The air of London has become a throwing weapon in the new political battle in the United Kingdom. The Labor mayor Sadiq Khan has defied the government of Rishi Sunak, the entire conservative press and hundreds of protesters with the expansion to the entire city of the ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ), the controversial local version of “central Madrid”.
From August 29, some 700,000 vehicles will be affected by the measure that covers the 32 districts of Greater London, in what is already considered the largest low-emission zone in the world. Most of the Diesel cars registered before 2015 and the gasoline ones from before 2005 will have to pay a daily toll equivalent to 14.5 euros (with fines of 200 euros) to be able to circulate through the metropolitan area.
The mayor assures that the measure affects only 10% of the vehicles in circulation, the most polluting, and that it will serve to reduce suspended particles by 16% and nitrogen dioxide levels by 10%. His detractors accuse him of manipulating the figures, declaring “war on cars” and lubricating a collection machine of more than a billion euros with a new “tax”, which will affect above all the neighborhoods hardest hit by the cost crisis. of the life.
More than 500 cameras vandalized by brigades of “blade runners”, noisy protests in Trafalgar Square and incessant harassment of the mayor himself at his home in Tooting, by members of the so-called Action Against ULEZ, were some of the “actions” in the eventful countdown.
Sadiq Khan has blamed the “extreme right” and “climate conspiracists” for the protests and clings to a YouGov poll in which 51% of Londoners approve of the measure, compared to 27% who oppose it. The mayor alleges that pollution contributes to 4,000 premature deaths a year in London and that it is behind the more than 500,000 affected with asthma and respiratory problems, starting with himself.
“Big problems require big solutions,” said Simon Birkett, director of Clean Air London, who equated the ULEZ expansion with the smog crackdown 70 years ago. “This is a common sense measure that will improve the lives of thousands of families and children,” said Dr. Mark Hayden of Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital.
“Clean air is a right and not a privilege,” reiterated the mayor, who has dedicated a book to the subject, “Breathe” (“Breathe”), inspired by the case of Ella Kissi-Deborah, the first death blamed squarely on pollution by a London court. “Fighting pollution is as urgent as it was fighting tobacco,” Khan stressed in an interview with EL MUNDO, in his double capacity as president of the C40 group of cities in the face of climate change.
Khan recalled how ULEZ was introduced in central London by Boris Johnson when he was mayor and how it helped reduce nitrogen dioxide levels by 21%. The Labor mayor extended the ultra-low emission zone into London’s first urban belt in 2021 with little resistance, but his decision to extend it to the entire metropolitan area pitted him against five Tory-majority boroughs, which tried to halt the measure in the tribunals.
The mayor won the game in May 2023, when a high court stipulated that the expansion of the ULEZ is perfectly legal. Then began a political struggle that culminated in the special elections for Boris Johnson’s seat in Uxbdridge and South Rouslip, turned into a referendum on the ULEZ.
The new Conservative MP, Steve Tuckwell, has made the ultra-low-emission zone his big political battle, publicly warning Sadiq Khan: “Give up on the ULEZ expansion or Londoners will show you the exit doors next year in the elections”.
Sadiq Khan has nevertheless gone ahead with his challenge, despite the fact that his friend and Labor leader Keir Starmer came to ask him to reconsider his position. Khan has even raised his tone in recent days and has directly criticized the “premier” Rishi Sunak for his “hypocritical and irresponsible” environmental policy and “for putting decades of progress for clean air in gear”.
The conservative press, led by The Daily Mail, has called for resistance in the “war on cars”. The police have received orders to act in cases of vandalism such as the one registered at midnight on Monday in Bromley, with a dozen cameras destroyed before the entry into force of the ULEZ. Dozens of protesters took part in a “funeral for democracy” staged outside Downing Street.
Nick Ariett, a Bromley resident and spokesman for Action Against ULEZ, predicted that “vandalism will increase” and spread to other parts of the city until the system is practically inoperative. “The most affected are the people who cannot afford to live in the center of the city and the local businesses that cannot face a new tax,” warned Ariett, who has spread the “secret” map on his Facebook group. with all the ULEZ cameras so that drivers can avoid them and find alternative routes.