Rishi Sunak got it right on Net Zero – he’ll rile the metropolitan elite but he’s speaking for ordinary people
RISHI SUNAK’s decision to roll back or scrap net zero measures might have sent the chattering classes apoplectic but it’s going down very well with the voters who will ultimately determine whether or not he stays in No10.
That’s the message from my latest poll of ordinary people up and down the country who, understandably, have become increasingly concerned about both the scale and spiralling cost of the green agenda, which they often feel is being imposed on them by an out-of-touch elite who ignore or dismiss the financial reality facing ordinary families.
While you don’t often hear about them in our national debate, it is the working-class, the Brexiteers, the over-50s, and all those people who took a punt on Boris Johnson in 2019 — and who could easily determine the outcome of the next election — who support Rishi’s rollback of net zero deadlines and willingness to take on the stifling orthodoxy of the “Green Blob”.
Weary masses
Take the PM’s decision to delay banning the sale of petrol and diesel cars to 2035, for example, which — contrary to the hysteria and catastrophising among the elite class in London — is merely bringing Britain in line with the rest of Europe.
While you would not think it were you to listen only to the usual types shrieking on social media, half of people oppose the ban while only one in three support it (the rest are undecided).
Much like the Ulez car clampdown in London, it was simply never very popular among the increasingly weary masses.
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And now look under the bonnet.
While support for the ban is strongest among the very people who will struggle the least from the net zero agenda, either because they live in cities and don’t need a car or are rich enough to buy new cars and overhaul their homes — middle-class professionals, Londoners, Remainers — opposition spirals among those who will be hit hardest by these measures.
In fact, it soars to 64 per cent among the UK’s skilled mechanics, plumbers and other workers, 63 per cent among 2019 Conservative voters, and 63 per cent among older people, all of whom will struggle financially to overhaul their cars, their homes, their lives, just to keep the virtue-signalling green lobby happy.
And it’s the same story, by the way, when it comes to a whole host of other net zero issues.
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Consistently, I find the same voters are the most strongly opposed to the creeping spread of Ulez-type fines on hard-working drivers.
They are also the most supportive of the “Blade Runner” vigilantes who are still tearing down Ulez cameras in London, the most likely to say green taxes and penalties on motorists have “gone too far”, the most likely to reject the idea that the Government is “on the side of motorists”, and the most likely to think the ruling class has simply lost touch with ordinary workers.
More often than not, large majorities of them oppose these measures and are openly sceptical of the aspirations of a London-based elite class.
And they have a point.
Much like demanding open borders, mass immigration or rampant globalisation, for the new elite who dominate the institutions, the increasingly radical green agenda is morphing into a “luxury belief” — one they use to win social status and applause from other members of the elite and which brings them few costs, but which imposes enormous costs on others who never supported it in the first place.
And this is why, as I’ve been telling people around Rishi in No10 Downing Street, net zero and the green agenda is about to become a powerful new dividing line in our politics — a line separating an out-of-touch, London-based, financially secure and morally righteous elite, who are losing sight of how their policies are affecting the rest of us.
The hard-working, financially precarious masses are increasingly having to upend their lives and their personal finances to try to satisfy the demands of this group.
Makes perfect sense
And this is not just why net zero and the green agenda will have a major impact on the next election.
This fault line will now likely stay with us for years, if not decades, to come.
The vast majority of us want to live in a clean, safe and thriving environment, which is why Rishi was right not to scrap the net zero target altogether.
But a growing number of us are now openly questioning how best to get there and whether the new eco religion has really got it right.
And let’s be honest.
Having already lived through a long line of elite blunders, mistakes and errors — from disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the failure to see the global financial crash coming; from the mismanagement of Brexit and Covid lockdowns to their failure to see inflation coming — the growing scepticism among voters towards the green agenda should not be silenced.
It should be welcomed.
So, in my view, Rishi’s decision to speak loudly and clearly to these voters might rile the metropolitan elite but it makes perfect sense and is, at the end of the day, sound politics.
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Ordinary people want somebody to speak for them and push back against a stifling lofty consensus.
And Rishi is now showing them he might just be the man for the job.