Truss & Johnson join voices against Sunak over onshore wind farms

Former prime ministers Liz Truss and Boris Johnson joined a parliamentary rebellion aiming to overturn England's effective ban on onshore wind farms, creating a fresh headache for UK leader Rishi Sunak.

Both Truss and Johnson signed an amendment to the government's Levelling Up legislation brought by Tory MP Simon Clarke - who served in Truss's cabinet - which would ease current restrictions on onshore wind. It's their first public act of dissent against Sunak's government.

Building onshore wind farms is one of the quickest and cheapest ways to add new electricity generation, requiring far less time and equipment than their giant counterparts offshore. They could be critical to meeting the UK's net zero carbon emissions target by 2050, while also helping to wean the country off expensive, imported natural gas that's driving a cost-of-living crisis.


"Onshore wind and solar energy are clean, cheap and popular," said Alethea Warrington, campaigns manager at climate charity Possible. "Unblocking new onshore wind and ensuring solar energy can come forwards across the UK would cut emissions and insulate communities from the worst shocks of this fossil-fueled energy crisis."

In a government auction earlier this year, onshore wind farms agreed to sell electricity for less than half the current wholesale power price in Britain.

Truss and Johnson's support for the measure shows how Britain's two most-recent premiers may not intend to make life easy for the current incumbent of 10 Downing Street, and highlights the deep divisions in the Conservative Party that Sunak must manage. Bloomberg