Inside Politics: Cop out

Sunak criticised for choosing not to attend Cop27 summit as Christmas election looms in Northern Ireland, writes Matt Mathers

(PA)

Hello there, I’m Matt Mathers and welcome to The Independent’s Inside Politics newsletter.

Happy Friday. We’re at the end of the week and no new cabinet ministers have resigned and the prime minister is still in place. Things are looking up.

Inside the bubble

Commons action gets underway at 9.30am with a day of private members’ bills.

Environment secretary Thérèse Coffey is on ITV GMB at 8.30am.

Shadow Northern Ireland secretary Peter Kyle is on TalkTV at 9.05am.

Daily briefing

Climate concern

Rishi Sunak is coming under fire for his decision not to attend the Cop27 climate summit. Campaigners voiced quiet optimism on Wednesday when the prime minister said he would reintroduce a ban on fracking, scrapped by his predecessor Liz Truss. The move set a “good tone” for his premiership, activists said.

But looking back at Sunak’s first week in No 10 the optics are not good and there are reasons for anyone worried about the climate crisis to be concerned. In the space of just a few days, Sunak has removed climate minister Graham Stuart andAlok Sharma, the Cop26 president,from his cabinet, sending a very clear message that, as far as he is concerned, there are more important things to be getting on with.

“I’m too busy” was essentially the reason given by Downing Street yesterday when Sunak confirmed he would not be attending Cop27 – just a year after brandishing his green box for the cameras at last year’s summit and on the day when the United Nations warned that there was “no credible pathway in place” to curb global warming at 1.5C. Labour leader Keir Starmer was among the opposition MPs criticising Sunak’s decision, saying that “Britain showing up to work with world leaders is an opportunity to grasp. Not an event to shun.” No 10 said the PM had “other pressing domestic commitments including preparations for the autumn Budget” but remains committed to net zero.

In other news, Sunak is said to be considering plans to extend a windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas giants. It comes after Shell reported its second-highest quarterly earnings on record yesterday. Despite global profits soaring to $9.5bn between July and September, Shell paid £0 – zero – in the UK windfall tax because of a loophole inserted into the plan by Sunak when he was chancellor under Boris Johnson.

(PA)

We got Brexit done latest

Johnson may have been and gone but the ramifications of his deal to leave the EU are still being felt across the UK, particularly in Northern Ireland, where politicians failed to break the deadlock in talks aimed at restoring the devolved government in an ongoing row over Brexit’s Northern Ireland protocol, meaning an election is likely to take place before Christmas.

Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary, set a deadline of 12.01am this morning for the parties to reach an agreement but that deadline has passed and he is now legally required to call for a poll within 12 weeks, with 15 December pencilled in as the likely date.

Today’s cartoon

See all of The Independent’s daily cartoons here

(Dave Brown)

On the record

Spokesperson for Sunak insists govt is still committed to net zero.

“We remain committed to net zero and to leading international and domestic action to tackle climate change. The UK is forging ahead of many other countries on net zero.”

From the Twitterati

i chief politics commentator Paul Waugh on Sunak’s approach to climate change.

“If @RishiSunak ducks his duty on climate change, the Tories will pay a heavy price.”

Essential reading

• Harry Cockburn, The Independent: Rishi Sunak’s failure to attend Cop27 will come back to haunt him
• Keir Starmer: The Independent: Keir Starmer faces the awful truth: Labour’s policy cupboard is bare. Sunak’s stolen them all
• Gaby Hinsliff, The Guardian: Patients dying outside A&E, hospital corridors as makeshift wards – and it’s only October
• Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic: How Elon Musk could actually kill Twitter

Inside Politics first appeared in our daily morning email. You can sign up via this link.