Top Tory and Boris ally Zac Goldsmith ‘very tempted’ to back Labour at next election

Ex-minister attacks Rishi Sunak and urges Keir Starmer to show ‘commitment’ to climate change to win his support

Former Conservative minister Zac Goldsmith has said he is “very tempted” to back Labour at the next general election.

The Tory peer and key Boris Johnson ally – who recently quit Rishi Sunak’s government in a blaze of acrimony – attacked his own party for not having “a clear answer” to climate change.

Lord Goldsmith said he was seriously considering switching his support to Labour if Sir Keir Starmer emphasised his “commitment” to reaching net zero carbon emissions.

“The simple truth is there is no pathway to net zero and there’s no solution to climate change that does not involve nature, massive efforts to protect and restore the natural world,” he told BBC’s Hardtalk.

“And at the moment, I’m not hearing any of that from the Labour Party,” said Mr Goldsmith.

He added: “If I do, if there’s a real commitment – the kind of commitment that we saw when Boris Johnson was the leader – then I’d be very tempted to throw my weight behind that party and support them in any way I could.”

It raises the prospect of defections as part of 1997-style hemorrhaging of support to Labour, with donors and other senior figures switching sides.

Christian Wakeford MP defected last year, while former Tory minister Claire Perry O’Neill quit the party earlier in 2023 to throw her support behimd Sir Keir’s “competent political leadership”.

Leading donors and business figures such as Gareth Quarry and Iain Anderson have also quit the Tory party in recent months and switched allegiance to “impressive” Labour.

Zac Goldsmith with his former boss Boris Johnson (Evening Standard)

Mr Goldsmith was the Sunak government’s international environment minister, until a row blew up in June when he was accused of undermining the Partygate inquiry along with other Johnson backers.

Mr Sunak made clear that Lord Goldsmith had been asked to apologise over his comments about the privileges committee inquiry that found Mr Johnson lied to MPs with his Partygate denials.

But the ally of the former PM insisted he had quit because of Tory “apathy” over climate change and the environment, accusing Mr Sunak of being “simply uninterested” in the issues.

Mr Goldsmith said he had been “horrified” that the government appeared to be abandoning its climate commitments and was pulling back from any global leadership.

Sunak and Goldsmith at odds over environment and Partygate inquiry (Getty/PA)

The senior peer, a former Tory MP and London mayoral candidate, told the BBC that the Tory government cannot now meet its vow to spend £11.6bn over five years on global climate change programmes.

“It’s great that the government is saying that they’re committed to £11.6bn, but mathematically, it is impossible for us to meet that target. Unless the Treasury intervenes, unless the prime minister intervenes, it’s simply impossible.”

He added: “If you look at the trajectory of expenditure, in order to fulfil that promise the first year of the next government – which may or may not be this government, it might be the Labour Party – will have to spend over 80 per cent of all of its bilateral aid on climate finance. And that obviously is not going to happen.”

Mr Goldsmith said Labour still had a “blind spot” on the natural environment. “When the Labour Party thinks environment, when it talks environment, it is thinking carbon, taxation and regulation and all the things that go with that.”

He said he wanted to hear Sir Keir’s party commit to “massive efforts to restore the natural world” before he could take the dramatic step of switching sides and backing the opposition.