RISHI Sunak committed his first screeching U-turn as Prime Minister today after he hinted that a ban on fracking will be reinstated.
At PMQs this afternoon the new Tory leader vowed to stick by his party’s 2019 election manifesto, which pledged to put a moratorium on shale gas extraction.
Fracking is set to be banned AGAIN in Britain
The moratorium came under Boris Johnson, but then Ms Truss lifted it in an effort to bring down soaring gas bills and help hard-up Brits.
She said fracking would only take place in areas where local communities give their consent.
But now shale gas extraction won’t happen anywhere, with the ban set make a comeback.
Just last week the Commons descended into chaos after Labour tabled its own motion to ban fracking, while Ms Truss was still PM.
Tory MPs who hate the practice didn’t want to vote with the government and ended up in tears in the voting lobbies.
The fiasco helped bring down the disastrous Truss premiership, and paved the way for Mr Sunak to replace her at the top.
Now, with Ms Truss booted out of No10, Mr Sunak has decided to side with the frack-hating Tory MPs, Labour and the Lib Dems.
Alongside backtracking on fracking, today at PMQs the new Tory leader locked horns with his Labour foe Sir Keir Starmer over the economy and Brexit.
Launching a volley of attacks, Mr Sunak blasted Sir Keir for supporting former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and trying to overturn the 2016 Brexit referendum result.
Taunting the PM about his loss to Liz Truss in the summer, the Labour leader railed: “He’s not on the side of working people.
“That’s why the only time he ran in a competitive election, he got trounced by the former prime minister, who herself got beat by a lettuce.”
To the delight of his Brexiteer backbenchers, Mr Sunak shot back: “He talks about elections. It’s a bit rich coming from the person who tried to overturn the biggest democratic election in history.”
Sir Keir and Mr Sunak also clashed over the appointment of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary, just six days after she resigned from the post for accidentally leaking official documents on her private phone.
Sir Keir accused Mr Sunak of a “grubby stitch-up” to trade her support for her old job back.
The PM defended the appointment, saying Ms Braverman had accepted she made an “error of judgement” and he wanted to welcome her back into the Cabinet.
