ENERGY campaign Don’t Pay UK has called for a national bill strike on December 1 in protest at the government’s U-turn on its policy to ease cost-of-living support. 

Announcing the new strike date today, the grassroots campaign group says it expects millions of people across Britain to join the mass non-payment of energy bills. 

Around 220,000 people have signed up so far.

Originally the campaign had pledged not to pay from October 1 if a million people signed up, with organisers arguing the scale would “give safety in numbers” from punishments. 

But the strike was called off after the group failed to reach its million-people target. 

Now Don’t Pay UK has announced that it will push ahead with the strike even though the target has not been met, a decision it said was reached by representatives of its regional groups in anger at the government’s U-turn on the energy price cap guarantee. 

The decision last week by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to limit the cap on energy prices per unit from two years to just six months is expected to result in the average annual energy bills rising to more than £4,000 from April, according to consultancy Cornwall Insight. 

Don’t Pay UK is calling on new PM Rishi Sunak to take immediate action now, and for people to join the strike if no more help is offered to people struggling to pay extortionate energy bills. 

Announcing the strike on Wednesday, the group said in a statement: “Don’t Pay is calling for people across the country to [take back power] — to fight back against the profiteering fuelling both the cost-of-living crisis and the climate crisis and to strike for a transformed energy sector and better future.”

Its demands include an immediate reversal of energy price to its pre-April 2021 price cap level. 

Megan, from the group in Glasgow, said: “We’ve had enough of unelected politicians and profiteering energy companies failing to act in our interests, so we’re fighting back. The first of December, we strike together.”

The group says many more people are expected to join the action than those who have signed up, including people who simply cannot afford to pay their bills this winter.