The Conservatives were nearly wiped out at last July’s general election, and the party is currently trailing Nigel Farage’s Reform in the polls. You might think then that the handful of remaining ‘big beasts’ on the Tory benches would decide to try and work together. Instead, a split appears to be emerging in the party over net zero.
James Cleverly took a thinly-veiled swipe at Kemi Badenoch’s green policy in a speech to the Conservative Environment Network (CEN) last night. In one of her first major policy interventions as leader, Badenoch abandoned the Conservatives’ support for the country reaching net zero emissions by 2050. But Cleverly has now argued that the party should not give up on the climate agenda. In his speech, he took aim at what he called ‘neo-luddites’ on the right who seem scared of using green technologies to protect the environment:
Why are we closing steel plants in this country only to buy steel from abroad?
Conservative governments have made remarkable strides in offshore wind energy.
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