Reform UK has scrapped Essex County Council’s net zero policies after taking control of the authority from the Conservatives, with the new leadership describing the climate agenda as costly and harmful to residents.
At the council’s first full meeting since last month’s local elections, council leader Peter Harris announced that any net zero strategies would be abandoned.
“It’s nuts, the whole net zero thing is net stupid zero, and I just don’t agree with it,” Harris told councillors.
Speaking later to the BBC, he said Reform would not continue what he described as a “net zero religion” that risked making residents poorer.
Deputy leader Russell Quirk backed the move, calling the pursuit of net zero a “ridiculous endeavour” that was “as pointless as it is foolish.”
“The quest for net zero is fatally expensive and ironically unsustainable,” he said, arguing that efforts by a single local authority would have a negligible effect on global emissions while countries elsewhere continued expanding industrial production.
The decision overturns policies introduced under the previous Conservative administration, which had adopted carbon reduction targets and established climate-related initiatives within the council.
Conservative councillor Lee Scott responded by arguing that while net zero policies required reform, councils should remain “open-minded” about climate change and recognise that some measures could reduce costs for residents.
The Essex decision is one of the clearest examples yet of how Reform intends to govern where it wins power.
Since making major gains in local elections, the party has used councils as a platform to pursue policies that distinguish it from both Labour and the Conservatives. In Kent, Reform councillors have proposed declaring an “illegal migration emergency,” arguing that record Channel crossings are placing unsustainable pressure on local services and finances.
Nationally, the party has proposed a “patriotic curriculum” for schools, greater emphasis on British history and national symbols, and a mass deportation programme for illegal migrants, including the construction of detention centres and withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights.
For supporters, Essex offers an early glimpse of what a Reform government might look like nationally: challenging the established political consensus and redirecting spending towards practical concerns such as infrastructure and public services.
After years in which Conservative administrations largely accepted many of the same assumptions as Labour on issues such as climate policy, Reform’s actions in Essex are likely to fuel debate over whether this is the kind of change voters could expect if Nigel Farage’s party eventually enters government.
