Richard Tice sostiene da 15 anni le iniziative “net stupid zero”.

He never seems to tire of deriding “net stupid zero”, but Reform UK’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, has a 15-year business record of support for sustainability and green energy initiatives.

The Reform party has made opposition to green energy and net zero part of its policy platform. Its founder, Nigel Farage, has called net zero policies a “lunacy”; the party has called to lift the ban on fracking for fossil gas; and one of the first Reform-led councils, Kent, rescinded last month its declaration of a climate emergency

However, companies led by Tice since 2011 boasted of their commitments to saving energy, cutting CO2 emissions and environmental responsibility. One told investors it had introduced a “green charter” to “mitigate our impact on climate change” and later hired a “full-time sustainability manager” as part of “its focus on energy efficiency and sustainability”.

Another said it was “keen to play its part in reducing emissions for cleaner air” and said it had saved “hundreds of tonnes of CO2” by installing solar cells on the rooftops of its properties.

A glance at Tice’s account on X reveals contempt for warnings of climate breakdown and efforts to mitigate it. Last year he said: “We are not in climate emergency; nor is there a climate crisis.” In May he stated: “Solar farms are wrong at every level” and insisted they would “destroy food security, destroy jobs [and] destroy property values”.

He recently adopted the slogan “net stupid zero”, describing efforts to neutralise the UK’s fossil fuel emissions as “the most costly self-inflicted wound in modern British history”.

But Steff Wright, a sustainability entrepreneur and former commercial tenant of Tice, found that statements in the annual reports from CLS Holdings and Quidnet Reit, property companies led by Tice, contradicted his public position.

I think the annoying thing about a lot of the backlash against emissions reduction ideas is a lot of them do go hand in hand with energy independence.

Renewables and nuclear would both allow us not to have to pander to the likes of Saudi Arabia or Russia, particularly when gas and oil are both just getting more and more expensive over time.

Fifteen years ago our domestic energy prices were 14% below the IEA median, today they’re 46% above the IEA median. I’d say he was wrong to support those initiatives, but it’s good that he’s gotten there eventually.