Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has called for Rishi Sunak to ditch “high-cost green policies” in the wake of the surprise Conservative win at the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election.
While the Tories suffered substantial defeats in the ‘safe’ seats of Selby and Ainsty and Somerton and Frome, their win in Boris Johnson’s former constituency was credited to a campaign centred on opposing Sadiq Khan’s expansion of London’s Ultra-low Emissions Zone (Ulez). Under the policy around 10% of London’s drivers will be charged £12.50 per day in a bid to lower air pollution.
Sir Jacob, the former Business Secretary, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
You should learn from where the Government has done surprisingly well against the form book, and learn there that high-cost green policies are not popular.
I think the Government should take away the power for these Ulezes which is provided for by legislation… You should go with the grain of what voters are doing anyway. Voters are year in, year out buying cleaner cars with cleaner engines. The development of engines in recent decades have been phenomenal.
Sir John Redwood, Margaret Thatcher’s one-time policy chief, added: “Will Mayor Khan cancel Ulez now voters have told him how unpopular it is? After winning Uxbridge by speaking out against Ulez, will the Government now act to stop so many attacks on motorists?”
Lord Frost, Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiator, wrote on Twitter: “The lesson is surely that green policies are very unpopular when there’s a direct cost to people – as indeed all the polling says. This time that hit Labour. But soon it could be us unless we rethink heat pumps and the 2030 electric car deadline.”
Even Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer admitted there was “no denying that Ulez was the reason we didn’t win in Uxbridge”, and said both he and Mr Khan “need to reflect on that”. This followed Deputy Leader Angela Rayner saying Labour has not listened to voters as she acknowledged Londoners cannot afford Ulez. She called for a rethink on the green scheme, which she argued was “at the cost of working families who have basically had enough”.
Nonetheless, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has insisted he is “determined” to press ahead with the punitive tax on many of London’s poorer motorists.
Janet Daley in the Telegraph is on the money, as usual.
Everybody got something last night. Keir Starmer will no doubt claim that the Labour win in Selby, overturning a huge Tory majority, means that they are on an invincible march to victory. The Lib Dems will make their usual claims to inevitable national triumph on the basis of a by-election result.
But the Tories – whose success in Uxbridge was the most minimal squeak – have produced what is probably a more politically interesting result. In what was a marginal seat and so should have been the most readily lost, they actually won. And the reason for this is what should be an invaluable lesson for all three parties.
It was Sadiq Khan’s extension of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) to outer London that won it for the Tories. This diabolical scheme to penalise drivers of older cars and van-owning tradesmen in the outer suburbs has aroused a level of rage which must now be a lesson to all serious contenders in the general election. The ramifications go far beyond this single, apparently anomalous, success for the Conservatives.
Could there be a more explicit illustration of the limits to the electorate’s tolerance of supposed green measures, Janet asks. People “are not prepared to sacrifice their entire way of life”. Indeed.
Of course, Ulez is ostensibly not about Net Zero at all but about air quality. But everyone knows when they’re being lied to and that it’s really about the war on the motorist. Besides, as we never tire of pointing out, London’s air quality has never been better.
Stop Press: Rishi Sunak has been advised to scrap the ban on the sale of new petrol- and diesel-driven cars from 2030 in response to the by-election result in Uxbridge. Meanwhile, Ross Clark says in the Telegraph the Ulez revolt could doom Labour at the next General Election.
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