Sadiq Khan’s controversial ULEZ expansion plan could be blocked by Downing Street in what would be historic first veto of a London mayor by the government
Sadiq Khan’s controversial ULEZ expansion plan could be blocked by Downing Street in what would be historic first veto of a London mayor by the government
20 comments
Remember when thatcher got rid of the GLC (and basically meant that London had literally no representation on a local level) because Ken Livingston got too popular and then Blair brought it back, only for him to get elected immediately.
Then livingston delivered the best opening line to a speech ever.
They’re the bloody ones who forced him into it with the cut in TFL Funding!!
People who live outside London demanding the right to drive dirty diesels into London to spew exhaust fumes onto the peasants. Given that the peasants vote Labour and the surburb dwelling neaderthals vote Tory this will have zero effect on the next election – so at most it will delay it by two years. But Tories gotta Tory I guess.
I don’t see a clear role for the secretary of state to stop the ULEZ expansion arbitrarily by looking at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1999/29/schedule/23
There’s perhaps something that they could do around exemptions but even then I think the law states the kind of people that could be exempt and I don’t think a regulation that exempted everyone in greater London would pass the muster.
Aside from passing primary legislation that is…
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Finally someone has stated the get out clause:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1999/29/section/143
But this isn’t necessarily as powerful as it might first appear despite the clear bias towards the secretary of state. The secretary of state would have to say exactly where the expansion is against published policy and how to fix it. They cannot just say “No” they have to actually say why and how the policy could be made to work. The example of the LEZ, evidence of how the ULEZ didn’t worsen the outer boroughs, the fact that 90% of cars are already compliant and the government’s own published policies will make any attempt to use section 143 harder.
I think if the government tries this they’re gonna find themselves in court – not necessarily because Khan wants ULEZ expansion but because the mayoralty will have to defend itself against overbearing government like this.
I’d absolutely love to see this .
About time khan got put back in his box
He should be stripped of his post useless race hating man is Khan!
I still don’t understand how my car is ULEZ complient (Jaguar XKR). If my car is compliant I can’t think there are many cars that aren’t. Is it just arbitrary?
It was in his manifesto. He won the vote with a clear 55% majority which as we know is more than enough to rip up the rulebook, burn the shreds, and piss on them. These people trying to block this are subverting democracy and are enemies of the people. We won, they lost, they need to get over it. Democracy goes both ways. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. It’s the will of the people.
Always good to have a government pandering to fascist conspiracy theorists.
Oh wait, not good, the other thing.
Listened to him talking about this on LBC and to be fair he makes a compelling argument if the data is uncontested.
We know toxic air is killing us.
We know that by reducing toxic air, it improves the lives of everyone.
If we know the biggest source of toxic air in cities are the vehicles there, what other solution is there?
We either reduce the toxic emissions, or we don’t.
The Tories really are scum. Pretend to care about the cost of living crisis when it comes to this issue they think might be able to bruise Khan’s chances in the London Mayoral election while letting the bills of everybody in the country increase this year by hundreds of pounds while oil and gas companies make record blood profits.
Clean air is good actually, and if we need to support some people who might be struggling due to this then lets support them.
He’s a cunt desperately trying to cripple London and Londoners. He needs the bin
After section 35, they will absolutely do this. The Tories see the devolved administrations as abberations of their ultimate power, they hold the people represented by them with utter contempt
I think Westminster is on a powertrip right now, First with the GRA in Scotland and now with this.
But then again the theme of the last 12 years has been “centralising power around Westminster”.
It would be nice to see the government do more to push back on Sadiq Khan’s anti-car policies.
Why the opposition now right before its about to the rolled out and not before the many many months and years we’ve known it was going to happen?
“No no, we didn’t give you devolution so you could make your own decisions, we gave you devolution so we could blame you for everything” – the government
The government calls itself small state but acts large
To be fair, as much as I’m a pro-public transit, anti-car nut, I don’t think it’s the right time for an expansion on the emission zone. Trains are an absolute mess nationwide, intercity buses are so horrible that I’d rather walk to Leeds than take a bus if I could, and on top of all that, the cost of living is bad enough without the huge car expense increase that the emission zone would impose.
All this would realistically do is punish people in the poorest parts of London who still rely on a car to get to work, and contribute to the rapid pushing out of normal people from London. The government are so desperate to do all of these revitalisation and emissions projects, but they clearly have no intention whatsoever to work out a way to do any of it without pushing the people to live in those areas away or causing huge wealth disparities and rampant poverty.
It’s bad enough paying London rent and food prices as is – at this rate, nobody earning less than £100,000/year could ever even imagine living in the capital within a decade or two if the issues I’ve mentioned here aren’t fixed and car ownership becomes any more pricey!