Burnham Chooses Jobs Over Climate Security
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- Andy Burnham, as new PM, is exploring new North Sea oil and gas drilling and consulting on easing net zero targets for carmakers during the hottest summer on record, which has featured wildfires on British moorlands and a nationwide emergency phone alert telling the public to avoid barbecues.
- The UK government convened a Cobra meeting on fighting wildfires, offered additional support to drought-hit farmers, and issued the nationwide emergency alert — moves described as coming after "hefty pressure from the Greens."
- Burnham visited people affected by a wildfire near Stourbridge in the West Midlands but was slow to publicly respond to Labour MP Cat Eccles's warning that "this is not the time to start extracting yet more fossil fuels."
- Burnham, as former mayor of Greater Manchester, swiftly reversed an unpopular clean air zone policy on drivers — a pattern the columnist suggests shows he instinctively prioritizes jobs and the social fabric over green policies that threaten them.
- Britain's carmakers are warning that the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate, which fines manufacturers who miss rising EV sales targets, could force factory closures in industrial heartlands — communities where, the article notes, "the far right feeds off that sense of hopelessness."
- UK households face higher gas bills this autumn "caused by Donald Trump's disastrous war on Iran," which the article warns right-wing parties will exploit by blaming cost-of-living pressures on "supposedly 'woke' net zero policies."
- Eco-entrepreneurs Dale Vince and Greg Jackson argue that domestic drilling at the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gasfields would be cleaner than imports and could "reduce the backlash against net zero" — a pending decision the columnist says will test Burnham's climate resolve.
Why it matters: The pending decision on Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gasfields will test whether Burnham can reconcile climate rhetoric with oil and car-industry jobs — communities where the article says the far right already exploits economic hopelessness. With higher autumn gas bills driven by the Iran war, net zero has become a politically vulnerable target from both left and right.
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