Heat is on for leaders to tackle eco-backlash from cash-strapped voters

Editorial: The Uxbridge by-election and fears over Ulez have shown that green policies are a difficult sell for a financially-squeezed electorate

Ulez became the defining issue of the Uxbridge by-election (PA)

Who said by-elections don’t matter? In the case of the highly unexpected Uxbridge and South Ruislip result, the reverberations certainly seem to be changing things for the worse so far as tackling the climate crisis is concerned.

A total of 495 voters made the difference for the Tories in a close contest that the party shrewdly turned into a local referendum on the expansion of the London ultra-low emission zone by the Labour mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. Collectively, the electorate in this corner of west London have sharpened, if not created, the “green dilemma” for government and opposition.

Both main parties have reacted with a mixture of fear and panic to the result in the past few days. Michael Gove, previously reasonably sound on such matters, now warns about the dangers of the environment becoming a “religious crusade”. Only a few years ago he was the environment secretary in Theresa May’s cabinet when she enshrined the “net zero by 2050” target in law. Now he warns that the government shouldn’t be “asking too much, too quickly” of private landlords to make their properties more energy efficient.

However, other ministers still preach the green gospel, and Zac Goldsmith, who quit Rishi Sunak’s government in protest at the prime minister being “uninterested” in the green issues, warns that “to use these recent results to advocate the abandonment of the UK’s previous environmental leadership is cynical and idiotic”. Alok Sharma, former president of the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, points out: “It would be self-defeating for any political party to seek to break the political consensus on this vital agenda.”

Labour is no less conflicted. Sir Keir Starmer wants the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to “reflect” on his planned expansion of the ultra-low emission zone. Angela Rayner, Sir Keir’s deputy, is less restrained in her language as she says voters are being “thumped” for money. Ed Miliband, the shadow energy secretary, has made no secret of his concerns as his colleague Rachel Reeves has trimmed back Labour’s £28bn per annum green deal, but he has not yet intervened in the Ulez debate, which is just as well for party unity.

If Sir Keir wanted to be bold, he might reshuffle the evangelical Mr Miliband to another shadow portfolio, though it would also raise questions about Labour’s green commitments. Mr Khan, meanwhile, has proposed financial help for those affected by the Ulez expansion – rejected by the government – but has insisted the scheme will go ahead. It may yet cost him his mayoralty in next year’s election, especially if Jeremy Corbyn stands and disrupts the process.

Mr Gove, Sir Keir and Ms Rayner, among others, have a perfectly valid pragmatic point. The climate crisis is a huge political challenge, and in a democracy it forces difficult choices. As Mr Khan may discover, there is no point pursuing a green policy if it so alienates the electorate that they throw you and your policy out at the first opportunity; his Tory opponent would scrap the Ulez “on day one”, or so she claims. Who wins then? It is also worth recognising that Just Stop Oil’s tactics can also make more enemies than friends of the Earth among people usually well-disposed to green issues.

The uneasy and fragile cross-party consensus is wilting faster than a British tourist on a Greek beach at the moment; the cost of living crisis focusing the extreme electoral heat. Strange to say, the departure of Boris Johnson, apparently sincere about the climate crisis if nothing else, hasn’t helped keep the Tory party on the side of righteousness on this one.

There is now a clear and present danger that green policies will be ditched on both sides in a race to the bottom. Net zero is already emerging as a new dividing line within the Conservative Party, as contenders to succeed Mr Sunak jostle for advantage. As Europe burns and scientists warn that the chances of restraining global warming are deteriorating, it would be a tragedy if consensual climate crisis policies were to go up in smoke too.

The first task, on all sides, is not to panic. The costs to people and to business of the Ulez scheme, for example, were grossly exaggerated. There is a story that Labour canvassers were berated about the Ulez by one householder in Uxbridge who had a Tesla zero-emission electric car on his drive, convinced he’d have to pay £12.50 every time it hit the road (it’s exempt, as are the vast majority of all vans and cars).

The scheme would only have hurt 10 to 20 per cent of drivers, although it did so unfairly, with limited mitigations for residents or those on low incomes. The Ulez thus took on the essential characteristics of a poll tax – and in democracies that is always a bad move.

Given that the ageing small population of polluting vehicles would soon be scrapped anyway, Mayor Khan’s scheme could be phased in more gradually. Labour could do that, just as they could have pointed out that the London Ulez was introduced by Boris Johnson, former MP for Uxbridge, as mayor of London, and was foisted on the mayor by Grant Shapps as part of a finance deal for Transport for London.

There is also a rational, realistic debate about the costs and practicalities of electric cars and domestic heat pumps to be had. Both seem terrifyingly expensive and unviable to many middle-class and poorer families.

These people aren’t climate deniers, and they care as much as anyone about the future their children and grandchildren face on a planet that is becoming increasingly uninhabitable. They may well readily accept that net zero isn’t some “nice to have” option, but part of the answer to a transcendent threat.

What they cannot easily see is how they can afford to help. Must they give up their holidays, their cheap petrol and diesel cars, their gas boilers? If so, how? The politicians need to do far more about showing how change can happen without impoverishing people, and leaving them cold and without personal transportation. Low-cost green energy transforms the economics of heat pumps and electric vehicles. Technologies are advancing rapidly. A “green deal” on free upgraded insulation can pay for itself on a national level.

Popular fears about the new green way of life may be unjustified, and trivial in the context of the extinction of life on Earth, but they are real, and in a democracy they have to be accommodated and assuaged. That’s how it works. If our leaders fail to carry people with them, then there will be many more denouements like Uxbridge. The heat is on.

This article was amended on 7 August 2023. It previously said that there were no mitigations related to London’s Ulez scheme, but that was not accurate as there are some exemptions and grace periods.