Sir Keir Starmer, Ed Miliband and other members of the Cabinet have been pummeled by more than 30,000 emails as angry motorists call on him to scrap his date from which petrol and diesel cars will be banned. In April, the Prime Minister confirmed an end to the sale of fossil-fuelled vehicles in 2030. Hybrid cars, however, can be flogged until 2035, and smaller car manufacturers avoid the rules completely. But campaigners want to see Britain’s deadline brought in line with the European Union’s – 2040 – as they are “worried sick about the high cost of driving and the undemocratic imposition”.
Howard Cox, the founder of FairFuelUK, said: “The Government is sleepwalking into an economic Armageddon which they can easily avoid. FairFuelUK’s supporters call on Keir Starmer to put an end to the virtue signalling and unconsulted and undemocratic attempt to ban new diesel and petrol cars. The Cebr tell us and real people who need their vehicles that the 2030 cliff-edge target will bankrupt the economy, wreck personal finances, destroy jobs and automotive manufacturing, break the national grid, and prevent the development of more effective clean transport choices.”
He added: “It’s not too late to incentivise manufacturers to drive environmental change, rather than decreeing a scientifically baseless, ill-informed green policy simply to massage the Government’s political ego and arrogantly boast on an equally clueless climate change world stage.
“This policy is patently insane when cost-effective clean air solutions supported by drivers are already here.”
November was the new electric car market’s weakest month of growth in nearly two years, figures showed last week.
Some 39,965 new pure battery electric cars were registered last month, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said.
That was up 3.6% from November 2024, which was the smallest year-on-year increase since December 2023, when registrations declined by 34.2%.
Sir Keir said in the spring that he wants British manufacturers to be at the “forefront” of the electric vehicle “revolution”.
The Prime Minister added that the “new era of global instability” would push the Government to go “further and faster” to support businesses.
Describing the car sector as “the engine room of British industry”, Sir Keir wrote in The Times: “We want British car companies to be at the forefront of the electric vehicle revolution at home and overseas.”
In the same piece, he said that “in this new era of global instability we will go further and faster to support businesses and workers”.
The PM said that this will be “just the first in a series” of announcements from the Government, designed to provide “certainty” and “support for industry”.
