Parties Under Pressure Over Net-Zero Policies After Tories Won Uxbridge By-election

L: Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer speaking at the launch of the Labour Party's mission on cheaper green power in Edinburgh on June 19, 2023. (Jane Barlow/PA) R: Then-Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, arrives at COP26 with his Green Budget Box in Glasgow, Scotland, on Nov. 3, 2021. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Environmentalists have urged the major parties to keep their green pledges as the parties also faced warnings that the net-zero push may cost them elections.

It comes after London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) expansion was blamed for Labour’s loss in Thursday’s by-election in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency.

Conservative MP and GB news broadcaster Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg said the Tory victory showed that the electorates want the government to get rid of “unpopular, expensive green policies.”

Alok Sharma, the former president of the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, wrote on Twitter that it would be “self-defeating for any political party to seek to break the political consensus on this vital agenda.”

During Thursday’s by-elections, the Tories lost two seats to Labour and the Liberal Democrats respectively, but unexpectedly managed to keep former prime minister Boris Johnson’s old constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

In his victory speech, new Conservative MP Steve Tuckwell said Khan’s “damaging and costly ULEZ policy” cost Labour the election.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer told broadcasters on Saturday that he doesn’t think there’s “any doubt” ULEZ was to blame for the defeat.

ULEZ is a zone in which drivers whose vehicles do not meet certain emissions standards must pay a daily charge of £12.5 to drive or face fines.

The policy was born out of Johnson’s Conservative mayorship but was launched by his Labour successor Khan in 2019. The zone, which originally covered the same central London area as the Congestion Charge, now includes all areas between the North and South Circular Roads.

It’s set to expand again at the end of next month to the whole of Greater London, despite furious backlash from Conservative-led councils.

Rees-Mogg: ‘Unpopular, Expensive Green Policies’

Mr. Rees-Mogg told GB News that the Tory victory in the suburban London constituency shows that the Conservatives have a “real chance” in winning the next general election if it was to “get rid of things like ULEZ, which have popped up across the country, and we show we are on the side of the British voter—we stop burdening them with extra charges, extra regulations, extra interference in their lives.”

The by-election created an “opportunity for governments to think about what they are doing and see what works and what doesn’t,” the former business secretary said.

“What works is getting rid of unpopular, expensive green policies, and that is a real opportunity for us.”

Mr. Rees-Mogg’s remarks came as Levelling Up and Housing Secretary Michael Gove warned against “treating the cause of the environment as a religious crusade.”

In an interview with The Telegraph, Mr. Gove said he wants to delay the plan to ban landlords from renting their properties in 2028 unless they retrofit their homes to improve energy efficiency to a score of C or above.

“My own strong view is that we’re asking too much too quickly,” he said, “but just at this point, when landlords face so much, I think that we should relax the pace,” because the retrofitting would cost a lot.

He also said measures such as low-traffic neighbourhoods are “a crude and sometimes counterproductive tool,” warning political parties, "if people think that you are treating the cause of the environment as a religious crusade, in which you’re dividing the world into goodies and baddies, then you alienate the support that you need for thoughtful environmentalism.”

But when asked about the government’s plan to ban new petrol and diesel cars in 2030, Mr. Gove said he believes that’s achievable.

Baron Goldsmith: Dropping Climate Policies ‘Politically Suicidal’

Senior environmentally-minded Tories have urged both their own party and Labour not to drop green policies in the hope of short-term electoral gains.

Baron Goldsmith of Richmond Park, who resigned as an environment minister in the Foreign Office last month with a scathing attack on Mr. Sunak’s “apathy” on the matter, said dropping climate change-tackling policies would be “politically suicidal” given their growing support among voters.

“To use these recent results to advocate abandonment of the UK’s previous environmental leadership is cynical and idiotic,” Lord Goldsmith told The Observer.

Chris Skidmore, the UK government’s net zero tsar, told the PA news agency it would be both “deeply regrettable” and an “abdication of responsible government” if ministers “play politics” with environmental policies.

Andrew Montford, director of Net Zero Watch, a pressure group that scrutinises the cost of net-zero policies, recently told NTD that while polling suggests the public is broadly supportive of the government’s policies on net zero, the support is “paper thin” and will disappear when people realise what they mean for their own lives.

PA Media contributed to this report.