Labour should stick to its £28bn climate spending plans, Chris Skidmore has said days after quitting as a Conservative MP over Rishi Sunak’s climate stance.
Speaking to the Guardian, the former minister who was tasked with writing a review of the government’s net zero plans, said he supported the pledge despite being a “fiscal conservative”.
The Conservatives have been increasing their attacks on Labour over the proposal but Skidmore, who quit the party last week, said: “That investment is needed. It will end up having to be invested. The longer we wait, this investment for net zero is going to cost far more than £28bn.”
Labour promised in 2021 to invest £28bn a year in green projects until 2030 if it came to power. But last year the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said it would instead be a target to work towards in the second half of a first parliament, should the party win the next general election.
The former MP for Kingswood, where there will be a byelection in February, said: “Labour has set out a real mission on climate. I’m probably very closely aligned with them on that,” adding that this showed “party politics means that not everyone fits into that sort of neat box”.
Despite believing in generally lower state spending, Skidmore said investment in technology, and net zero, was important.
He said: “We are living in remarkable revolutionary times, where new technologies are emerging. And the countries that move first are the ones that get that first-mover advantage.
“There is no free ride here. In the past, when we failed to invest in offshore wind, all the jobs or the industries went abroad. We failed to capitalise on that initial first lead. We failed to capitalise on nuclear in the past as well again; it all went to France. The jobs went elsewhere. I can see, as a historian, history repeating itself.”
Since his shock resignation last Friday over the government’s upcoming oil and gas licensing bill, Skidmore has faced attacks from his former colleagues, some of whom have said he is selfish for causing a byelection so close to a general election. He said he has felt “up and down” since quitting, and “sorry that he’s upset people”.
For the first time since 1996, when he joined the Conservative party, Skidmore is no longer a Tory and it has led to an identity crisis.
“I was 28 when I got elected,” he said, “I didn’t expect to get elected and now I’m 42. John Lennon once said: ‘We gave the best part of our 20s to the Beatles.’ I gave my late 20s and my 30s to the Conservative party, and I fully appreciate it’s given me a fantastic opportunity and I don’t deny that.”
No longer being an MP will be strange for Skidmore: “Obviously there is an identity with having MP attached to your name and that no longer being there – it is obviously probably too soon to know how it will feel.
“But I think obviously, I prepared myself in knowing both obviously my seat was abolished at the next general election, that it was coming to an end – it obviously has come to an end sooner than I’d hoped.”
He added that he was trying to hold out until May but in the end couldn’t stomach being in a party that argued “black is white” over fossil fuels and climate breakdown.
“It’s strange to lose that identity and try to find another identity,” he added. “I think I’ve done the right thing, and I feel content with what I’ve done. But obviously, you know, that is now a chapter of my life that’s closed, I guess.”
Skidmore previously told the Guardian that the Tories were “headed in a very dark direction” over misinformation and climate change. He also was the ringleader of the rebellion over the fracking vote, which is often cited as the straw that broke the camel’s back for Liz Truss’s premiership. So he has been at odds with his party for some time, ever since the party turned its back on climate action.
He reached the point last week where he couldn’t continue fighting from within: “That’s the challenge, isn’t it? Do you work from within or is there a point where you know that that’s not working? And I have consistently voted against the party. I didn’t vote for the king’s speech. There was a point probably where the whip would have been taken away from me. He added that he was also “getting in trouble with the party” for his work with Sadiq Khan on green issues.
Sunak is about to face a rebellion from the right on his Rwanda plans. Skidmore sees a double standard when his colleagues can vocally oppose the Rwanda scheme and not be chastised.
“No one has made these loyalty arguments about colleagues focusing on opposing – very vocally – the prime minister on Rwanda. The more that obviously is spoken about immigration in strong culture war terms, it raises the salience of immigration, and it just lends votes to Reform [the former Brexit party]. The more that people talk about the failure in the Conservative party on immigration, the more that goes up in the polling issues and then people tend to vote for a more extreme party,” he added.
The former minister thinks the Conservatives will lose the election partly because Sunak turned his back on net zero.
He said there is a “silent majority” of Conservative voters who deeply believe in conserving the environment. He explained: “I’ve been contacted by hundreds of people across the country since resigning. People are saying: ‘I was a conservative. I care passionately about this and net zero’… they’ll be looking to vote elsewhere at this election. I think that will be the case across enough marginal constituencies in the election. I think the top 60 target seats are probably 3,000 votes and under, which means that the net zero and climate action will be a pivotal moment, which can swing the election.”
