Senior Tory joins rebels trying to force PM’S hand on onshore wind
Rishi Sunak is facing a growing rebellion of senior Conservatives who are joining Boris Johnson and Liz Truss in trying to force him to drop a ban on new onshore wind farms.
Former party chairman Sir Jake Berry added his name yesterday to the Tory MPS backing rival legislation trying to force a U-turn from the Prime Minister.
Mr Sunak is also facing a split in opinion from within his own Cabinet, with Levellingup Secretary Michael Gove understood to be backing an end to the moratorium.
Transport Secretary Mark Harper acknowledged the situation is "not easy" but insisted the stream of Tory MPS saying they will not contest the next election is nothing for the party to worry about.
Former prime ministers Ms Truss and Mr Johnson are among more than 20 Conservatives backing a pro-wind amendment to the Levelling Up Bill.
Alok Sharma, who was the president of the COP26 climate summit, has also backed the legislative move from former levelling-up secretary Simon Clarke.
Elliot Colburn and former ministers Robert Courts and Kevin Foster are also expected to add their signatures to the amendment.
Along with private backers, a rebel source said 30 Tories back the bid, coming close to eroding Mr Sunak's working majority of 69 votes if other opposition groups join Labour in backing the amendment.
Sir Jake said Mr Gove's diverservative
gent opinion "spells real danger for my Government", suggesting it is a "first crack in the wall" of discipline for Mr Sunak.
"Boris Johnson famously used to call wind turbines the white satanic mills of the North of England when they were building them all over my constituency," he told the BBC'S Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme.
"He's changed his mind on them; I to a large extent have
changed my mind, and I'm going to be supporting Simon Clarke."
The former minister, who was awarded a knighthood by Mr Johnson, argued that soaring energy bills are the key reason to invest more in renewables. Mr Johnson did not seek to overturn the effective moratorium on new onshore wind projects, in place since 2015, during his time in Number 10.
Meanwhile, Mr Sunak is seeing a steady stream of Con
MPS, many of whom are relatively young and were thought to have bright careers ahead, announce their exit plans.
His net-zero tsar, Chris Skidmore, became the ninth to say they will not contest the next election, following levellingup minister Dehenna Davison.
Mr Harper insisted they are setting out their positions now because Tories have been given until December 5 to make a decision due to the review into
constituency boundaries.
He told Sky's Sophy Ridge on Sunday: "You are going to see those all bunched together so I don't think there's anything particularly to write home about that."
On dire polling the Tories are struggling to bounce back from, he said: "If we are being realistic about it, we are not going to turn things around overnight."