In yet another predictable display of anti-Brexit bias from the Guardian, journalist Lisa O’Carroll claims Brexit is costing British consumers up to £370 million a year in higher energy bills – yet her own article reveals the reality is far from this headline-grabbing figure.
The irony is palpable. This is the same O’Carroll who brazenly lists “Disinformation” in her Twitter bio as a supposed area of expertise! Yet she’s now misleading the British public with an inflated, cherry-picked figure that rests on shaky ground. Is disinformation only a problem when it doesn’t align with the Guardian’s EU-loving narrative?
According to O’Carroll’s latest missive, Brexit has added somewhere “between £100 million and £370 million” annually to the cost of power supplies from Europe. But let’s dissect this: even the Energy UK representative she quotes hedges with “upwards of somewhere between.” In other words, this £370 million figure is based on guesswork, a classic trick to exaggerate uncertainty as doom.
The irony here is that O’Carroll’s headline clings to the top end of a vague estimate, completely ignoring the £100 million figure also mentioned – a sum already within range of normal year-on-year market fluctuation.
What is truly remarkable, however, is how O’Carroll chooses to mislead on cause and effect. She makes it sound as though Brexit alone is responsible for higher costs, but the reality of Europe’s energy market is more complex. The UK imports electricity through undersea interconnectors from six different countries – including non-EU Norway – and energy prices across Europe have surged for reasons wholly unrelated to Brexit, including supply constraints and ongoing decarbonisation policies. Suggesting that rejoining some EU algorithm would magically alleviate all cost increases ignores the global nature of today’s energy challenges.
Moreover, Energy UK’s complaint about inefficiencies in the new trading arrangements rings hollow. Has Brexit shifted the efficiency of trading electricity? Possibly, but we’re hardly isolated; the UK has pioneered its own carbon pricing and emission reduction efforts, becoming a leader in the push toward net-zero. And rather than dragging Britain down, these changes position the UK for greater independence and innovation in energy production – in fact, Britain is on track to become a net energy exporter by 2030. O’Carroll brushes off this fact, though, preferring to focus on tenuous, speculative figures.
It’s no surprise that O’Carroll singles out Brexit as a villain here – after all, calling for closer alignment with the EU is her usual theme. However, what she fails to recognise is that since Brexit, the UK has had the freedom to explore new partnerships, invest in alternative energy sources, and develop a more autonomous energy strategy. Any proposal to “reset” our relationship with the EU on energy terms would simply hand over control, diluting the progress the UK has made post-Brexit. And while she touts Energy UK’s plea to Keir Starmer to bring us closer to EU markets, O’Carroll neglects to mention that the EU’s ever-growing carbon tax framework threatens to punish UK exports unless we continue bending to Brussels.
O’Carroll and her EU-aligned colleagues may wish to see the UK crawl back to the EU table, but facts and figures tell a different story. Brexit is about long-term vision, building resilience, and crafting a sustainable energy policy independent of Brussels’ overreach.
The Guardian can claim as many phantom figures as it likes, but the only real “cost” would be backtracking on the sovereignty that the British public voted for.
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