Sadiq Khan has pledged to use “any tool in the toolkit” to fight Reeves on her plan to expand Heathrow and get a third runway operational by 2035. One man has stepped forward as his legal champion…
None other than Jolyon Maugham has reassured his supporters that the Good Law Project is “already dusting off our plans, formulated with a leading environmental Silk, to challenge Heathrow expansion.” Back in 2021 the Good Law Project began soliciting donations for its legal battle against any possible expansion to the airport – all it managed to do was repeatedly complain about the Airports National Policy Statement and sending Jolyon’s favourite pre-action protocol letter to the government. Now the grift can take off again…
Reeves insists that her new growth projects and Net Zero go “hand in hand” – something that Ed Miliband has expressed his doubts about when it comes to Heathrow. Any legal campaign against Reeves’ plans will no doubt have public and private support from more than one senior Labour figure. Guido isn’t sure Jolyon’s reverse midas touch will be welcomed with open arms…
Four Liberal Democrats and two Tory MPs have written to Heidi Alexander to pre-emptively complain about Reeves’ plans to expand Gatwick, Heathrow, and Luton aeroports. It’s the usual NIMBY guff:
“Life is blighted every single day by the noise of take-offs and landings at Gatwick Airport… We urge you to delay your decision on the Northern Runway Project until proper monitoring infrastructure is in place and the true impact of noise on the lives of our constituents is properly understood.”
The two Tories are local MPs Tom Tugendhat and Andrew Griffith – the latter being the Shadow Business and Trade Sectretary. The first sign of Tory opposition to Reeves’ plans, with the party’s overall position unclear…
Reeves is supported by a collection of Labour MPs known as the Labour Growth Group and opposed by three major Labour figures – Miliband, Khan, and Burnham. That said – Miliband has insisted he would not resign over the issue this time while Khan rolled back on his “legal challenge” rhetoric when it comes to Heathrow, so the picture is confused…
The net zero-obsessed Climate Change Committee says there can be no more added capacity while Downing Street’s line remains that any expansion has to “contribute to economic growth” while upholding “existing environmental obligations.” That one won’t hold…
The Chancellor has an event penned in for next Wednesday in Oxford where she is due to make an announcement relating to the Oxford-Cambridge Arc. These rifts will deepen Guido hears the aeroport expansions are also firmly on the docket…
UPDATE: Andrew Griffith tells Guido he is “‘all in’ on airport expansion” but “no global competitor divvys up capacity between three sub-scale aerodromes. That’s the old growth sapping politics of compromise. As I have long said, if we seriously want a global-growth hub, the answer is a massive and long overdue expansion of Heathrow.” Do it, just not in my etc etc…
Read the full NIMBY letter below:
Continue reading “Shadow Business & Trade Secretary Opposes Airport Expansion as Labour Row Deepens”
In an exchange at the London Assembly with Green AM Zack Polanski this morning Sadiq Khan provided some more detail on his promised “legal challenge” against the government’s rumoured London airport expansion plans:
“There is no money set aside in the budget based on speculation I’ve seen speculation, in the media about a speech the chancellor may give in a few weeks time. I’ve seen no proposals from Heathrow airport, I’ve seen no plans for a new runway, I’ve seen no announcement from the government. What Londoners know and the government knows is the aviation sector is important for growth, jobs, and prosperity – but we face a climate crisis and a climate emergency…. I’m quite clear – my views on the expansion of Heathrow by a new runway haven’t changed.”
Polanksi accused the mayor of rowing back on his more robust statements to the press this week. Wouldn’t be the first time…
If Khan does end up wanting to oppose the government’s plans on aviation expansion it looks like Londoners would have to pay for it. Unlikely the Treasury would cough up for that one…
Over the weekend Sadiq Khan got a lot of attention for equating Trump’s election to the return of fascism:
“We should be in no doubt, this is a perilous moment. The spectre of a resurgent fascism haunts the West … To ward off the far-right, we must be unflinching in defence of our democracy and values, and in our determination to enhance the welfare and material conditions of our communities.”
Much like the London Mayor’s previous tired guff when it comes to the soon-to-be president. The government slapped Khan down on Sunday for the obviously unhelpful comments…
Now less than 48 hours after Khan’s origial Observer article came out, he is briefing in somewhat of a different tone:
“Sir Sadiq said as somebody ‘who believes in democracy, and voting and elections, we should recognise the fact that Donald Trump is the elected President of the United States’. And he insisted he now ‘wanted to work closely with the American President’. But he added: ‘Let’s keep our fingers crossed that this president is different from the last time he was president.'”
That’s as close to a climbdown on Trump as anyone can get out of Khan. How hard did Labour have to twist his arm to get this out?
City Hall’s standards commissioner has said that Khan is under investigation over October’s Taylor Swift controversy. A GLA spokesman says: “The monitoring officer has reviewed the complaint against the mayor and will not be investigating three of the four allegations. An investigation will now take place to establish if the mayor exercised an appropriate level of caution in deciding to accept the tickets.” Susan Hall initiated proceedings by making a formal complaint after details were revealed in the press…
Khan took free tickets for an August Swift concert and later altered the declaration of their value. The three allegations referred to there relate to a late declaration of the tickets, the factual errors in the initial declaration, and whether there was a live contract with agency LS Events (who supplied them). Khan’s spokesman says “the mayor’s office will continue to ensure all the right processes are followed, and looks forward to explaining the approach that was taken in this instance.” Freebies may not worth it for all the blowback…
Sadiq Khan is finally “putting out the hand of friendship” to Donald Trump nearly ten days on from his election win – having first claimed many Londoners would be “fearful” after around 75 million Americans voted for him. Speaking through gritted teeth to LBC’s Chief Bore James O’Brien, the Mayor of London insisted he would generously give Trump “the benefit of the doubt“. Trump must be grateful…
“…Clearly, we know from his record when he was President between 2016 and 2020 and also some of the things he’s campaigned on, there are anxieties that Londoners have, which my job as the Mayor is to articulate those… I think the three things that even Donald Trump’s supporters would agree with is his policies are protectionist, nativist, and unilateralist…
Now JD Vance, Elon Musk and others may have changed their mind about Trump, I haven’t but I’m giving the President-elect the benefit of the doubt and let’s hope, fingers crossed, this President, during this term, is different from the last one…”
In fairness to Sadiq, he’s hardly the only one in Labour who’s had to eat humble pie since last Tuesday…
Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock was asked if Burnham will take Britain back into the EU:
“Yes, sure – his commitment is authentic. He really does understand from the grassroots up why restoring what I think of as normality in our continent is vital for every party economically, politically, culturally, in terms of security, and he’s able to articulate it in language that people can understand. So yeah, he is definitely”.