Boris Johnson onboard Esvagt Alba during a visit to the Moray Offshore Windfarm East, off the Moray coast
(Picture: REUTERS)Stop the press. Boris Johnson has put his foot in it again.
This time, he has angered people by appearing to celebrate the decimation of the coal industry while making a joke about climate change.
What happened?
Asked during a visit to Scotland about whether the country should stop relying on oil and gas for energy, Johnson said that former prime minister Margaret Thatcher gave “a big early start” to green energy by closing coal mines.
It comes after Labour leader Keir Starmer said that there should be a “hard-edged” timetable to end the UK’s reliance on these forms of energy.
Johnson said: “We understand the importance to the north-east of Scotland of the oil and gas industry. The contracts that have been signed should not just be ripped up. But we need to transition as fast as we reasonably can.”
Pressed on whether he wanted to set a firm deadline, he replied: “Look at what we’ve done already. We’ve transitioned away from coal in my lifetime. Thanks to Margaret Thatcher, who closed so many coal mines across the country, we had a big early start and we’re now moving rapidly away from coal all together”.
Ouch.
In 1984, there were 170 working collieries in Britain, employing more than 190,000 people but, by 2015, they had all closed.
Thatcher’s announcement that she planned to close 20 of them led to the year-long miners’ strike which saw violent clashes with the police.
Thatcher also didn’t close the mines because she was ahead of the curve on climate change. She did so because she believed them to be economically inefficient and wished to import more coal and gas. So all in all, not a great quip from Johnson.
And so – despite the fact he was joking that Thatcher inadvertently helped the environment rather than actually guffawing about those who lost their livelihoods in the 1980s – he received almost unanimous backlash from disgruntled people including Labour, former Conservative and SNP MPs and even from Nigel Farage.
Lives & communities in Scotland were utterly devastated by Thatcher’s destruction of the coal industry (which had zero to do with any concern she had for the planet). To treat that as something to laugh about is crass & deeply insensitive to that reality. https://t.co/QY0Y59UO3K
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) August 5, 2021
Boris Johnson’s shameful praising of Margaret Thatcher’s closure of the coal mines, brushing off the devastating impact on those communities with a laugh, shows just how out of touch he is with working people.https://t.co/Lga1FYHfqC
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) August 5, 2021
Boris Johnson laughing away as he praises Margaret Thatcher for the damage she did to our communities and all the lives that she blighted shows how out of touch he is and his contempt for working class people.
— Angela Rayner (@AngelaRayner) August 5, 2021
We won’t forgive and we won’t forget.https://t.co/sU1kMe0Noo
Our coalfield communities were treated disgracefully by the Thatcher Government and we are still paying the price. The PM might sing a different tune when he wants our votes but this is what he really thinks about us, our communities and our contribution. https://t.co/WH8jgHCB0U
— Lisa Nandy (@lisanandy) August 5, 2021
#BorisJohnson the gift that keeps on giving to the #SNP. Nothing funny about closing pits in my home county of #Notts. Took decades for communities to recover & rebuild. What will it take for sensible Tories to stand up to this offensive buffoon? https://t.co/NPS6nc4v1k
— Anna Soubry (@Anna_Soubry) August 5, 2021
Why is Boris Johnson rubbing salt into the wounds of old mining communities, with his crass comments about Thatcher closing the coal mines?
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) August 5, 2021
Does he even understand the red wall? Madness. https://t.co/Jw7tiAJj05
“You Northerners can trust us Tories, we’re on your side now” says man who finds the closing of pits and destruction of communities hilarious. https://t.co/RocGv9Sio7
— David Schneider (@davidschneider) August 5, 2021
No, Thatcher didn’t close the pits because she wanted to reduce carbon emissions. She did it to kill an industry, a powerful trade union & she ended up dealing a severe blow to our strong communities. It still hurts.
— Leanne Wood 💚💛 (@LeanneWood) August 6, 2021
Ditch the crap jokes. No one’s laughing.
"Thatcher’s decimation of the coal industry had absolutely nothing to do with environmentalism and everything to do with her despicable anti-trade union ideology” https://t.co/6dmjE6ezAT
— Peter Stefanovic (@PeterStefanovi2) August 6, 2021
There is nothing funny about Boris Johnson’s crass joke. Margaret Thatcher destroyed the coal mining industry and with it, destroyed communities all over Britain - many of which have never recovered. It had absolutely nothing to do with green energy. https://t.co/t2BWmRxAbM
— James Melville (@JamesMelville) August 6, 2021
Thatcher devastated communities across Scotland. Many still bear the scars of brutal Tory cuts.
— Ian Blackford (@Ianblackford_MP) August 5, 2021
Yet again, @BorisJohnson has shown he is completely out of touch with Scotland by making unbelievably crass jokes at the expense of our mining communities.https://t.co/Np2ROnFkvx
Labour’s leader in Scotland Anas Sarwar also said the remarks were “just another example of why the Tories are a disaster and the biggest threat to the union”.
And the party’s energy spokeswoman at Holyrood, Monica Lennon, criticised the PM for “laughing about Thatcher’s pit closures that decimated our mining communities”.
Fellow Labour MSP Neil Bibby said: “To attempt to turn one of the most divisive and destructive periods in British history into a retrospective victory for the environment is deeply offensive to the people and communities who faced considerable hardship and misery.”
Johnson isn’t known for being tactful - his past comments comparing Muslim women wearing burkas to “letterboxes” have led people to accuse him of racism and Islamophobia.
But risking offending people from so-call red wall seats that switched blue in the 2019 general election will have his advisers wringing their hands more than ever.
Perhaps it is time someone switched off his microphone.
