
Receive free Rishi Sunak updates
we will send you myFT Daily Digest Email summary of latest news Rishi Sunak There is news every morning.
This article is a live version of our Inside Politics newsletter.Sign up here Get a newsletter sent straight to your inbox every weekday
Good morning. A row breaks out within the Conservative Party over Rishi Sunak’s plans – Henry Zeffman, Chris Mason and Brian Wheeler reveal on BBC – Downplaying measures related to UK net zero target. The government’s former net-zero czar Chris Skidmore and COP26 president Alok Sharma both warned it was an electoral and ecological disaster. It seems to me that they may be right, but the reasons for Sunak abandoning key commitments are not electoral reasons but ideological ones. Here are some thoughts on this.
Internal Politics is edited by Georgina Quach.Follow Stephen on X @stephankb Please send gossip, thoughts and feedback to insidepolitics@ft.com
love minus zero
I think Rishi Sunak’s plan to water down Britain’s green commitments has all the makings of a political disaster. The net zero pledge has strong support within the Conservative Party, and given the government’s weak political agenda, blue-on-blue rows are likely to dominate the Tory conference season. Car companies aren’t satisfied either, and that dissatisfaction is likely to continue to spread. (Ford became the first Publicly warn the government not to relax current targets Ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030. )
But I think it would be a mistake to think that the plan is driven primarily by Sunak’s sense of electoral benefit. Rather, this is due to the fact that the Prime Minister will not enshrine the net zero target into law and wishes it had not been in the manifesto.
To the extent that the Conservatives have a slim majority in the Uxbridge by-election or events in Europe, they do so because they give Sunak enough of a push to follow his heart on those issues.
The big political challenge facing the Prime Minister is that, although he himself is firmly on the right of the Conservative Party, his leadership relies on support from the left and center of the party, who are largely true believers in the net zero goal. Even some of his strongest critics on the right in the party are staunch supporters of the policy: Zak Goldsmith, a close ally of Boris Johnson, said Sunak’s downplaying of Britain’s net zero emissions target was a “moment of shame” , while Simon Clark, a staunch Trussite, Sunak was also warned not to do this.
Survey data collected by Center for Towns/UK Electoral Research and Ipsos shows that the political implications of abandoning the positions Johnson laid out in 2019 are bad by any measure.


my thoughts yes The truth is, as with increasing police patrols, removing dangerous concrete from schools or cutting taxes, there is a huge gap between what British voters think. think and the price British voters are willing to pay for it.
But the problem with watering down the UK’s green commitment is that you are avoiding the political pain of asking voters to bear the direct costs of the net zero transition and exchanging it for the political pain of not doing enough on the net zero transition. If you are in opposition, like the Conservatives in London, Sunak’s approach is a good choice.But it’s bad if you’re the ruling party because no one will thank you for stopping them from bearing the costs, but people yes Will blame you for downplaying net zero emissions.
If you ask me, not much has changed at the heart of British politics since Johnson’s 2019 election victory, and anything that takes the Conservatives away from their 2019 manifesto will come with huge electoral costs. Given that the small boat issue means the Tories will have to renege on the promises they made on immigration, and that the various economic and social crises that have hit the UK since 2019 mean they are forced to renege on Johnson’s commitment to public services, the Conservatives The last thing needed is an abandonment of Johnson’s manifesto commitments on climate.
On top of that, Labor are afraid of making spending commitments because they don’t want to give Sunak room to attack them on tax. For the Conservatives to withdraw from climate policy without incurring direct costs to government, such as delaying the switch to electric vehicles or ending gas boilers, is a gift to Labour (vote on one of its current ambitions in the poll below).
Sunak’s beliefs place him to the right of the Conservative Party, while voters favor liberal, relatively moderate positions (or rather, like) His best performance is a big reason for his declining approval ratings. Sunak enjoyed strong support from centrist, pro-Remain voters at the start of his tenure as chancellor. His position has since eroded that advantage, and his standing in the country is now pretty much what we would expect from the average leader of a party that has been in power for 13 years and has faced many local and international crises: namely, that’s not good. The following is a survey by Ipsos.

But all that is beside the point: Sunak’s main motivation for downplaying the UK’s net-zero emissions target is not electoral advantage. This is faith. Perhaps he will reap some kind of political dividend from this – but that seems unlikely to me, and instead he is taking the Conservatives from the place where they usually win elections to ruins.
Now try this
I continue to look for new Star Wars series, Ahsoka, perfectly average.Go watch a classic TV series, like the BBC version espionageor under six feeton the contrary.
Today’s headlines
-
Starmer wants to rewrite Brexit deal | Keir Starmer has told French President Emmanuel Macron that he wants to strengthen cross-Channel ties in “very politicized” talks covering issues such as trade and security.
-
surprise drop | UK inflation fell below expectations in August, falling to 6.7% from 6.8% in July, rather than rising due to rising petrol costs.
-
HS2 costs rising | The £70 billion cost of the troubled second phase of Britain’s high-speed rail project will be raised to nearly £91 billion within months to combat inflation, according to calculations by the Financial Times.
-
Homelessness surges | After years of stagnant housing construction and rising demand, rents in the country have reached their highest levels since the Office for National Statistics began recording them in 2016. This increase has resulted in areas that did not have significant homelessness problems suddenly facing the problem of increasing numbers of people experiencing homelessness.
Should a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars be delayed? Click here to vote.

Svlook