The most enduring symptom of Britain’s class divide is its ability to respawn continuously in the conceptualization of the general public as non-related entities. In the 1980s, the divisive poll tax effectively criminalised low income-earners for whom a fixed address was a luxury. In the early 2000s, it was Tony Blair’s Antisocial Behavioural Orders (ASBOs). In 2014 it was EU membership, where Nigel Farage’s capitalization of a strong wave of discomfort and dissatisfaction with the impact of European migration upon the British economy resulted in UKIP’s landslide performance in the 2014 MEP elections, and Brexit. Now, attention has turned to two policies that anticipate change in the automotive industry: the introduction of Ultra Low Emission Zones, and Rishi Sunak’s decision to extend the deadline for the ban of new combustion engine vehicles in 2035. 

Policy criticisms relate to the same core issue: the British government is overwhelmingly responsible for the current extent of reliance upon the car. On the side of the proliferation of ULEZ zones (fourteen at the time of writing: ten in England and four in Scotland), the most controversial has been its extension to virtually all of Greater London, attracting unprecedentedly frequent vandalism of ULEZ fixed cameras and mobile van cameras. There are also issues that have been given less attention: its implementation in provincial capitals has resulted in and will result in the scrappage of perfectly good taxis, driving up operating costs. Some local authorities do make the effort to counter such change. Transport Scotland and the Energy Savings Trust in Scotland are partnering to offer interest-free loans for existing taxi owners who require a new electric taxi. However, electric vehicles themselves command a heavy premium. The Skoda Octavia – a long running staple of the taxi fleet – has a base on-the-road price of £23k. The MG 5 electric estate range – a similarly sized vehicle – starts at £31k. The £8k premium – a third of a brand new Octavia – will be reflected in taxi fares, which will affect young suburbanite families and the elderly who use taxis to travel into urban areas in the first place due to the rising unaffordability of car ownership. 

The government moves transport deadlines around like goalposts after a rainy day on pitch. Of highest public profile to the present administration is the completion and extent of High Speed rail 2 (HS2). However, the deadline for the sale of new combustion engine vehicles also deserves attention. The deadline was first set at 2040 by then-Prime Minister Theresa May in 2017, before being brought forward to 2030 by the Johnson administration and most recently set back five years by Rishi Sunak in September 2023. Billed as ‘a new way to achieve net zero’, this is actually a new way to further burden individuals, couples and families alike who have to work increasingly hard to afford surging mortgage rates and a 5.2% inflation rate. The London-centric nature of public transport expenditure has meant that people living within a five-mile radius of most city centres struggle to find public transport that is acceptable for a work commute, resorting instead to reliance upon private vehicle use. 

Public discourse has framed these issues within the constraints of a class divide before. When drink drive limits began to be enforced in 1967, people complained in street interviews that breathalyzer-supported persecutions penalized hardworking motorists who wanted to stop at the pub to have a few drinks after a physically laborious twelve-hour shift. However, legislations like these never had the same profound effect upon the supply of vehicles as ULEZ introduction and the deadline on the combustion engine ban. 

Having run out of new ways to pass the burden of the post-Covid economy to the British public, Rishi Sunak has stirred up a class divide on a long-established theme of postwar British culture, punishing the demographics his party helped create with Conservative policy on the push towards electrification of private transport. The reliance upon the automobile is one of the most lamentable aspects of Britain’s Americanisation. It is more pervasive than that which occurs across continental Western Europe, and cannot be reduced by legislative will. It is difficult to interpret the deadline regarding the sale of new combustion engine vehicles as being based upon concerns regarding environmental cleanliness and quality of life. Instead, the virtual blanket neglect demonstrated by successive prime ministers upon public transport investment – indeed, most nefariously characterized by perpetual modifications to HS2 and blatant disregard of the basics of electric vehicle operation – that a vehicle costs so much more than an internal combustion vehicle – makes pundits like myself hope with fervor that automotive and transport policy will be remembered as a shining instance of how the government gambled – and hopefully lost – with the memory of the British public towards its failings at the next election. 

Authored by Guan Kiong Teh, a PhD candidate at the University of St Andrews