Boris Johnson has been accused by Tory MPs of “spitting in the face” of red wall communities after claiming that Margaret Thatcher’s coal mine closures boosted Britain’s climate change ambitions.
The prime minister used a visit to Scotland to suggest that shutting pits across the north of England and Midlands in the 1980s had given the UK a head start in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
His remarks have caused consternation among MPs in red wall seats that the Conservatives won at the last election, many of which are former mining communities.
One Tory MP told The Times: “It is spitting in the face of communities that still haven’t recovered from the miners’ strike. Someone who seeks to represent the north still doesn’t understand the potency of this issue. You have to share people’s values to get their support.
“If you were at the Oxford student union in the 1980s you might have thought the miners’ strike was all jolly japes. You wouldn’t have understood that this left communities in abject poverty. Boris’s success is that people think he’s one of them. This shows he’s not.”
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The MP also described the comments as Johnson’s “Ratner moment”, referring to an incident in which Gerald Ratner caused the massive devaluation of his own jewellery company, Ratner Group, by jokingly denigrating its products.
During a trip to a wind farm off the northeast coast of Scotland yesterday, Johnson said: “Look at what we’ve done already. We’ve transitioned away from coal in my lifetime. Thanks to Margaret Thatcher, who closed so many coal mines across the country, we had a big early start and we’re now moving rapidly away from coal altogether.” The prime minister laughed and added: “I thought that would get you going.”
Another Tory MP, who represents a red wall seat in a former mining area, said the comments would not be welcomed by voters who had finally embraced the Tories after generations of voting for the Labour Party. “It’s not really the smartest thing to say, is it?” the MP said. “It’s also not right.”
Ian Levy, Tory MP for the former mining constituency of Blyth Valley, added: “Margaret Thatcher did close a lot of coal mines, but the Labour Party closed more.”
About 20,000 jobs were lost following the closure of pits deemed uneconomic in the mid-1980s. Communities in the north of England and Wales where the Tories made gains in the 2019 general election were particularly affected.
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Dame Caroline Spelman, a former Tory environment secretary, warned yesterday that the party risked the same fate it suffered in areas where Thatcher closed mines unless there was a plan to help North Sea oil and gas workers get green jobs. She said Tories could be “stigmatised for a generation”.
Lisa Nandy, the Labour MP, called for Johnson to apologise for his “shameful comments”.
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, said: “Lives and communities in Scotland were utterly devastated by Thatcher’s destruction of the coal industry — which had zero to do with any concern she had for the planet. To treat that as something to laugh about is crass and deeply insensitive.”
Up to ten million jobs in high-emitting industries, including oil and gas, will be disrupted by the UK’s legally binding commitment to become carbon neutral by 2050, according to research in January by Onward, the centre-right think tank.
Johnson has been under pressure during his visit to cancel plans for a new oilfield off Shetland, the development of which was first revealed by The Times. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, this week joined green groups in opposing plans for the Cambo field.
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Kevin Horne, a miner arrested at Orgreave where there were pitched battles with police in 1984, said that the prime minister’s comments would go down badly in mining communities. He told Today on Radio 4 that the economic effects of the pit closures were still being felt across parts of the north.
He said: “If Boris wants to come up here and have a look at the estates and the villages [he’ll see] the only thriving industry is the drug industry — drugs on the streets and generations never working.”
Mark Drakeford, first minister of Wales, told Today: “The damage done to Welsh coal mining areas 30 years ago was incalculable and here we are 30 years later, the Tories are still celebrating what they did. I’m afraid that those remarks are both crass and offensive.”
