Sunak Suffers Major Tory Rebellion Over Net Zero As He Relies on Labour Votes to Push Through Electric Car Quotas

Rishi Sunak has suffered one of the biggest rebellions of his premiership as dozens of Tory MPs, including Suella Braverman and Dame Priti Patel, voted against his Net Zero plans. The Telegraph has the story.

The two former Home Secretaries joined backbenchers to oppose a quota on sales of electric cars.

The measure was passed with Labour’s support on Monday evening but will be a worry to Mr. Sunak as Tory rebels reached the “magic number” of 26 – the number of Tory MPs that would overturn his majority.

It came minutes after he suffered his first defeat in the House of Commons, with MPs – including 22 Conservatives – voting to speed up compensation for victims of the infected blood scandal.

Senior Tories are worried that Mr. Sunak, who in September announced that a ban on sales of petrol and diesel cars would be pushed back by five years, is reneging on the commitment.

The controversial mandate compels car manufacturers to ensure at least 22% of their vehicles sold will be electric from January 1st.

By 2030, 80% of cars sold will need to be zero emission, even though the outright ban on petrol and diesel does not come in until 2035.

David Jones, a former Cabinet minister who voted against the measure, said that it “completely negates” Mr. Sunak’s pledge to delay Net Zero targets.

He told the Telegraph: “[The vote] took everybody by surprise. We all assumed that there was going to be a more sensible and gradual transition to Net Zero and this has completely undone that.”

Worth reading in full.

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wokeman
wokeman
2 years ago

There is no such thing as a sensible transition to net zero. The whole thing needs to be abandoned ASAP. No surprise our unelected pm pushing this through for his donors. An unelected pm banning affordable cars, is that democracy? The Climate Change Act must be repealed as a matter of urgency otherwise we will continue to be governed by a Marxist clique, the Climate Change Committee. That the Tories have not done so is to their eternal shame.

JeremyP99
2 years ago
Reply to  wokeman

What is NEVER mentioned is that to achieve NetZero will require the most huge amount of fossil fuels.

And when reached, the same, to guarantee the grid.

JaneDoeNL
JaneDoeNL
2 years ago
Reply to  JeremyP99

That’s because the net zero they really want to achieve is a zero economy, that produces nothing and eradicates humans.

Too many politicians owned by the WEF, too many other politicians cowards and/or morons.

huxleypiggles
2 years ago
Reply to  JaneDoeNL

Spot on.👍

David101
2 years ago
Reply to  JaneDoeNL

I don’t think they want to eradicate humans, or even de-populate. I think they just want total hegemony over the economy and us toiling to ensure all the wealth is kept in their pockets. This is why EVERY single development we see to tackle various “crises” globally, real or imaginary, is designed in such a way that poorest take the biggest hit, consistently, every time.
And of course is also designed to produce multiple extra billionaires in Big Tech, Big Pharma and Big Everything.

huxleypiggles
2 years ago
Reply to  wokeman

https://youtu.be/LwEg7BvQXsg?si=jpT_U-CJ5KIMKhFR

I posted this last night so for those who haven’t seen it.

From the increasingly influential ‘Geoff Buys Cars.’

Be warned this is GRIM.

Ron Smith
Ron Smith
2 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

You stole my thunder even when I posted that first. The more that see that the better though!

RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  wokeman

There is no such thing as an elected PM. There are elected MPs who select someone from their ranks they advise the monarch to appoint as PM. And when it becomes too obvious that their latest choice has again turned into a liability, they select someone new. Since 2011, the average PM has had a shelf-life of just under 2½ years and for as long as the majority of the members of the House of Commons claim allegiance to the Conversationalist and Disunited Party, they’ll keep changing PMs as quickly as they can convince someone else to try his hands on the job.

wokeman
wokeman
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

I’m aware of the system but a pm who has actually won an election has rather more credibility than one who hasn’t, at least in the eyes of asleep voters. Had anyone even heard of Sunak in 2019? Now he’s the political king of the UK.

RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  wokeman

The last public face of the Tories during a general election Got Brexit done! by explicitly deferring to international experts who’d have to make the policy decisions mere English politicians weren’t qualified to make. That was literally incredibly credible for someone supposedly worrying about restoring British democracy & sovereignity. Johnson was always an amateur comedian not really concerned about much beyond Who do I impregnate today? and that’s exactly how he governed – or perhaps – rather not governed, that’s tedious stuff better left to experts, anyway.

So-called democracy in the West is a smokescreen to keep the population occupied with watching and betting on the outcome of party-infighting and their limited ability for causing public-face exchanges while actual policy remains pretty fixed. Even when the people really don’t play ball and vote in some offically dreaded right-winger making ancient sounding noises about patriotic mothership, as in case of the Italian melon, once in office, the dreaded right winger turns out as just another of the same kind, only with different buddies.

No one’s salvation ever arrived through a ballot box.

Ron Smith
Ron Smith
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

Italian Melon….Some say she was ‘got at’.

RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  Ron Smith

What does ‘got at’ mean here? (Gap in my English).

Apart from that, I suspect the usual political physics of Money always rolls downhill¹, especially in a situation where a No party gets to implement its manifesto coalition government is the norm.

¹ Idea I just had: It’s known that corporations have to ESG in order to attract money from large investors. How’s that with debt-financed states? Are the corresponding governments really free to make their own policy decisions or do they need to bow to investors as well? They certainly need money from them.

Ron Smith
Ron Smith
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

‘Got at’ as in someone talked to her behind the scenes.

RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  Ron Smith

Thanks.

huxleypiggles
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

Actually, to expand on what Ron posted “Got at,” implies the person in question has been spoken to behind the scenes in a stern manner and usually with some barely concealed threats in the messaging.

Corky Ringspot
2 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

For your information, RW, I’d go a step further even than that, in suggesting that “got at” always implies threats made at some point. Typically, a jury is said to have been “got at” if its members have been threatened by the defendant in a legal case: “Send me to jail if you dare; friends of mine know where your children go to school” – that sort of thing.
English not your first language? Fair enough, I’ll stop dismissing your posts on the (admittedly frivolous) grounds that people who write ‘quirky’ English can’t be taken seriously. There, that’s got the pomposity out of my system for today.

Ron Smith
Ron Smith
2 years ago
Reply to  wokeman

They blame the mini budget for the ousting of Truss, but I vaguely remember something happen in the markets BEFORE the budget….If anyone can recall?

JohnK
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

It’s true that the general public do not actually vote for a PM directly, but many voters behave as if the system allows them to do so, as if it is a pseudo presidential system. Years ago, when Gordon Brown became the leader of the LP, quite a few typical Labour voters (which I was aware of) did not vote Labour at the general election (because they were not happy with Gordon becoming the leader), and a Tory was elected.

Of course, with the present one, not even the Party members selected him as individual members.

huxleypiggles
2 years ago
Reply to  wokeman

Climate Change Committee.

The use of acronyms without providing the full title after first use is bad form. It annoys me too.

huxleypiggles
2 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

This was a reply to Wokeman asking for an explanation of ‘CCC.’

Peter W
Peter W
2 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

A subsidiary of the CCP.

Jon Mors
Jon Mors
2 years ago
Reply to  wokeman

MPs don’t have good incentives to vote rationally.

The PM has vast powers of patronage. It’s a big drop in income to move from a cabinet post to the back benches.

Longer term ‘career’ considerations mean that you have to be careful about sticking out from the majority and ‘not being a team player’.

MPs also think about what their voting record might mean for their social cachet outside of Parliament and what that means for future employment, board positions on businesses etc., I’m convinced this is a factor in Rishi’s own thinking. Getting a board position on Netflix or wherever might not be so easy if he is the person to take us out of the ECHR.

They also seek to avoid cognitive dissonance, like all of us.

Against that, acting according to principles and in line with the interests of their constituents stand no chance.

varmint
2 years ago
Reply to  wokeman

Net Zero is like jumping from a plane before you have invented the parachute.
—-I stole that one from Talk TV or somewhere.

Ron Smith
Ron Smith
2 years ago
Reply to  wokeman

As Stanley Jonson put it…..That is the National Plan.

NeilofWatford
2 years ago

Sunak.
Says one thing.
Does another.
His job is to keep smiling and follow the orders of his globalist overlords.

psychedelia smith
2 years ago

Nobody wants them, therefore forced communist quotas will drive car makers out of business and make second hand cars unaffordable for most people. So it’s all going to plan then. Klaus will be happy.

Not to pointlessly raise anyone’s blood pressure but for those who do end up driving in this forthcoming dystopia, this video is terrifying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwEg7BvQXsg&ab_channel=GeoffBuysCars

JaneDoeNL
JaneDoeNL
2 years ago

Indeed – manufacturers are opting out of ‘renewable energy’ and EVs because they are – ironically – unsustainable from an economic point of view.

Although I have no high opinion of most politicians, I don’t believe that every single one of them is too stupid to understand where this will lead, so the conclusion must be that they are intentionally destroying the West. However, when the power runs out, so does the internet, the smartphones, the netflix – the plebs will gather and revolt as they will have nothing else to do.

stewart
2 years ago
Reply to  JaneDoeNL

They are neither too stupid to realise where this goes or intentionally trying to destroy the west.

This is what they need to do to continue to progress in their careers. They put their interests way above those of anyone else. Except of course, that their job – in theory – is to represent the common interest. And they have the power to affect your life.

So you life is in the hands of people who will sell you out and screw you over in whichever way they need to if it helps their career. That is the reality of our “democratic system”.

It’s always been that way. The difference is that the state, which these MPs provide a front for, is encroaching into more and more aspects of your life, telling you what you can and can’t buy, telling companies what they can and cannot produce.

Our state is becoming totalitarian, under the pretext of avoiding climate change.

psychedelia smith
2 years ago
Reply to  stewart

You make some good points and I’m sure everyone on here can agree with most of them but the problem is you still think this is unintentional and somehow down to bumbling incompetence and short term grasping.

Here’s a brilliant short history of how we got here and where we’re going if our zombie nation doesn’t wake up. From Kissinger to Schwab, the Rockefellers, Gettys, the WEF, Gates, Davos and the rest of the sociopathic Predator Class shower of shit who now make our decisions for us.

It’s well worth a watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mK-FMY1374&ab_channel=IvorCummins

stewart
2 years ago

I don’t think it’s incompetence or bumbling. I’m arguing the opposite. These MPs are tools, the useful idiots/willing servants of the global predator class. They are told what to do and they do it in exchange for better career prospects.

I know perfectly well that MPs are the front men of the global elite. They are the part of the system designed to pacify the masses by creating the illusion that ordinary people vote in their representatives who then male decisions. All people are voting in are the salespeople who are.going to sell them the shit the global elite have decided.to serve up to them.

Ron Smith
Ron Smith
2 years ago
Reply to  stewart

And a nanny state too…I heard then discussing ‘should cars be banned around schools’. These seem to be policies to get a conversation going on shows like Jeremy Vine and to ‘test the water’.

varmint
2 years ago
Reply to  JaneDoeNL

I don’t believe they are all stupid either, but it is hard to get a man to agree on something when his ability to pay his mortgage and feed his family depends upon NOT agreeing. Group think is a powerful thing.

Ron Smith
Ron Smith
2 years ago

As he also mentioned in the video, if petrol cars will be rendered worthless, where do all these people with classic cars stand, or anyone that has just spent thousands on a petrol car. That would be depreciation on steroids!

Sepulchrave
Sepulchrave
2 years ago

I own an EV and it works very well for me, I am fortunate enough to have a drive where I can charge it and solar panels that provide cheap electricity.

However, currently EVs are not practical for many people and deadlines, mandates, and quotas do not magic the problems away.

MichaelM
2 years ago
Reply to  Sepulchrave

The only way we stop undemocratic or authoritarian impositions on us is by mass non-compliance. When some do comply, the power of the masses to effect outcomes is diminished. Divide and rule.

Sepulchrave
Sepulchrave
2 years ago
Reply to  MichaelM

Clearly, EVs don’t currently meet the needs of everyone but that doesn’t stop me buying one, and that doesn’t mean I agree with the daft nonsense that Sunak is promoting.

varmint
2 years ago
Reply to  Sepulchrave

I was discussing one day the energy and climate issue with someone who owned an electric car. They did not seem too happy with what I was saying. The man said to me rather abruptly “have you ever driven or owned an electric car sir”? I replied “No I haven’t”———He said “Well there you go then”——-He thought he had put me in my place till I replied “I am not criticising electric cars, I am criticising the governments that try to coerce me into one”. ——Check Mate.

Jon Garvey
2 years ago

There are altogether too many measures that take Parliament by surprise, or in other ways remove the ability to scrutinize legislation. Democracy now is like getting people to sign documents whilst covering up the text above.

JeremyP99
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Garvey

Whatever they do do, our elected representatives gave up on representing us long ago.

2012 expenses scandal a sign
2016 attempts to scupper Brexit
2020 refusal to scrutinise govt over Covid.

Stop voting. It’s a complete waste of time, and as the anarchists of my youth used to say, “It only encourages them”.

With rare exceptions, such as Bridgen, they are beyond hope.

Jon Garvey
2 years ago
Reply to  JeremyP99

That might be a sensible option if low turnouts encouraged politicians to resign or rethink. In fact they get to govern as completely on a 10% turnout as on a 90% turnout.

I learned that back at university, where Students Union Membership was mandatory, only the activists could be bothered to attend meetings and vote, and the newspaper headlines were about students voting to exclude speakers, stop wars, and whatever else the New Left wanted. Now the same thing means Warwick Uni students being forced to go Vegan.

It’s harder to form a new political force and vote it in, but it’s the only legitimate route for change. The alternative is to wait for the downtrodden to rebel violently under the charismatic leader who turns out to be as bad as the old lot.

stewart
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Garvey

They’re not taken by surprise. They know exactly what they’re doing.

You’re labouring under the misapprehension that MPs care more about you than they do about their own careers. They don’t. They will sell you out as many times as they are presented with a choice between your best interest and their best interest. Every single time.

10navigator
10navigator
2 years ago

Our Prime Minister—
“–Completely negates” Mr Sunak’s pledge to delay Net Zero target.
I am minded of two quotes: Gen. Sir Gerald Templar to Lord Mountbattem–“Dickie, you’re so crooked, if you swallowed a nail, you’d shit a corkscrew.” The other’s a made up ‘Baldrick’ one: “As slippery as a slippery thing coverd in grease and sprayed with WD40.”

Steve-Devon
2 years ago

If you look at any of the various car related American you-tube channels you can soon pick up that dealers across America are awash with unsold Battery Electric Cars (BEVs). It seems that for most ordinary folk the idea of actually owning your own BEV does not make sense. The depreciation is phenomenal and cannot be sustained by people on ordinary incomes. The liability attached to the battery is huge and again if you are on an ordinary income is a liability you would not want to carry. The charging infrastructure is poor and it also requires quite a sophisticated grasp of ‘apps’ and digital technology to actually operate. Then there is the lack of a ‘Top Gear’ factor, much as cars are mostly used for utilitarian transport when people buy a car they are dreaming of using it on a carefree holiday, surfing in the West Country or Hill Walking in Scotland, it soon becomes apparent that a BEV struggles to be up to the task of providing transport for an ‘out in the sticks’ away from it all holiday then they loose their attraction. BEVs only seem to work on a leasehold basis where someone else carries the… Read more »

stewart
2 years ago
Reply to  Steve-Devon

In a place where people revolt, the state will be forced to back off their EV rules..

In a place, like the UK, where the population is weak and spineless, there will just be fewer cars around.

Which is almost certainly what many many technocrats want and what many a useful idiot thinks is a wonderful idea.

varmint
2 years ago
Reply to  stewart

We don’t “revolt”.——-We actually glue ourselves to the road clamouring for our own impoverishment. Are we thick?

RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  varmint

I don’t.

varmint
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

Yes I know you and I don’t but on the whole we are allowing these parasites to impoverish us with barely a whimper.

Hester
Hester
2 years ago

An electric car free with every purchase of petrol or diesel. Its the only way they will get rid of them

huxleypiggles
2 years ago
Reply to  Hester

I doubt a freebie would take them off the manufacturer’s hands and it still has to be stored somewhere. Who wants an EV outside the house when a perfectly efficient ICE vehicle is already available 24 / 7?

stewart
2 years ago
Reply to  Hester

It’s the petrol cars they’re getting rid of.

They don’t care if people buy electric cars or not.

Message from the British state to the British plebs: You can buy an electric car, or you can have no car at all. Your choice, either is fine by me.

That’s what 80% zero emissions cars by 2030 means.

Jon Mors
Jon Mors
2 years ago

It might not be a terrible idea to change the rules in Parliament so that votes are done anonymously. MPs won’t be able to be punished for disloyalty any more and can vote with their conscience. Then release the voting records of the current Parliament one week before each general election to allow the electorate to know how their MPs have voted.

stewart
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Mors

That would work if MPs actually wanted to do the right thing for public. But they don’t actually care too much about that. They care about their careers. They WANT their party leaders to know exactly how they have voted, so they can get their brownie points for loyalty.

Peter W
Peter W
2 years ago
Reply to  Jon Mors

And get rid of the “Whips office” who tell our MP’S what to think.

stewart
2 years ago

Where does one start.

  1. 1. If proof was ever needed that we now live in a single party system, this is it.
  2. 2. We no longer have a market economy. We have a centrally planned economy with government mandated production quotas. Basically like the Soviet Union.
  3. 3. If electric cars are too expensive and no one wants them, this is certainly a way to make petrol cars much more expensive and electric cars relatively cheaper. In short, you’ll have an electric car whether you want one or not.

So… when does the insurrection begin? Or will the British public accept the country transforming into a socialist state without as much as a whimper?

varmint
2 years ago
Reply to  stewart

I think it was Nancy Pelosi who said a few years ago —“We are all socialists now”. Being a socialist gives them much more stuff to do. But as someone pointed out. “The best government is the one that governs the least”.

MichaelM
2 years ago
Reply to  varmint

“The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” – Ronald Reagan.

varmint
2 years ago
Reply to  MichaelM

Especially governments who now work for WEF and UN instead of for us.

varmint
2 years ago

We learn two important things here. ——–(1) Sunak and every tory who voted for this isn’t really a conservative, and Braverman is one. (2) We know what Labour are going to be doing next year regarding climate, as if we never knew that already.

varmint
2 years ago

Apparently, the amount of fossil fuels the world uses to produce the energy it needs is 81% of all energy production. Remarkably this is the same figure as in 1991. ——So the world (mainly the western world) has spent about 4 trillion dollars in that time to achieve————————–NOTHING.—– Demand for Fossil fuels grows by about one UK’s worth every year, but renewables cannot even provide enough energy to cover that growth, never mind replace the energy we already are using. Net Zero is so absurd it is beyond parody.

ekathulium
ekathulium
2 years ago

Pushes through EV quotas with the help of Liebore.
Just like the corona mandates then . . .

Ron Smith
Ron Smith
2 years ago

Just like with Lockdowns, they want everything harder and faster!

Boris at the Covid enquiry….Not listened to all on Radio but overheard him say…”with the absence of therapeutics”…..Really, we know that’s not the case. No push back from the KC shill. I also told JHB on Talk TV how she was insane to give her kids the experimental jab, that’s why she can never admit that she pushed them on her platform, she never read that out of course.

Ron Smith
Ron Smith
2 years ago
varmint
2 years ago
Reply to  Ron Smith

Jim Dale——GB News resident climate activist. It was Julia Brewer on Talk TV who took this guy down the best. What a total buffoon he is. ——-He comes on GB News a lot with the clueless Eamonn Holmes who questions nothing this imposter says. Eamonn comes from the tittle tattle world of Breakfast Telly and has no clue on anything.

bryan.tookey
bryan.tookey
2 years ago

I wrote to the 26 MPs to thank them for their opposition. I’d encourage others to do the same – show them that people care about this stuff.