Rishi Sunak watering down green pledges not a ‘cynical ploy’ but what is ‘right’, says business secretary
Rishi Sunak’s watering down of climate pledges is not a “cynical ploy” – but is rather the prime minister doing “what is right”, Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch has said.
Last night, Mr Sunak announced a raft of changes to the UK’s climate pledges, including delaying the ban on the sale of new internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles by five years to 2035.
The prime minister explained that he was making the changes as the previous plans were unaffordable and unachievable.
Politics latest: Minister makes dig at Tory peer’s wealth as she defends PM’s net zero rollback
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However, as Sky science and technology editor Tom Clarke explained, the decision seemed to be more about politics – and the general election expected next year – than the climate.
And Ms Badeonch told Sky News this morning: “This is not some sort of cynical ploy.”
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Net zero change ‘not a cynical ploy’
“This is the right thing to do, and I fully support the prime minister.”
Mr Sunak defended his change of direction this morning, telling the BBC that the UK’s decarbonising ambitions are “more ambitious than pretty much any major economy in the world”.
The move has been welcomed by some Conservative MPs, who, believing it may be popular with voters, have been calling for green policies to be delayed to avoid exacerbating the cost of living crisis.
But it has been opposed by sections of the business community, opposition parties, and campaigners – including Al Gore.
One of the critics of the move was Lord Goldsmith, a Conservative former minister.
Ms Badenoch said: “I know Zac Goldsmith very well. He is a friend… I fundamentally disagree with what he has said.
“We are listening to the concerns people are raising with us. Most people in this country do not have the kind of money that he has.”
Kemi Badenoch at the MINI plant in Oxford last week
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Last week, Ms Badenoch visited the BMW MINI plant in Oxford as the company announced it would build its next generation electric vehicles there, securing government funding in the process.
She was asked if yesterday’s roll-back was known about when she announced the deal.
The business secretary said: “Well, I had been making representations to the prime minister – he had not made his decision known to all of us.
“But these were conversations that we were having, So I’m quite pleased that this has happened.”
Sam Coates: Climate changes may jar with Sunak’s image as a stable leader
The car industry was one of the most vocal critics of the government’s changes, as many had planned to stop selling ICE vehicles in seven years time.
Ford was the most sceptical, saying that the new path undermined the “ambition, commitment and consistency” needed for the UK.
Ms Badenoch pointed out the US car giant made the statement “without even hearing what the announcement was”, and added that Toyota welcomed the move.
When asked about criticism from the chief executive of EON – who claimed the changes would mean people have to live in draughty homes – Ms Badenoch urged the leader of the energy giant to “actually look at what the prime minister announced”.
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UK’s new net zero plans
Daisy Powell-Chandler, the head of energy and environment at polling company Public First, explained to Sky News how the public tends to hold a dim view of parties that water down green policies.
She said: “The public aren’t very keen on that, including Conservative and Labour swing voters.
“Most people think that the government should be doing more rather than less to reach net zero.
“So about three times more people think the government should be doing more on the environment than think they should be doing less.
“And there’s an extraordinary consensus right across the age range. For example, climate change these days is amongst people’s tier one concerns.
“It’s just below things like the NHS, but it’s still up there in the top five on most trackers.”
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Sarah Jones, Labour’s shadow industry and decarbonisation minister, told Sky News that her party would return the deadline for ICE sales to 2030, but would not unpick other parts of the changes announced yesterday.
She said that on heat pumps, for example, the government “has utterly failed” to get close to the previous target, and that it was more important to focus on insulating homes first.
Millionaire Tory donor Malcolm Offord has defected to Reform UK, saying he would be campaigning “tirelessly” to “remove this rotten SNP government”.
Nigel Farage announced the former Conservative life peer’s defection during a rally in the Scottish town of Falkirk, where regular anti-immigration protests have taken place outside the Cladhan Hotel – which is being used to house asylum seekers.
Mr Farage, Reform UK’s leader, said he was “delighted” to welcome Greenock-born Lord Offord to Reform, describing his defection as “a brave and historic act”.
He added: “He will take Reform UK Scotland to a new level.”
During a speech, Lord Offord, who previously donated nearly £150,000 to the Tories, said he would be quitting the Conservative Party and giving up his place in the House of Lords as he prepares to campaign for a seat in Holyrood in May.
The 61-year-old said he wanted to restore Scotland to a “prosperous, happy, healthy country”.
“Scotland needs Reform and Reform is coming to Scotland,” he told the rally.
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Farage allegations are deeply shocking – but will they deter voters?
“Today I can announce that I am resigning from the Conservative Party. Today I am joining Reform UK and today I announce my intention to stand for Reform in the Holyrood election in May next year.
“And that means that from today, for the next five months, day and night, I shall be campaigning with all of you tirelessly for two objectives.
“The first objective is to remove this rotten SNP government after 18 years, and the second is to present a positive vision for Scotland inside the UK, to restore Scotland to being a prosperous, proud, healthy and happy country.”
The latest defection comes as Mr Farage finds himself at the centre of allegations of racism dating back to his time in school.
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Claims made against Nigel Farage
Sky News reported on Saturday that a former schoolfriend of Mr Farage claimed he sang antisemitic songs to Jewish schoolmates – and had a “big issue with anyone called Patel”.
Jean-Pierre Lihou, 61, was initially friends with the Reform UK leader when he arrived at Dulwich College in the 1970s, at the time when Mr Farage is accused of saying antisemitic and other racist remarks by more than a dozen pupils.
Mr Farage has said he “never directly racially abused anybody” at Dulwich and said there is a “strong political element” to the allegations coming out 49 years later.
Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice has called the ex-classmates “liars”.
A Reform UK spokesman accused Sky News of “scraping the barrel” and being “desperate to stop us winning the next election”.
The European Commission’s proposal to expand the powers of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) is raising concerns about the centralization of the bloc’s licensing regime, despite signaling deeper institutional ambitions for its capital markets structure.
On Thursday, the Commission published a package proposing to “direct supervisory competences” for key pieces of market infrastructure, including crypto-asset service providers (CASPs), trading venues and central counterparties to ESMA, Cointelegraph reported.
Concerningly, the ESMA’s jurisdiction would extend to both the supervision and licensing of all European crypto and financial technology (fintech) firms, potentially leading to slower licensing regimes and hindering startup development, according to Faustine Fleuret, head of public affairs at decentralized lending protocol Morpho.
“I am even more concerned that the proposal makes ESMA responsible for both the authorisation and the supervision of CASPs, not only the supervision,” she told Cointelegraph.
The proposal still requires approval from the European Parliament and the Council, which are currently under negotiation.
If adopted, ESMA’s role in overseeing EU capital markets would more closely resemble the centralized framework of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, a concept first proposed by European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde in 2023.
Related: Bank of America backs 1%–4% crypto allocation, opens door to Bitcoin ETFs
EU plan to centralize licensing under ESMA creates crypto and fintech slowdown concerns
The proposal to “centralize” this oversight under a single regulatory body seeks to address the differences in national supervisory practices and uneven licensing regimes, but risks slowing down overall crypto industry development, Elisenda Fabrega, general counsel at Brickken asset tokenization platform, told Cointelegraph.
“Without adequate resources, this mandate may become unmanageable, leading to delays or overly cautious assessments that could disproportionately affect smaller or innovative firms.”
“Ultimately, the effectiveness of this reform will depend less on its legal form and more on its institutional execution,” including ESMA’s operational capacity, independence and cooperation “channels” with member states, she said.
Related: Grayscale Chainlink ETF draws $41M on debut, but not ‘blockbuster’
The broader package aims to boost wealth creation for EU citizens by making the bloc’s capital markets more competitive with those of the US.
The US stock market is worth approximately $62 trillion, or 48% of the global equity market, while the EU stock market’s cumulative value sits around $11 trillion, representing 9% of the global share, according to data from Visual Capitalist.
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Nigel Farage sang antisemitic songs to Jewish schoolmates – and had a “big issue with anyone called Patel”, a former schoolfriend has claimed.
Jean-Pierre Lihou, 61, was initially friends with the Reform UK leader when he arrived at Dulwich College in the 1970s, at the time when Mr Farage is accused of saying antisemitic and other racist remarks by more than a dozen pupils.
But Mr Lihou, who is half-German and said he went for a couple of sleepovers at Mr Farage’s parent’s house, told Sky News’ Amanda Akass that it “soon become obvious he was not quite the same person I thought he was”.
Warning: This article contains references to antisemitic slurs which readers may find offensive
Another former pupil, Stefan Benarroch, who was in the year below Mr Farage and is Jewish, said that Mr Farage was “not a kid” when he made alleged antisemitic remarks and his behaviour was “unacceptable in any era”.
Mr Farage has said he “never directly racially abused anybody” at Dulwich and said there is a “strong political element” to the allegations coming out 49 years later. Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice has called the ex-classmates “liars”.
A Reform UK spokesman accused Sky News of “scraping the barrel” and were “desperate to stop us winning the next election”.
Jean-Pierre Lihou said he was initially a friend of Nigel Farage
‘People were hurt by it‘
Mr Lihou told Sky News Mr Farage used to direct antisemitic songs at his Jewish friend Peter Ettedgui, who is one of the main former classmates to have spoken out against the Reform leader.
“He used to sing: ‘Gas them all, gas them out, gas them all, into the chambers they crawl’ – and the rest of those horrible words,” he said.
“You think, when somebody is obviously distressed by that, why do you keep doing it? The humour wears off… when you see this, and because I’m German I’m particularly sensitive to anyone making that kind of analogy.”
Mr Lihou also said Mr Farage used to “pass comment on anyone that wasn’t white, particularly Indians”.
He said: “He had a great big issue with anyone called Patel because I think the school had at one point more Patels than Smiths. That seemed to irk him.
“Anybody who wasn’t white, he was likely to have a comment pretty much throughout my school life, especially Jewish people. I think that was the worst thing because you could obviously see that people were hurt by it.”
Stefan Benarroch told Sky News Nigel Farage was ‘not a kid’ when he made antisemitic remarks to classmates
‘He was truly ghastly’
Mr Benarroch, who was also friends with Mr Ettedgui, told Sky News: “His behaviour as a teenager was unacceptable by any standards and in any era. He was truly ghastly at Dulwich College.”
He said he would never have come across Mr Farage “had I not been a Jew”.
“He and his minions – and one of his minions, in particular, was my tormentor at Dulwich – they would spot us coming out of Jewish prayers on a Friday,” he added.
“So his behaviour at 16, 17, 18 – and you are a man at 18, you’re technically an adult – was truly appalling. So we’re not talking about a kid here.”
The property developer said the racism allegations are “not just about Nigel Farage as a teenager, this is also about Nigel Farage as an adult”.
“His behaviour as a teenager was unacceptable by any standards and in any era. He was truly ghastly at Dulwich College,” he added.
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Nigel Farage demands apology from BBC
‘These things don’t leave you’
Mr Benarroch, who is no longer a practising Jew, added: “I was terrified of his bullies, he had these guys hanging around with him who were instructed to have a go at us as these young, nice Jewish boys.
“I don’t recall ever having direct contact with Nigel Farage, but certainly I was very much a witness to his tormenting of others, especially Peter Ettudgui.
“He [Mr Farage] was so extreme, these things don’t leave you, they don’t leave your body, as such.”
Nigel Farage in his school days
On Thursday, Mr Farage launched into a tirade at the BBC after one of its reporters asked about the claims, with the politician reading out a letter he said was from someone he went to school with.
He quoted the unnamed Jewish pupil as saying there was “plenty of macho, tongue-in-cheek schoolboy banter” and said sometimes it “was offensive, but never with malice”.
The problem for Farage is the story is only getting bigger
Allegations about Nigel Farage’s schooldays have hit the headlines since the early days of the Brexit campaign in 2013.
He has always dismissed such claims as ‘politically motivated’ and insisted recently he has ‘never directly racially abused anybody’.
But now with the prospect of Prime Minister Farage looking ever more likely – former classmates have decided now is the moment to speak up about their concerns, almost fifty years later.
The allegations are deeply shocking. Jean-Pierre Lihou told me Farage used to sing a sickening song about the Nazi gas chambers, which began ‘gas them all, gas them out, gas them all, into the chambers they crawl’.
Lihou claims Farage said non-white pupils should be sent home and had a particular issue with the fact that at one point the school had more pupils with the surname ‘Patel’ than ‘Smith’.
Stephan Benarroch meanwhile told my colleague Ali Fortescue he witnessed Farage ‘tormenting others’ and was himself ‘terrified’ by Farage’s ‘gang of bullies’ who he claims ‘were instructed to have a go at us as these young, nice Jewish boys’ on their way back from Friday prayers.
The Guardian – whose investigation last month prompted a renewed focus on the issue – reports that 28 former teachers and pupils have come forward to report witnessing antisemitic or racist behaviour from him.
A group of Holocaust survivors are now calling on Farage to either admit whether he said the words he’s accused of saying, and apologise, or accuse those who said he did of lying.
His political opponents – battered for so long in the polls by Reform UK – are keen to pile on the pressure too. Both Labour and Liberal Democrats have urged him to ‘come clean’ and apologise.
The Tories have also argued that if it’s true, Farage should say sorry, though Kemi Badenoch has certainly been more nuanced in her response than other political rivals, making the point that what most people may say as teenagers is very different from what they would say as adults.
The problem for Farage is that far from going away – the story is only getting bigger.
He’s clearly hugely frustrated by this – as evidenced by the angry tirade he launched against the BBC this week when their reporter asked about the allegations. He argued it’s ‘double standards’ to criticise what he was alleged to have said 49 years ago, at a time when broadcasters were still showing blackface in The Black and White Minstrel Show. He also read out a letter he said had been sent to him by a Jewish contemporary pupil, who described ‘plenty of macho, tongue-in-cheek schoolboy banter’ – which, while sometimes ‘offensive’, was ‘never with malice’.
Reform have hit back against our story in bullish fashion, accusing Sky News of scraping the barrel in a desperate attempt to stop Reform UK winning the next election.
Of course the question of who will win the next election isn’t down to journalists – but voters.
And the jeopardy for Reform is whether these allegations will deter enough potential voters – particularly wavering Tories – to disrupt what has thus far been an unstoppable wave of support.
Read more:
Farage dismisses school racism claims as ‘banter in a playground’
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‘It was not schoolboy banter’
Mr Benarroch rejected Mr Farage’s claim it was just “schoolboy banter” and said he has continued to show the same views, just in a less obvious way.
“You tell that [that it was banter] to the guys, to Peter who had ‘Hitler should have gassed you’ said to him,” he said.
“Peter Ettedgui was tormented by Nigel Farage.
“The point I’m making is, he’s a grown man now. He’s a highly intelligent politician with nuance when it suits him, and so clearly he’s not going around saying ‘Hitler should have gassed you all’, obviously.”
The former Dulwich student said Mr Farage had “kept the most disgraceful company imaginable” in the US during the 2010s on radio and TV shows.
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‘Did you racially abuse fellow pupils?’
He specifically named Rick Wiles, a far-right American conspiracy theorist whose YouTube channel was banned in 2020 after calling Donald Trump’s impeachment a “Jew coup”.
Mr Benarroch, who said he is not part of any political party, said “there is no political motivation” behind his allegations, but accused Reform and Mr Farage of making “a political statement” by calling them liars.
On Thursday, Mr Farage said he had received multiple letters from former pupils in support of him.
He said a letter from a Jewish schoolmate, said: “While there was plenty of macho tongue-in-cheek schoolboy banter, it was humour, and yes, sometimes it was offensive… but never with malice.
“I never heard him [Farage] racially abuse anyone.”
Dulwich College is an all boys private school in south London. Pic: Reuters
A Reform UK spokesman “accused Sky News of scraping the barrel”.
He said: “This ridiculous interview has nothing to do with Nigel Farage himself but apparently someone who knew him at school almost 50 years ago.
“Sky News are desperate to stop us winning the next election.”
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