Former Tory minister vows to vote Labour over party’s climate failures

Exclusive: Chris Skidmore, ex-energy minister, says Rishi Sunak's bid to turn net zero into culture war issue is greatest tragedy of his premiership'

• I was a Tory minister - but I think we need a Labour government | Chris Skidmore

The Conservatives' former net zero tsar has revealed that he intends to vote Labour for the first time because Rishi Sunak has been siding with climate deniers" to politicise the energy transition.

Writing exclusively in the Guardian, Chris Skidmore, a former energy minister, said he could not back the Tories, who had argued that net zero was a burden and not a benefit", a decision that he said would cost it votes.