Flood waters surrounding houses in Wraysbury, Berkshire in January 2024. Greater London and Yorkshire and the Humber are two regions at particular risk in the coming years. Photograph: Daniel Leal/AFP/Getty Images
Every constituency projected to be at greater risk, with many areas likely to be uninsurable, Guardian investigation finds
Millions more homes in England, Scotland and Wales face devastating floods, and some towns may have to be abandoned as climate breakdown makes many areas uninsurable, a Guardian investigation has found.
New analysis from the insurance industry, seen by the Guardian, reveals the extent of concern in the sector, with bosses warning that large swathes of housing and commercial property in densely populated areas will be at greater risk.
Separately, experts have said that some towns may need to be abandoned as homes and businesses struggle to get insurance in areas repeatedly battered by storms and rising sea levels.
Densely populated areas including London, Manchester and parts of north-east England, are likely to be worst hit. Experts also say London’s flood defences need to be updated urgently to protect the capital from devastating floods.
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Reform UK leader Nigel Farage speaking in Aberdeen. Credit: Reform UK / YouTube
Nigel Farage’s party was told by Offshore Energies UK to rethink its plan to thwart clean energy.
LIVERPOOL – The UK’s largest oil and gas trade body has criticised Reform UK’s plans to “turn off the tap” on renewable energy.
Nigel Farage’s party has tried to present itself as the oil and gas industry’s closest ally, vowing to “drill, baby, drill” in the North Sea and scrap the windfall tax on excess profits, while meeting with oil executives, and courting donations from the sector.
However, on a panel at the Labour Party’s annual conference in Liverpool on Monday (29 September), a spokesperson for Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) criticised Reform’s plans to end state support for clean energy.
Natalie Coupar, communications and marketing director at OEUK – members of which include fossil fuel giants BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, and Equinor – said the group is “apolitical” but gives “hard truths to all parties”.
She said: “One of the things we’ve been saying to Reform very much is, you know, if you’re going to turn on the taps for oil and gas, there’s almost really no point if you’re just going to turn off the taps to renewables.
“That doesn’t help. We need to keep both those streams open.”
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.
Coupar also said it was essential to “hold the consensus on tackling climate change and growing our energy future”.
A panel at 2025 Labour Party conference sponsored by Offshore Energies UK (OEUK). Credit: DeSmog
Reform’s Oil Campaign
Reform has vowed to stop all government subsidies for renewable energy, and has pledged to block solar and onshore wind farms in the local authorities it controls.
In May, the party’s deputy leader Richard Ticesaid: “Whether it’s planning blockages, whether it’s judicial reviews, whether it’s lawsuits, whether it’s health and safety notices, we will use every available legal measure to an extreme way in order to frustrate these people.”
Tice – who has said “there’s no evidence that man-made CO2 is going to change the climate” – met with senior oil executives in May and promised to approve new drilling licences “on day one” of a Reform government.
Last month, he pledged to overturn the UK’s ban on fracking for shale gas, which he calls “treasure beneath our feet”, and told the industry to “get ready”.
In April, Reform party treasurer and a billionaire property developer Nick Candy said he was trying to secure donations from oil and gas executives, claiming to have raised £100,000 from one, though this has yet to appear on Reform’s donations register.
As DeSmog has reported, 92 percent of Reform’s funding between the 2019 and 2024 general elections came from climate science deniers or those with highly polluting interests – a total of £2.3 million.
Since his election as an MP last year, Farage has spoken at a string of events in the U.S. organised by radical groups backing U.S. President Donald Trump’s pro-fossil fuel agenda. Last December, Farage launched the UK-EU branch of the Heartland Institute, a U.S. climate denial think tank.
Speaking at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London in February, Farage claimed it was “absolutely nuts” for CO2 to be considered to a pollutant. However, he added: “I’m not a scientist. I can’t tell you whether CO2 is leading to warming or not, but there are so many other massive factors.”
Climate scientists at the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading climate science body, have stressed that “it is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet”.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Nigel Farage reminds you that he’s the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.
The influx of members points to Polanski’s apparent ability to galvanise attention and enthusiasm for a party that has often struggled to get its message across. Photograph: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images
Green party in England and Wales has had near-50% rise in membership since Zack Polanski took over last month
The Greens in England and Wales have more than 100,000 members for the first time, the party has announced, a near-50% rise since Zack Polanski took over as leader last month.
It puts them on a potential course to overtake the Conservatives and comes little more than a week after the Greens announced they had moved past the Liberal Democrats in membership numbers, getting to 83,500.
If the same momentum continues, party officials say, they could be on course to become bigger than the Conservatives. Tory party membership figures are not made public, but recent reports say the total is slightly above 120,000.
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The Greens’ surge has caused worries among some senior Labour figures, who believe it could take votes and seats from the party in next May’s local elections in England, particularly in some London boroughs.
Polanski has repeatedly set out what he sees as the Greens’ ambition to supplant Labour. In a speech this month to the party’s annual conference, he said that without action Keir Starmer would “hand this country on a plate” to Reform UK.
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Nigel Farage meets members of the public during campaigning in Caerphilly, south Wales. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA
Farage said he was shocked by Nathan Gill’s admissions relating to pro-Russia statements
Nigel Farage has insisted his party’s former leader in Wales who was convicted of taking pro-Russian bribes was a “bad apple” who betrayed him.
The Reform UK leader was in Caerphilly campaigning for his candidate in a forthcoming Senedd byelection when he was asked about his links to Nathan Gill.
Gill, who led Reform UK in Wales in 2021, last month admitted taking bribes to make statements in favour of Vladimir Putin’s Russia while he was a member of the European parliament.
His activities were said to include making pro-Russian statements about events in Ukraine in the European parliament and in opinion pieces to news outlets.
Questioned by reporters before walking through Caerphilly town centre, Farage said he was shocked by Gill’s admissions. He said: “Any political party can find in their midst all sorts of terrible people.
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Gill, 52, pleaded guilty last month to eight counts of bribery between 6 December 2018 and 18 July 2019.
He was leader of Reform UK Wales from March to May 2021.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.Nigel Farage reminds you that he’s the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.
The BBC’s decision to scrap a planned Zack Polanski interview on the channel’s flagship Laura Kuenssberg show has caused fury within the Green Party
The BBC’s decision to cancel a planned conference interview with new Green leader Zack Polanski on the Laura Kuenssberg show on Sunday has caused fury within the party.
As I report today for Byline Times, the decision to scrap the interview came after the show also refused to have him on last month, following his election as party leader, choosing to instead invite Nigel Farage.
Green party sources are particularly furious with the reason they were given for this week’s cancellation, which is that the show needed more time to cover the Manchester synagogue terror attack.
This is particularly galling for Polanski, who is both Jewish and from Manchester, and yet was denied his chance to have his voice heard.
Polanski suggested on social media that the decision to cancel may have been due to his position on Gaza. The BBC declined to comment on their reason, saying only that he had been interviewed elsewhere on the BBC during the Green party conference and would be invited on the show in “the coming weeks”.
However, it is not the first time that the BBC has been accused of ignoring the Greens and others on the left of British politics.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
