Labour is facing a civil war over ‘net zero’ obsession

Written by Matthew Lynn on November 22, 2024. Posted in Current News

Louise Haigh and Jonathan Reynolds are bound to butt heads over the ‘green’ transition

It was Europe for the Conservatives for much of the last twenty years, reform of public services and the Iraq war for the Blair government, and Europe again during the Thatcher years.

Every governing party starts fighting amongst themselves eventually. And this government won’t be any different.

With looming job losses from Ed Miliband’s ideological crusade to make Britain the global leader on ‘climate change’ it is already clear that a civil war within Labour is about to break out over net zero – and the battle will be a vicious one.

At a crunch meeting later this week, the car-makers will tell the Transport Secretary Louise Haigh and the Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds that thousands of jobs in the industry will soon be lost because of the unrealistic targets to sell electric vehicles.

The companies already have to make sure that 22 per cent of the vehicles they sell are battery-powered, and that is set to increase to 28 per cent in January.

If they don’t, there will be fines of up to £15,000 per vehicle.

Stellantis, which owns Peugeot, Citroen and Fiat, will warn that the plan may mean factories have to close, and others may follow that lead.

Haigh and Reynolds may well be sympathetic. The trouble is, trying telling the party’s leading ‘Green Commissar’ Ed Miliband that the target has to be relaxed. High on his own apocalyptic rhetoric, Miliband will no doubt refuse.

After all, what do a few car factory jobs count for when the very survival of the planet is at stake? And, anyway, any workers made redundant can simply switch to one of the hundreds of thousands of “well-paid green jobs” the transition to a ‘carbon’-free economy will create.

Haigh will be sent packing.

The looming battle over EV quotas will just be a foretaste of what is to come.

The ‘net zero’ obsession is going to throw a lot of people out of work over the next few years. (which will greatly influence who they next vote for – Ed)

We have already seen that with the closure of the Port Talbot steel works in Wales, and now we are seeing it with the potential shuttering of car factories as well.

With some of the highest prices for electricity in the world, and more than double the United States, we will see a lot more traditional heavy industry close down very soon.

That will get even worse when the new round of ‘carbon’ border taxes come into force, driving up the price of imported raw materials.

If any factories survive that blizzard of extra costs it will be a miracle.

Meanwhile, those “well-paid industrial jobs” have proved to be largely a mirage.

The trade unions are already getting anxious about the impact on their members, and rightly so. It is going to be a bloodbath.

The real dividing line in this contest will be a very old one. It will pit Labour’s traditional, working class and trade union base, which is more concerned about jobs and wages, against the middle-class, sandal-wearing, ideological wing of the party, which is more concerned with ‘saving the planet’.

The most successful Labour leaders have managed to bring those two tribes together. But they have very little in common, and very different priorities.

The battle has not yet erupted into the open yet, but it is simmering in the background.

Over the next couple of years, it will turn into a full-scale civil war, on a scale to match Tory divisions over Europe, and every bit as ugly and bitter.

Who will win? It is impossible to say right now. And yet one point is certain – the battle will tear the party apart.

See more here telegraph.co.uk

Header image: Philip Morris International

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