By Alliance President Terry Gips
Last week our Humor of the Week featured the ridiculously laughable excuses by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to void his nation’s climate commitments. Our Good News this week is that he and his Conservative party were surprisingly punished at the polls for his climate walk back with losses in two local elections normally won by Conservatives by more than 20%.
Business Green said the Conservatives had “misread the public mood on green issues” and failed in their attempt to make the case with their voters. These are “historic” results and “a brutal reality check for the Prime Minister,” Greenpeace UK’s head of politics Rebecca Newsom told Business Green. She continued, “Sunak’s cynical attack on climate action, his ditching of green policies, and attempts to drag net zero into his culture war strategy have failed to shift the dial with voters.”
“He has embarrassed Britain abroad, destabilised business investment, confused consumers, misled ordinary people about the real causes of rising bills, and failed in basic morality by backtracking on climate commitments – all for a supposed short-term electoral benefit that hasn’t materialised,” added Newsom.
She pointed to recent polling suggesting that in seats across the country a substantial majority of voters wanted to see more ambitious environmental policies, according to Business Green. Polling found two thirds of people in both electoral districts said that “climate policies will influence how they vote.”
“The warning signs were there. All of the wrong lessons were taken…If the government wants to avoid further humiliation at next year’s general election, and Labour want to continue seeing victories like those seen last night, they had better learn the right ones,” emphasized Newsom.
Meanwhile, many Conservatives agreed that if the government doesn’t change course that it forebodes the fall of the Conservative government. Hopefully, Americans will follow the British example of tossing out elected officials who aren’t committed to addressing our climate crisis.