John Kerry rebuked over intervention in Tory leadership election

London, 25 July - John Kerry, the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, has been rebuked for interfering in the Conservative leadership election.

Asked by the BBC to comment on Liz Truss's pledge to put a moratorium on the green levies on energy bills as a modest help to families, Kerry warned the candidates not to touch the Net Zero plan.

While he claimed he did not want to interfere in the choice of the UK’s next prime minister, he said he would “pointedly and adamantly” advise against any move to water down the commitments to CO2 reductions that were confirmed at last year’s COP26 summit in Glasgow.

Benny Peiser, the director of Net Zero Watch, said:

John Kerry's intervention in the Conservative Party's leadership election exposes the utter hypocrisy of the Biden administration. Only a year ago President Biden criticised Russia for interfering in the US election and claimed Washington would never do such a thing.

While the US administration is flying around the world, begging other nations for more oil and gas, the last thing we need is for the Biden administration to tell the next PM not to prioritise reducing the appalling cost of Net Zero plans."

Mr Kerry seems to have forgotten what happened during the EU referendum campaign, when former US president Barack Obama warned that the US would place the UK at the ‘back of the queue’ for a trade deal if it dared to leave the EU. Trying to bully the British public failed then, and it will almost certainly do so again. "