Climate Minister Zac Goldsmith quit Rishi Sunak’s UK government on Friday with an excoriating broadside against the prime minister’s environmental credentials, just a day after he himself was criticized by a Parliamentary panel.
Goldsmith — a close ally of former premier Boris Johnson — accused Sunak of retreating from environmental pledges, saying in his resignation letter that under his leadership, the UK has “visibly stepped off the world stage and withdrawn our leadership on climate and nature.”
“The problem is not that the government is hostile to the environment, it is that you, our prime minister, are simply uninterested,” Goldsmith, a member of Parliament’s upper chamber, the House of Lords, said in his letter, posted on Twitter. “This government’s apathy in the fact of the greatest challenge we have faced makes continuing in my current role untenable.”
Sunak’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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While there is substance to Goldsmith’s accusations — the government’s own climate advisers criticized its record just two days ago — there’s also a sense he may have quit before he was pushed. He was the only serving minister named in a Privileges Committee report on Thursday, that accused Tory lawmakers of interfering with their investigation into whether Johnson lied to parliament over the Covid-19 partygate scandal.
MPs are due to vote on a motion to approve the committee’s censure of those lawmakers on July 10. The panel left it up to Parliament to decide any punishment to be meted out onto those named.
Moreover, there’s no love lost between Sunak and supporters of Johnson, who blame the current leader for his role in the former premier’s departure last year.
Nevertheless, Goldsmith’s tirade is damaging to Sunak because with a general election likely next year and the ruling Conservatives trailing Labour by more than 20 points in national polling, voters deem environment one of the most important issues facing the country. His resignation comes after the Climate Change Committee on Wednesday said officials are moving too slowly in enacting the changes needed to hit the UK’s carbon emissions targets.
Goldsmith, 48, had a broad ministerial brief covering energy, climate, the environment, overseas territories and the Commonwealth. He was the Conservative Party’s candidate for London Mayor in 2016, losing out to Labour’s Sadiq Khan.
In the two-page letter written to Sunak, Goldsmith said he’s been “horrified” by what he describes as the government’s abandonment of commitments to animal rights and the environment. He also warned that the government’s stance will affect its electoral prospects.
“Even if this challenge leaves you personally unmoved, there is a world of people who do care very much,” he wrote. “And you will need their votes. Every survey and poll — without exception — tells us that people care deeply about the natural world, about the welfare of other species, about handing this world on better shape to the next generation.”
A YouGov survey on June 26 found some 24% of Britons deem the environment one of the most important issues facing the country, ranking behind only the economy, health and immigration. YouGov’s most recent polling on voting intention puts Sunak’s Tories on 24% versus 46% for Labour.
