When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak hung a portrait of his predecessor Nigel Lawson behind his desk. This signalled how deeply he identified with the great tax-cutter, champion of privatisation and believer in popular capitalism. But it is also worth recalling that Lawson, who died in April, deplored what he called “the new religion of eco-fundamentalism”.
In this respect, Sunak is proving no less a disciple to his master. In a campaign email last month, the PM denounced Just Stop Oil as “eco-zealots” and “eco-fanatics”. In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph this weekend, he declared that “I just want to make sure people know that I’m on their side in supporting them to use their cars to do all the things that matter to them”; announced a review of low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), an absurd incursion into local authority decision-making; and accused Labour of being “anti-motorist”, citing the Welsh government’s plan to introduce a 20mph limit in all residential areas and Sadiq Khan’s extension of Ulez.
Yesterday, meanwhile, he made his priorities absolutely clear by unveiling a “maxing out” strategy in the North Sea that will involve 100-plus drilling licences. This, he claimed, would in no way compromise the UK’s commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement. To reinforce the latter point, No 10 disclosed that two carbon capture and storage (CCS) schemes — the Acorn project in Aberdeenshire and Viking in the Humber — will benefit from the £20 billion allotted by the Government for such schemes.
This is the deplorable calculation — the PM is putting short-term electoral interests ahead of the fate of our children
The dismay that these announcements have provoked — Chris Skidmore, the Tory MP who led a review into net zero, said that the new North Sea licences were “on the wrong side of modern voters” — is entirely justified.
For a start, the Government’s claim that the strategy will strengthen the nation’s energy security is bogus. Oil and gas yielded by the prospective licences will be sold on the international market like any other fossil fuels, and, though more drilling in the North Sea may bring some revenue to the Exchequer, it will not affect the British consumer one way or the other. But it will make it considerably harder, diplomatically, for the UK to press other nations to scale down drilling. As Lord Deben, the former Conservative environment secretary, told the BBC yesterday: “We have lost our leadership by making this choice”.
As for carbon capture, it is one of the most suspect forms of “greenwashing” presently available to fossil fuel companies. Its benefits to the environment have yet to be proven. What is certain is that it enables oil and gas companies to carry on business as usual at the public expense. Referring to such schemes in June, António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, said that “we are hurtling towards disaster with far too many willing to bet it all on wishful thinking, unproven technologies and silver bullet solutions”.
What is Sunak up to? Emboldened by his party’s (narrow) victory in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election, where Ulez extension was a significant issue, and under pressure from the Tory Right to ditch or dilute the Government’s environmental commitments, he is turning green policy into a new front in the culture wars. His approach, he alleges, is “proportionate and pragmatic” and will not “unnecessarily give people more hassle and more costs in their lives” — as though saving humanity from climate cataclysm were just one fiscal policy option among many.
This is the deplorable calculation that lurks behind Sunak’s perma-grin. To borrow the striking image used by Roman Krznaric, author of The Good Ancestor, the PM is “colonising the future”, putting his party’s short-term electoral interests ahead of the fate of our children and grandchildren. Ironically, he has almost certainly misjudged even those electoral interests: poll after poll shows that public opinion has shifted significantly in favour of environmental protection.
All of which provides Sir Keir Starmer with a great political and ethical opportunity. At present, the Labour leader remains paralysed by what he imagines is the lesson of Uxbridge: the Tories campaigned on Ulez and won; ergo he must distance himself from greenery. But this is an absurdly general conclusion to draw from a highly specific by-election result. If ever there was a moment for Starmer to be bold and to take a risk, it is this. We shall very soon discover if he has more to offer the country than political caution.
