![Protesters opposed to the expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/opinion/2023/08/29/TELEMMGLPICT000347235048_16933295104530_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqgsaO8O78rhmZrDxTlQBjdGLvJF5WfpqnBZShRL_tOZw.jpeg?imwidth=680)
![Protesters opposed to the expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/opinion/2023/08/29/TELEMMGLPICT000347235048_16933295104530_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqgsaO8O78rhmZrDxTlQBjdGLvJF5WfpqnBZShRL_tOZw.jpeg?imwidth=680)
The first day of Ulez’s expansion across Greater London was greeted with fury. Cameras installed to enforce the low emission zone were vandalised, while people gathered in the centre of the capital to protest.
Supporters of enlarging the zone maintain that large numbers of people back the change, which has been sold as necessary to improve air quality. That may be so, but the strength of feeling is clearly on the side of the opponents.
It is an indictment of the entire political class that, despite this upswell of anger, nobody has proved either willing or able to do anything to stop the spread of Ulez. The Conservative Party won a by-election off the back of promises to resist it, but when push came to shove the Government opted to hide behind legal advice and claim that it was powerless to act.
Sir Keir Starmer, for his part, hinted that he did not support Sadiq Khan’s measure, and several Labour MPs joined the chorus of criticism. But he was similarly unwilling to do anything concrete to try to prevent it from happening.
Mr Khan may hope that, by the time of the next mayoral election, the anger will have abated, as people either trade in their cars for newer models, get used to paying £12.50 a day to drive their vehicles, or give them up entirely. Labour support in the capital is in any case stronger in the centre, which has already lived under Ulez for several years, than in the leafy suburbs.
But that hope may rest upon a misunderstanding of public opinion. This issue has become a question of basic fairness, and the injustice of imposing on people costs that they may well struggle to afford.
It is also arguably the first organised popular revolt against a green policy pushed through by Britain’s political establishment, and it will not have been lost on voters that no mainstream political leader at Westminster was brave enough to properly take their side against the eco-zealots.
We have already seen in the Netherlands how quickly dissatisfaction with the excesses of environmental policy can turn into dissatisfaction with the political elite as a whole.
This is, in short, politically dangerous territory for both Conservatives and Labour. Protesters yesterday may have been brandishing placards reading “Get Khan Out”, but it is not insignificant that they were doing so outside Downing Street. The consequences of this row are unlikely to be short-lived.
The Ulez debate is very far from over
The expansion has been greeted with fury. Both Labour and Conservatives are now in politically dangerous territory