Reckless Rishi has turned his back on eco-Britain

Editorial: The prime minister has ignored the furious backlash from within his own party to reverse key green pledges – and has done so at his peril

Rishi Sunak has been accused of claiming to have ‘scrapped’ measures such as taxes on meats and flying that were never government policy (PA Wire)

Betrayal” is an emotive term, and ought not to be deployed lightly, but it feels fitting at a moment when Rishi Sunak abandoned his party’s green agenda, fractured a precious and fragile cross-party consensus on net zero, and relinquished Britain’s leadership role in the battle against climate change.

Grievous as all that is, it is not even clear what political (let alone economic) benefit he will derive from his move. Rarely has statesmanship been ditched in favour of recklessness for so little.

Even Boris Johnson, a world-class charlatan, didn’t panic as badly as Mr Sunak has in the face of resistance to these planet-saving policies. As the former prime minister remarked: “Business must have certainty about our net zero commitments. This country leads on tackling climate change and in creating new green technology. The green industrial revolution is already generating huge numbers of high-quality jobs, and helping to drive growth and level up our country.”