The government is to use the expansion of London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) to go on the attack over what it has called “Labour’s war on motorists”, part of a wider battle against green policies it hopes could prove popular with voters.
With the extension of the clean air scheme to every London borough beginning at midnight on Monday, Sadiq Khan, the capital’s Labour mayor, said that while the
decision was difficult, the devastating health effects of toxic exhausts trumped other considerations.
In what could be seen as a coded swipe against Keir Starmer, who
pressured the mayor to pause the extension of the £12.50 daily charge for using a heavily polluting vehicle, Khan said he wanted to be “a doer, not a delayer”.
“The easiest thing for me to do would have been to kick the can down the road, but we simply don’t have time to waste,” he said.
Despite Starmer’s ambivalence about Ulez and mooted clean air schemes in other cities, ministers plan to directly link the expansion to the Labour leader, echoing the tactics that helped the Tories to
an unexpected win in July’s Uxbridge byelection.
The extended clean air zone “is the latest salvo in Labour’s war on motorists”, said the transport secretary, Mark Harper, who will be dispatched on to Tuesday morning’s broadcast round to amplify the message.
“From a ban on road building in Wales to a tax on the poorest motorists in London and secret Labour plans to make drivers pay per mile – the realities of Labour politicians in positions of power are ideological policies that hit hardworking motorists hard,” he said.
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