May rages at right-wingers who deny climate reality

Ex-PM denounces rhetoric of Trump, Farage and Le Pen

- DAVID MADDOX

Theresa May has launched a blistering attack on Donald Trump and other leading right-wing politicians including Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen over their climate-change denial. In a wideranging speech in New York, Baroness May also warned that the climate crisis is now fuelling the cruelty and criminality of the modern slave trade.

The former prime minister was giving the keynote speech at The Independent’s Climate 100 event, as world leaders including British prime minister Sir Keir Starmer gathered in New York for the United Nations General Assembly.

Baroness May’s anger at those like Trump and Mr Farage who describe climate change as a “hoax” or a “scam” echoes warnings made ahead of the Climate 100 event in a powerful intervention by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.

As Tory chair in 2002, after a second humiliating defeat to Tony Blair, Ms May famously delivered a warning to the Conservatives that they had “become the nasty party” by turning their backs on the issues that resonated with ordinary voters.

Her attack on Trump and Mr Farage also includes an implied criticism of her own party, where the four leadership candidates have all moved towards Reform, pulling away from green policies like those she championed in government. She made a passionate appeal for leaders to take the climate crisis seriously, not just to save the planet but also for the sake of humanity.

She raged against “those who pit ‘the people’ against an out-oftouch elite”, accusing them of using the climate change debate “to fight a culture war”.