Carrie Johnson's environmentalist pal Lord Goldsmith QUITS government

2023-06-30

Carrie Johnson’s environmentalist friend Lord Goldsmith QUITS as a government minister with withering attack on ‘uninterested’ Rishi Sunak over the slow pace of green reforms

The former MP was ennobled by Mr Johnson after losing his Richmond Park seat

One of Rishi Sunak’s ministers quit today with a withering attack on the Prime Minister’s lack of action on green issues.

Lord Goldsmith, an environmentalist and close friend of Carrie Johnson, the wife of the former prime minister, stepped down with personal broadside at the ‘apathy’ shown by the PM and his government.

The former MP was ennobled by Mr Johnson after losing his Richmond Park seat in 2019 and was seen as a strong influence on his Net Zero drive while in power.

But that drive has markedly slowed under Mr Sunak, amid pressure from Tory backbenchers.

Goldsmith was Minister for Overseas Territories, Commonwealth, Energy, Climate and Environment at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.

In a two-page letter posted online he said: ‘Prime Minister, having been able to get so much done previously, I have struggled even to hold the line in recent months.

‘The problem is not that the government is hostile to the environment, it is that you, our Prime Minister, are simply uninterested.

Lord Goldsmith, an environmentalist and close friend of Carrie Johnson , the wife of the former prime minister, stepped down with an attack on government apathy on the issue.

The former MP (pictured with now estranged wife wife Alice Rothschild last summer) was ennobled by Mr Johnson after losing his Richmond Park seat in 2019 and was seen as a strong influence on his Net Zero drive while in power.

‘That signal, or lack of it, has trickled down through Whitehall and caused a kind of paralysis.

‘I will never understand how, with all the knowledge we now have about our fundamental reliance on the natural world and the speed at which we are destroying it, anyone can be uninterested.’

He said he was ‘horrified’ that key animal welfare commitments have also been abandoned, such as the Kept Animals Bill, which would have banned live exports of animals for slaughter and toughened up rules on pets.

He concluded the letter: ‘It has been a privilege to be able to work with so many talented people in government, in particular my Private Office, and to have been able to make a difference to a cause I have been committed to for as long as I remember.

‘But this government’s apathy in the face of the greatest challenge we have faced makes continuing in my current role untenable. With great reluctance I am therefore stepping down as a Minister in order to focus my energy where it can be more useful.’

Mr Johnson handed Lord Goldsmith his peerage shortly after the 2019 general election, in which the multi-millionaire environmentalist lost his Richmond Park seat to the Liberal Democrats.

This allowed Lord Goldsmith to remain as a Government minister in Mr Johnson’s administration.

He was sacked by Liz Truss from his role as an environment minister at the start of her brief tenure in No10 last year but kept his Foreign Office brief.

In 2021 it was revealed how Mr and Mrs Johnson enjoyed a free holiday when they stayed at a holiday home of Lord Goldsmith’s family in southern Spain.

Photos emerged of Mr Johnson painting at an easel while enjoying his break at the Goldsmith villa, which was claimed to usually cost as much as £25,000 a week to rent.

Mrs Johnson’s first job in politics was working for the now peer.

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