An influential Labour peer has been criticised for being the star speaker at the UK’s main climate science denial group, which says carbon emissions are a “benefit to the planet”.

Lord Maurice Glasman, founder of the conservative ‘Blue Labour’ faction of the Labour Party, delivered the Global Warming Policy Foundation’s (GWPF) annual lecture on Monday, a speech typically given by conservative figures and climate science deniers.

Glasman has in recent weeks advised Morgan McSweeney, chief of staff to Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

In his GWPF lecture, Glasman reportedly called for the national grid, the UK’s electricity distribution network, to be taken over by the Ministry of Defence, called the UK’s 2050 net zero emissions target a “fantasy”, and advocated new fossil fuel extraction including coal power.

“It is important to remember that the UK is not America,” Paul McNamee, director of the Labour Climate and Environment Forum (LCEF), told DeSmog.

“The Labour government continues to benefit from majority support for ambitious climate action. British people know that this ambition brings energy security, lower bills, a future for their grand-kids, and investment into some of the fastest growing areas of the UK economy.”

McNamee added: “Lord Glasman would know this if he spent less time at Trump inaugurations and with right-wing campaign groups, and more time in the British communities he claims to speak on behalf of.”

According to GB News, which interviewed Glasman ahead of the lecture, the Labour peer said: “The national grid needs complete restoration and net zero is a fantasy. We need clean, abundant, cheap energy… We need to intensify our nuclear and put coal back on the table as well as fossil fuels and North Sea gas.”

Coal is the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel and is responsible for a third of global temperature increases. According to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), the UK’s net zero economy grew by 10 percent in 2024, employing almost a million people in full-time jobs. 

Glasman was the only Labour politician to attend U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January and the peer has praised Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon as “one of the greatest politicians of our age” – appearing on his podcast.

As DeSmog reported, on 16 November Glasman was a keynote speaker at the annual conference of the Together Declaration, an anti-Labour campaign group which has spread conspiracy theories about Covid vaccines, climate policies, and “globalist” plots for a tyrannical world government.

The GWPF has claimed that carbon dioxide has been “mercilessly demonised” when in fact it is a “benefit to the planet” and should be “two or three times” higher than current levels.

Previous GWPF lecturers have delivered by former Conservative Brexit minister Lord David Frost – currently a director of the GWPF’s campaign arm Net Zero Watch – GWPF advisor and former Tory peer Matt Ridley, former Australian prime ministers Tony Abbott and John Howard, and climate crisis deniers Steve Koonin and Richard Lindzen.

The group is run by Conservative peer Lord Craig Mackinlay.

GB News, the right-wing broadcaster that trailed Glasman’s speech, frequently attacks climate action and featured GWPF spokespeople as guests 35 times in the first half of 2024.

Lord Glasman, Labour, and the GWPF have been approached for comment. The GWPF said a recording of the event was being edited ahead of being made public.

‘Blue Labour’ Peer

Glasman founded ‘Blue Labour’ in 2010, a faction which urges the Labour Party to be more socially conservative on issues including immigration.

Lord Glasman has received considerable media attention as a critic of the Labour government.

However, he is close to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s chief advisor Morgan McSweeney, telling The Telegraph this week: “He’s an important figure and a patriot, and I love him.” He is also close to the new Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who in the same interview he likened to Queen Elizabeth I.

Despite his media footprint, Blue Labour reportedly only has around 10 MPs, out of a total of 405, amounting to two percent of the parliamentary party.

Glasman has many allies on the populist right. He was the only Labour figure invited to Trump’s second inauguration, claims he is in regular touch with Vice President JD Vance, has met with radical right-wing tech founder Peter Thiel to discuss AI, and has defended Reform UK leader Nigel Farage as a buffer against the racist far-right.

McNamee of LCEF said: “Lord Glasman needs to remember that his ‘beloved working class’, as he referred to in The Telegraph recently, are already seeing the impacts of being on the front line of climate change.

“From more expensive food due to impacted farming harvests, evacuated care homes during extreme heat events, to the flooding in communities up and down the country affecting homes, high streets and local sports clubs, it is the poorest who feel climate impacts first and most deeply.”