Sunak’s decision to try to legislate for new annual oil and gas licensing rounds irritated leading green Tory Chris Skidmore so much, he abruptly quit, not only as a Conservative, but as a Member of Parliament entirely. Labour officials are licking their lips as his seat has a majority of 11,000, so could be snatched.
Then, on the day the legislation was due to be debated in parliament, UK Cop26 chair - and another leading Tory - Alok Sharma (above), had a pop at Sunak’s bill, criticising it as a sign the government was “not serious” about meeting its international climate commitments. He added: “This bill is actually about doubling down on new oil and gas licences. It is actually the opposite of what we agreed to do internationally, so I won’t be supporting it.”
The vote hasn’t actually happened yet because parliament ran out of time to debate it on Monday, and it is scheduled to take place this week or next. But Sunak’s flip-flopping on climate - last year he launched a tirade against net zero plans and rowed back on some climate commitments including the electric vehicle mandate - is probably politically misjudged. You see, traditional Tories in seats like Skidmore’s believe in climate action. They may believe in fiscal conservatism but they also believe in tackling the big issues of our time, and to see someone playing fast and loose with the planet and the green economy is jarring. As a side note, the Liberal Democrats are hoping a new gas licence granted this week in the hills of Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s constituency will be enough to tip over his 8,000 majority and turn the blue seat yellow.
“Chris Skidmore is far closer to where the average member of the public is on climate change than Government policy,” says pollster Luke Tryl, who runs the More in Common thinktank. “So far, hard to say there has been any political upside from Sunak’s u-turns, and instead more political pain (including this pending by-election). The long-term effect of the Conservatives losing a pro-climate champion is a risk of increasing climate polarisation - which the UK had largely avoided to date. But it’s a wedge the Tories will find themselves on the wrong side of. They’d be far better to heed Skidmore’s warning.”
We’ve been pretty lucky in the UK so far for climate to have mostly been left out of election fights. We are due a general election this year or early next, and the signs are pointing towards an election full of climate misinformation from the Conservatives, who have thrown their weight behind oil and gas. Remember it was Conservative prime minister Theresa May who signed net zero into law; and in the 2019 election Boris Johnson put the green agenda at the heart of his “levelling up” promise. Even this bill due before parliament will do nothing for bills or energy security … but it will cook the planet just that bit more quickly. (For more, I wrote an explainer on just how it will do nothing to help the people of Britain.)
Anyway, the rebellion for this bill will likely be small. There just aren’t enough committed Tory MPs willing to vote against oil and gas expansion. There has been some political pain for Sunak but not enough for him to do yet another U-turn now he’s already doubled down. And as Lord Goldsmith – another leading green Tory – said, it’s likely Sunak just doesn’t really care about the environment or climate change, so he has no qualms about “maxing out” the North Sea and igniting a dangerous, misinformation-fuelled culture war on climate. If current polling holds, he won’t see the full consequences of his decisions until the general election.
Let’s just hope that his political games don’t destroy the fragile consensus around environmental action in this country.
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