Boris Johnson says Thatcher closing mines helped climate change

He’s being urged to apologise for the comments.

Boris Johnson has come under fire for “offensive” comments he has made suggesting that Margaret Thatcher helped the environment by closing coal mines in Britain.

The Prime Minister said that the closures gave the UK a “big early start” in the fight against climate change.

He made the comments in a visit to an offshore wind farm in the Moray Firth.

Nicola Sturgeon has described the remarks as “crass and deeply insensitive” to mining communities.

In a tweet, she said: “”Lives and 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).”

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

Labour has said that Johnson should apologise for the “shameful” comments.

The party’s Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The damage done to Welsh coal mining areas 30 years ago was incalculable and here we are 30 years later the Tories are still celebrating what they did.”

Keir Starmer accused the PM of “brushing off the devastating impact [of mine closures] on those communities with a laugh.”

Johnson made the comments on Thursday, during a two-day visit to Scotland. He was asked about preparations for the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in November.

When pushed on whether he would set a deadline for ending the use of fossil fuels in the UK, he suggested that the country had already transitioned away from coal during his lifetime and implied that Thatcher had inadvertently got this underway.

He said: “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 altogether.”

He is then reported to have laughed and told reporters: “I thought that would get you going!”