Were you a centre-right leader seeking the perfect person to condemn you for implementing a mildly populist measure then a harrumphing Al Gore would surely be about as good as it gets. To have this cold fish, liberal left American jet-setter – known for excusing his own giant carbon footprint on grounds that he purchases ‘offsets’ – leading the elite outcry against his climate change speech must count as a major win for Rishi Sunak.
Gore described Sunak’s policy shift as ‘shocking’ and ‘really disappointing’. He claimed that friends of his in the UK Conservative party were privately expressing their ‘utter disgust’ about the move.
On climate policy Sunak now represents Conservative voters far more faithfully than Johnson ever did
As a bullseye in upsetting all the right people, Sunak’s pragmatic shift away from certain very intrusive net zero measures has eclipsed even Boris Johnson’s famous prorogation of parliament in autumn 2019. The rage of Gore – and his British counterparts such as Zac Goldsmith – is likely to help earn Sunak a hearing among the millions of deeply disenchanted habitual Tory voters whose behaviour will be crucial to the outcome of the next general election.
Nobody expects these traditional, dyed-in-the-wool Conservatives to defect to Labour in big numbers. But their disappearance from the Tory column in opinion polls has been seen as an indication that many will sit on their hands on polling day. Not only have they seen Sunak as an establishment stooge, but also as the prime assassin of Brexiteer-in-chief Johnson.
On this issue Sunak now represents them far more faithfully than Johnson ever did. Indeed, Johnson also put out a statement criticising Sunak’s modest climate policy backtracking, warning him that he ‘cannot afford to falter’ on the quest for carbon neutrality.
Sunak and his key aides can take credit for daring to break free from the net zero zealotry that has swept up almost the entire political class over the past decade. But it is down to a stroke of luck that another significant development has reinforced the impact of the move.
This stroke of luck is Keir Starmer’s inexplicable decision to jump off the fence regarding his approach to post-Brexit relations with the EU, breaking both his ankles in the process. By implying he will sign Britain up to taking an annual allocation of unwanted irregular migrants to the EU and then saying in terms that he does not plan to diverge from Brussels policy in many important areas Starmer has sent a shudder through the alienated Trad Con vote.
Not being seen as much of a threat by social and cultural conservatives was the closest thing the Labour leader had to a political superpower. Typically for such an underwhelming communicator, it involved the absence of a negative rather than the possession of a positive. But now he’s blown it, providing Tory campaigners with much-needed doorstep ammunition.
Should the Supreme Court verdict on the Rwanda removals policy go in Sunak’s favour and deportations get underway after Christmas then another crucial dividing line with Labour will be accentuated, providing the Prime Minister with a further bonding opportunity with his core vote. Starmer is committed to scrapping the scheme; the prospect of him doing that once it is no longer a pipe dream but serving as a disincentive against further small boat crossings would serve as another tug upon the thread for the lost Tory tribe.
A week was said by Starmer’s hero Harold Wilson to be a long time in politics. The past week has peeled Sunak away from the Davos-class global political elite at the very time when Starmer has been enjoying the backslapping company of Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron.
It has even served as a reminder that Starmer was once asked whether he preferred Davos or the House of Commons and actually answered: ‘Davos’. The chap who knelt for BLM and thought a man could have a cervix is suddenly back in view just as the Prime Minister is showing a bit of gumption.
It may not yet add up to a game-changing sequence for the Conservatives. But it should certainly cause some of their MPs to dare to dream that the next election will not be quite the massacre they had feared and make some of their erstwhile voters to start to ponder the notion of holding their noses and doing the usual come polling day.
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