some of which can be the kinds of resilience – things that we’re talking about in Spain and Portugal – and we obviously support them and the governments there in the work that they’re doing.”