Keir Starmer has lauded his party’s historic win in the Selby byelection, but urged the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, to “reflect” on the impact of his extension of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) into Uxbridge, where Labour was unexpectedly defeated.
The Labour leader sounded upbeat on Friday during a visit to the North Yorkshire seat of Selby and Ainsty, which his party won for the first time since it was created in 2010, doing so with a 24-point swing.
But the positivity generated from that victory masked tensions within the Labour party over Khan’s expansion of Ulez – which charges drivers who use older, more polluting vehicles – to outer London.
Starmer told Labour activists in Selby: “Today is a day of firsts. I’m the first leader to say Labour Selby and Ainsty, ever.”
But he added: “Uxbridge was always going to be tough. We knew that. We didn’t take Uxbridge in 1997. We knew that Ulez was going to be an issue and of course we all need to reflect on that, including the mayor.”
Labour officials had hoped to win both Selby and Ainsty and the west London constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. But while it achieved the kind of vote swing in Selby that would suggest it is heading for a comprehensive victory at next year’s general election, the party’s vulnerabilities were exposed by its narrow defeat in Uxbridge.
Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, said it had lost in Uxbridge because it failed to “listen to the voters” over their concerns about Khan’s decision to extend Ulez to outer London, forcing drivers to pay a daily charge to use older, more polluting vehicles.
Khan said on Friday hat he would “carry on listening” to voters about the scheme, though aides said it will come in at the end of August as planned. The mayor has launched a fund to give grants to small businesses and anyone receiving child benefit to scrap or retrofit their old vehicles.
He has not ruled out further extending eligibility for the fund, though he is likely to have to pay for that out of his own budget, rather than with extra money from central government.
Some in Labour believe the party needs to adjust its green ambitions to reflect concern over schemes such as Ulez.
Steve Reed, the shadow justice secretary, said on Friday: “The right thing to do would be to reflect on what’s happened this evening and have a think about what we need to change, and then come back and make sure that we are representing the aspirations and ambitions of the public.”
But as Labour MPs travel to Nottingham this weekend to discuss the party’s policy platform, many in the party are promising to defend its environmental agenda. Some worry that it is not only Ulez that is now under threat but the party’s wider plan to spend £28bn on green schemes by the end of the parliament.
One ally of Ed Miliband, the shadow climate change secretary, said: “Our whole agenda is about showing that tackling the cost of living and climate go hand in hand.”
