LONDON — Prime Minister Keir Starmer usually goes out of his way not to annoy Donald Trump. So he better hope the windmill-hating U.S. president doesn’t notice what the U.K. just did. In a fillip for the global offshore wind industry, Starmer’s government on Wednesday announced its biggest-ever down payment on the technology. It agreed to price guarantees, funded by billpayers to the tune of up to £1.8 billion (€2.08 billion) a year, for eight major projects in England, Scotland and Wales. The schemes have the capacity to generate 8.4 gigawatts of electricity, the U.K. energy department said — enough to power 12 million homes. It represented the biggest “wind auction in Europe to date,” said industry group WindEurope. It’s also an energy strategy that could have been tailor-made to rankle Trump. The U.S. president has repeatedly expressed a profound loathing for wind turbines and has tried to use his powers to halt construction on projects already underway in the U.S. — sending shockwaves across the global industry. Even when appearing alongside Starmer at press conferences, Trump has been unable to hide his disgust at the very sight of windmills. “You are paying in Scotland and in the U.K. … to have these ugly monsters all over the place,” he said, sitting next to Starmer during a visit to his Turnberry golf course last year. The spinning blades, Trump complained, would “kill all your birds.” At the time, the prime minister explained meekly that the U.K. was seeking a “mix” of energy sources. But this week’s investments speak far louder about his government’s priorities. The U.K.’s strategy — part of a plan to run the British power grid on 95 percent clean electricity by 2030 — is a clear signal that for all Starmer’s attempts to appease Trump, the U.K. will not heed Washington’s assertions that fossil fuels are the only way to deliver affordable bills and secure supply. “With these results, Britain is taking back control of our energy sovereignty,” said Starmer’s Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, a former leader of the Labour party. “With these results, Britain is taking back control of our energy sovereignty,” said Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. | Pool photo by Justin Tallis via Getty Images While not mentioning Trump or the U.S., he said the U.K. wanted to “stand on our two feet” and not depend on “markets controlled by petrostates and dictators.” WIND VS. GAS The goal of the U.K.’s offshore wind drive is to reduce reliance on gas for electricity generation. One of the most gas-dependent countries in Europe, the U.K. was hit hard in 2022 by the regional gas price spike that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The government ended up spending tens of billions of pounds to pay a portion of every household energy bill in the country to fend off widespread hardship. It’s a scenario that Miliband and Starmer want to avoid in future by focusing on producing electricity from domestic sources like offshore wind that are not subject to the ups and downs of global fossil fuel markets. Trump, by contrast, wants to keep Europe hooked on gas — specifically, American gas. The U.S. National Security Strategy, updated late last year, states Trump’s desire to use American fossil fuel exports to “project power.” Trump has already strong-armed the European Union into committing to buy $750 billion worth of American liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a quid pro quo for tariff relief. No one in Starmer’s government explicitly named Trump or the U.S. on Wednesday. But Chris Stark, a senior official in Miliband’s energy department tasked with delivering the 2030 goal, noted that “every megawatt of offshore wind that we’re bringing on is a few more metric tons of LNG that we don’t need to import.” The U.K.’s investment in offshore wind also provides welcome relief to a global industry that has been seriously shaken both by soaring inflation and interest rates — and more recently by a Trump-inspired backlash against net zero and clean energy. “It’s a relief for the offshore sector … It’s a relief generally, that the U.K. government is able to lean into very large positive investment stories in U.K. infrastructure,” said Tom Glover, U.K. country chair of the German energy firm RWE, which was the biggest winner in the latest offshore wind investment, securing contracts for 6.9 gigawatts of capacity. A second energy industry figure, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record, said the U.K.’s plans were a “great signal for the global offshore wind sector” after a difficult few years — “not least the stuff in the U.S.” The other big winner was British firm SSE, which has plans to build one of the world’s largest-ever offshore wind projects, Berwick Bank — off the coast of Donald Trump’s beloved Scotland.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Die Strompreise bleiben hoch – und die versprochene Entlastung für Haushalte kommt nicht. Friedrich Merz und Lars Klingbeil geraten unter Druck, weil ihr Koalitionsvertrag eine Senkung der Stromsteuer versprach – doch im verabschiedeten Haushalt fehlt davon jede Spur. Selbst in der SPD wächst der Unmut. Rasmus Buchsteiner erklärt, warum es zwischen Union und SPD jetzt auf eine leise Lösung ankommt. Im 200-Sekunden-Interview begegnet Armand Zorn (SPD) der Kritik direkt – und verteidigt das bisherige Vorgehen mit Blick auf den Haushalt und die Verantwortung. Und: Die dänische EU-Ratspräsidentschaft beginnt – mit ehrgeizigen Zielen bei Klima und Wettbewerbsfähigkeit. Johanna Sahlberg analysiert, wie Dänemark gegen den Brüsseler Gegenwind segeln will, auch wenn das schwierig wird.  Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es morgens um 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team bringen euch jeden Morgen auf den neuesten Stand in Sachen Politik — kompakt, europäisch, hintergründig. Und für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Unser Berlin Playbook-Newsletter liefert jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Hier gibt es alle Informationen und das kostenlose Playbook-Abo. Mehr von Berlin Playbook-Host und Executive Editor von POLITICO in Deutschland, Gordon Repinski, gibt es auch hier:   Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski.

LONDON — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has signaled a U-turn on his government’s controversial decision to slash winter energy bill support for pensioners, after a backlash from his own MPs. The prime minister told the House of Commons during Prime Minister’s Questions Wednesday that the government recognized people were “feeling the pressure of the cost of living crisis” and that, “as the economy improves,” he wanted to ensure “more pensioners are eligible for winter fuel payments.” Starmer added that ministers would “look at the thresholds” at which pensioners become eligible for the payments, but insisted that this would have to occur at a “fiscal event,” meaning any changes will likely be introduced at the government’s next budget in the fall. Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the end of universal winter fuel payments for pensioners of between £200 and £300 in July last year, shortly after Labour took power. She blamed a fiscal “blackhole” left by the previous Conservative government. The Treasury said it hoped the measure would save around £1.3 billion a year. Payments were restricted to poorer households already receiving pension credit or other means-tested benefits. However, the cut proved hugely unpopular and was frequently blamed by Labour MPs and campaigners for their poor performance at this month’s local elections campaign.

LONDON — Miatta Fahnbulleh is a new MP juggling one of Whitehall’s trickiest tasks: slashing Brits’ energy bills at a time the government is strapped for cash. Elected for the first time in July, she was handed a ministerial brief within days. It is a rise so rapid that Fahnbulleh has a red box but still not a constituency office. The economist, former think tank boss and newbie minister at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is now responsible for delivering one of Labour’s pivotal pledges for this parliament. Breaking an election promise to cut sky-high energy bills could “mobilize” populist political forces against the government, Fahnbulleh has admitted. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is already gunning for Labour over energy costs. The Conservative opposition has promised to pressure ministers on it at “every possible opportunity.” So it falls to Fahnbulleh to deliver a string of multi-billion-pound home heat schemes. The hope is that, by kitting out U.K. homes with better insulation and greener, more efficient heating systems, bills will start to fall. But she is already battling headwinds.  It falls to Miatta Fahnbulleh to deliver a string of multi-billion-pound home heat schemes. | UK Government Those schemes have historically struggled to get off the ground. Green funding has been sliced up by the Labour leadership. Fahnbulleh was forced to suspend dozens of Whitehall-backed installation firms at the start of the year over shoddy insulation work, while the decision to end universal winter fuel payments to pensioners has undermined public confidence in the government.  And, most importantly, all those plans to drive down bills are “bound up with the need to secure financing from [the] Treasury,” said one industry figure familiar with government planning. As Chancellor Rachel Reeves eyes ways to curb public spending, Fahnbulleh won’t get far without the weight of Number 11 behind her. ‘CAN’T MESS THIS UP’ “I think my first thought was just like — ‘Okay, well, that’s a big job. Better get on with it. Can’t mess this up,’” Fahnbulleh said, recalling the moment Chief Whip Alan Campbell called with a job offer from the prime minister after Labour’s landslide election win last summer. By then she had already shown she could fulfill one key task for any Labour hopeful — uniting the party’s often-warring factions.  She was picked as Labour’s candidate in Peckham, south-east London, in 2022 with over 60 percent of the vote in the first round, said one local party member who supported her campaign. She won that contest because she was able to “unite the left” of the constituency party with the center ground, including through her stance on green issues, they said.  Miatta Fahnbulleh was picked as Labour’s candidate in Peckham, south-east London, in 2022 | UK Government Inside work “she’s pretty relentless,” said one former colleague, granted anonymity to speak candidly about their time working with Fahnbulleh. “She always comes at things from a position of — ‘If I get everyone in the room and we just talk this through, I think we can find a way through it,’” they said. And outside work? You’ll find her “tearing up the dancefloor” on a night out, said another friend and former colleague.  OUTSIDER TURNED INSIDER Fahnbulleh, once an aide to now Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, spent six years heading up one of the country’s leading left-leaning think tanks, the New Economics Foundation (NEF), before becoming an MP.  “My background is an economist. I chose that path because I grew up seeing the economy not working for a whole swathe of our society,” she told POLITICO in an interview late last year. “For me, how we start to change the settlement has always been core to what I’ve been trying to do.”  Fahnbulleh came to the U.K. alongside her parents and brother as refugees in 1986, fleeing war in Liberia. “I defied the odds,” she said in an interview just before her selection in Peckham.  “She saw a lot when she was younger,” said the first former colleague quoted above. “[She] has experienced a lot of different things but also has seen, in various different roles she’s had, the effects of what happens when the economy doesn’t work for people.”  “My background is an economist. I chose that path because I grew up seeing the economy not working for a whole swathe of our society” | UK Government “She’s a progressive at heart,” said a third former colleague, who has worked closely with Fahnbulleh. Now installed in the government, though, she may find it hard to implement the sort of bold policies she once pushed for from the outside. Lobbying for change from a think tank is one thing — ushering it in under the watchful eye of a Treasury bent on fiscal rules is another. While at the NEF, Fahnbulleh urged the government to invest £30 billion per year in the green transition. But Labour dumped their old net zero spending pledges ahead of the election, and Fahnbulleh and her DESNZ colleagues will now have less than that to spend across the whole of this parliament. NEF, under her leadership, also lobbied against a third runway at Heathrow airport on climate grounds. Yet as the Treasury desperately pursues economic growth, Heathrow expansion has become government policy. PRESSURE Other funding has not yet come through in full. Just £3.4 billion has been committed for home heat schemes out of an initial pledge to spend £6 billion a year by the end of the parliament. The government promised more details on its flagship Warm Homes Plan in the spring — but that has now been delayed to after June’s crucial spending review.  Questions about how to fund climate-friendly improvements for people’s homes will only become more pressing over time. The existing Boiler Upgrade Scheme, which makes grants to people swapping their gas boilers for cleaner heat pumps, will “not cover every single home” which needs to switch as the U.K. bids to hit net zero by 2050, Emma Pinchbeck, boss of the independent Climate Change Committee, warned last week. Meantime, Fahnbulleh, once the think tank lobbyist, is being lobbied herself to overhaul energy bills right now and help around six million homes still suffering from fuel poverty. “Call it a social tariff. Call it what you want. We need to say: ‘These are the people who really need some help, and work with government to get them that help,” Dhara Vyas, chief executive of the industry group Energy UK, warned earlier this month. On this, one NEF policy has made its way into Whitehall. The energy regulator is looking at putting guardrails on basic energy needs as one means to protect people from soaring bills, echoing proposals made by her think tank in 2023. ALL ABOUT BILLS Energy bills are set to rise again this April, around ten months after Labour won a thumping mandate on a pledge to cut them by up to £300. Opposition parties are already hammering the government to put a date on when bills will fall, and by how much.  “At every available opportunity, we’ll be asking Ed Miliband when our bills are going to start coming down,” said the Conservative’s interim Shadow Energy Secretary, Andrew Bowie. That £300 figure could “rise in salience quite quickly” come the next election, argued Luke Tryl, director of the More in Common think tank. As Chancellor Rachel Reeves eyes ways to curb public spending, Fahnbulleh won’t get far without the weight of Number 11 behind her. | House of Commons “What I think is going to be more challenging — but I assume will be what they actually argue — is bills are lower than they would have been,” he said. But that doesn’t leave Labour a lot of political space. “It’s really hard to do that for the public, because we know that loss aversion is far stronger than things that people gain,” Tryl added. Fahnbulleh concedes that support for the country’s green plans could unravel if bills don’t fall. If the government does not get bills down, a “movement on the other side” will “mobilize people against this agenda,” she warned ominously at Labour Party conference in September.  TREASURY TROUBLE The big moment is now the summer spending review, when Fahnbulleh will be pitching for the extra billions needed to meet the party’s pledge of upgrading five million homes this parliament.  “There’s frankly very little that Miatta can achieve within the department,” said the industry figure quoted above. Everything rests on Treasury largesse, they said. They added: “She is trying to highlight to the leadership of the party and to cabinet ministers that they have made very big promises ahead of 2029 and [that], at the moment, they are not on track to deliver those promises in terms of energy bill reductions.” Getting the Treasury onside is tricky for ministers at the best of times. That’s especially true at a time the chancellor has promised to bring an “iron fist” to public spending. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is already squirreling away any spare cash for defense. “It’s always difficult when you’re a junior minister in another department and you’ve already got £3.4 billion pounds in the bag, and the chancellor is going to have what is going to be one of the most difficult statements the chancellor has had to make for some time — just because the money isn’t there at the moment,” said one former No. 10 official. For all the obstacles, Fahnbulleh has “the caliber to be able to pull this off,” according to the third former colleague cited above. And she knows what’s at stake. “She will be running [in the 2029 election], Labour will be running again, and they’ll be in a very tough spot if they don’t deliver,” the same person said. “I think she’s acutely aware of that as well.”