By Cllr Rachel Burgess
The ‘war on motorists’ is an over-used fiction, being wheeled out by the Conservatives in a desperate attempt to appease right wing critics and win a few votes.
To attempt to create a division between motorists and cyclists or pedestrians is a base tactic and, more importantly, it won’t work.
The top issue that is raised with me as a borough councillor is road safety and traffic speeding. I know that my residents want stress-free pedestrian routes near their homes, safe pedestrian crossing points, safe cycle paths and a crackdown on noisy, speeding motorists. I know this because they tell me – frequently.
However Rishi Sunak, like a weary line of Conservatives before him, has vowed to ‘slam the brakes on the war on motorists’.
Sunak, like his Conservative predecessors, has wheeled out this fiction that drivers are continually penalised, and states that this ‘doesn’t reflect the values of Britain’. In doing so he reveals just how out of touch he is with what ordinary people think. Unless the values of residents Norreys ward are strikingly different to the average, this just does not wash.
This is another attempt by Sunak in a series of last-gasp efforts to create divisions in political discussions that he can exploit. But if Sunak deigned to jump in his helicopter and take a trip to Wokingham, if he actually spoke to people as I do, he would realise this is another stoked-up ‘culture war’ which is not backed up by the lives and wishes of ordinary people.
There is a theme here. Recently Rishi Sunak claimed he would scrap ‘meat taxes’ – which were never government policy in the first place. Just like sorting your rubbish into seven bins, or compulsory car sharing, the Conservatives are setting up fictional policies to rail against, as they have nothing else left to try. Most recently they have tried the ‘workers vs shirkers’ fictionalised divide. A local councillor pitched in with a disgraceful question to Council last month on Council workers spending ‘leisure time in their tracksuits’ instead of coming into the office. It is lazy, desperate, offensive politics.
Local Conservatives seem rudderless at their party’s volte-face on climate issues. On the one hand the Council’s Climate Emergency Action Plan, which they initiated when in power, includes local cycling and walking infrastructure, increased bus use, increased cycling and walking and – less driving. They did not vote for its most recent iteration claiming it was not ambitious enough.
Meanwhile Wokingham Conservative MP Sir John Redwood writes of an ‘anti-motorist coalition’ in his Westminster diary, and Bracknell Conservative MP James Sunderland has happily joined forces with other Conservatives in recent years, campaigning to stop more cycle lanes being built.
Sunak’s announcement that there would be a delay in banning sales of new petrol and diesel cars drew widespread criticism and outrage, not just from the public but from car manufacturers themselves. Many were utterly dismayed that, while the wildfires in Greece, Turkey, Canada and many other countries illustrate so clearly that the world is literally burning, Sunak plays a divisive and short-term political game with the very future of our planet.
The recent approval of the Rosebank oil field decimated any respect or leadership role for the UK on climate issues. And all the while the language used is as deliberate as it is irresponsible – claiming net zero motives are “ideological” (the inference being this is just eco-zealotry, as opposed to being based in accepted fact).
My own area, Wokingham town, is dominated by vehicles. I know from talking to residents that some rely on their cars to get around – either because our society is set up to work around the car, or because older or less mobile people rely their cars to get to everyday appointments or shop for food. But every single driver I know – and I am one – respects the need for cyclists and pedestrians to feel safe on our roads and pavements.
To pit supporters of cycle lanes, safe pavements, pedestrian crossings and 20 mph zones against ‘motorists’ is unintelligent and shows disrespect for our residents. We are more sophisticated than Sunak believes. The two things are not mutually exclusive – residents of Wokingham can be (and are) pro-cyclist and pro-pedestrian, without being anti-motorist.
Most people want to drive safely. I help to run a local Community Speedwatch group, to remind drivers to stay within the speed limit. Our group receives much more positive feedback, including from drivers, than negative. Most people respect the speed limit and the reasons for it. They understand that there is no sense to this fictional war.
Just last year, the government increased powers for local councils to enforce moving traffic offences, something very much welcomed in my own ward, to stop drivers flouting no entry signs and similar. What would winning this fictional war actually mean? If you drive it to its logical conclusion: ditching speed limits, allowing cars to be parked anywhere, removing all of the rules of the road? It doesn’t make any sense.
To try and create a division between drivers and pedestrians or cyclists is irresponsible and desperate. Whether it is fictional wars on wokeism, seven types of bins, workers versus shirkers, or motorists, the Conservatives have given up trying to be serious politicians and are casting around for their next culture war to try and divide the nation. Here’s some advice from me for free: it won’t work.
Cllr Rachel Burgess is ward member for Norreys and deputy leader of the Labour group on Wokingham Borough Council
