Sir James Cleverly has been warned that proposing to tear up the Ulez ultra-low emission zone risks being “poison” to key voters in the London mayoral contest.
The former Home Secretary has signalled he may scale back the controversial scheme, introduced by Lord Sadiq Khan in 2019, if he gains the keys to City Hall.
After quitting the shadow Cabinet to launch his bid for London Mayor, Sir James said: "There's been a real war on the motorist.”
"In Outer London, this really quite vindictive assault on drivers, both people that drive for family reasons and for people that drive for business, is causing real harm,” he added.
“So I want to look at a whole range of options to ease the costs and pressure of people getting around the city and doing business in the city."
Lord Khan, pointing to research, argues that Ulez has delivered cleaner air for millions of people in the capital.
But the Conservatives have challenged the findings, particularly Ulez’s impact in Outer London in cutting air pollution.
In terms of the election for Mayor of London, a recent poll suggested Sir James would need to gain a large proportion of second preference Liberal Democrat votes to win.
It put Labour on 33% and the Green Party 14%, so a combined total of 47%.
Reform UK was in second place on 20%, opening up the prospect that the election run-off when second preference votes are counted, could be Laila Cunningham against Lord Khan or whoever is the Labour candidate.
The Tories were on 18%, making a joint total with Reform of 38%.
The Lib Dems were on 10%.
So for Sir James to get the backing of the majority of Londoners to win the mayoral election under the supplementary voting system he would almost certainly have to persuade a sizeable share of these Lib Dems voters to support him as their second preference contender.
“To win second preference votes from Liberal Democrats there are several issues where traditional centrist Conservative politics would be required,” Tony Travers, Professor in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics, told The Standard.
“Proposing to remove the ultra-low emission zone might help win back Reform voters in parts of Outer London but would be poison for many Lib Dems.
“Supporting the UK leaving the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights) to reduce asylum seeking might win votes in Essex, but would be less attractive to many moderate London Tories.”
Former London Assembly member Sir James has told how, if selected as the Tory mayoral contender, he would seek to fight the contest on “classical” Conservative policies and as “an aspirational, entrepreneurial, forward-thinking Conservative candidate in tune with the city”.
The MP for Braintree in Essex added: “The personal attributes are at least as important as party affiliations, that's how you win London.”
However, Professor Travers outlined the challenges that ex-Foreign Secretary Sir James would face, including having been an ardent backer of Brexit.
He explained: “James Cleverly, who voted to leave the EU, would need to tread carefully into the role of Conservative candidate.
“It would be no use adopting a ‘Brexit worked wonderfully’ line in a city which voted by a wide margin to remain in the EU.
“Cleverly would need to be more Heseltine than ‘hard line’,” he added, referring to the pro-European Conservative peer.
