Liz Truss’s flagship quest for so-called growth has seen her pledge to take the country down an extreme new track, one for which she has no mandate and very little public support. Much of the public will be looking at the chaos unleashed over the past few weeks and asking: who voted for this?
That’s the question we stood up and asked the prime minster directly as we interrupted her speech in Birmingham today. Because surely it’s not right that barely a month into her premiership, Truss is already shredding the promises that got her party elected.
Greenpeace UK analysis has identified at least seven areas across environmental protection, climate action, workers’ rights and tackling inequality where policies either confirmed or being considered by Truss and her ministers are at odds with the 2019 Conservative manifesto.
People expect to get the government programme they voted for – and one that truly meets the moment of the environmental and cost of living crises we are all facing. This certainly isn’t it. The Conservative manifesto in 2019 was clear when it promised the “most ambitious environmental programme of any country on Earth”. But how does that tally with the Truss government’s moves to potentially abolish hundreds of EU laws protecting wild places and regulating water quality, pollution and the use of pesticides?
We were told this government would reform farming subsidies so that landowners “farm in a way that protects and enhances our natural environment”. And yet ministers have signalled they may be about to ditch these vital reforms, which have been years in the making.
If you’re a voter in Yorkshire or Lancashire, you’ll be livid that the moratorium on fracking you assumed was a done deal after 2019 is back on the table.
