Eco-tycoon Dale Vince backs nuke vets and tells Rishi Sunak 'now it's your turn'
Dale Vince is an unusual sort of tycoon - his says his motivation isn’t money, but fairness.
“The majority of things that bother me are about injustice, that’s in my nature,” he says, and if that seems rich coming from a man worth £100million, he has a long record of putting his money where his mouth is.
Over a decade he’s donated £1.5million to Labour, backed Just Stop Oil, and turned Forest Green Rovers, which he is chairman of, into the world’s first organic, vegan football club.
Now he’s backing Britain’s nuclear veterans, helping them take the Ministry of Defence to court over missing medical records.
More than 20,000 servicemen and 155,000 descendants, who report rare blood disorders, cancers and high rates of birth defects, are thought to be affected by the MoD’s failure to tell them the results of blood tests taken during atomic weapons trials.
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“When I heard what the Mirror was saying, and how seriously people are affected now, even into the second and third generations, for victims to just be blanked by the government and MoD is unconscionable,” said Vince, 62. “I’d say to Rishi Sunak: ‘Now it’s your turn. Do the right thing in the name of justice for these people. Help them understand what is affecting their health. They deserve the truth’.”
His donation means the veterans now have the £50,000 needed to launch their legal action, creating a headache for Sunak who has said he's too busy to talk to them.
“Sunak doesn’t live in our world,” said Vince. “He’s not got an idea what it’s like for any of us. His big solution is it’ll be all right, because in 7 years’ time he won’t make you buy a new electric car. As though anyone struggling right now worries about that. How detached is he, a man who flies everywhere... he shouldn’t even be in Number 10. He has no mandate, he isn’t elected.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak laid a wreath for nuclear veterans as he announced a medal - 70 years late - but refused to find time to discuss their missing medical records (Reach Commissioned)Sitting at his desk beneath a green Union Jack flag, Vince says it inspires him to build a “green Britain”, calling it the economic “opportunity of the century”.
Vince clearly rattles Sunak, who told Tory supporters he’s an “eco-zealot” whose support for environmental issues is a threat to their freedoms and pockets. Yet Vince is, on paper, everything the Tories should love: a successful businessman who founded his own energy firm, Ecotricity, has a new venture making diamonds out of thin air, and once owned a two seater, £750,000 sports car with a top speed of 151mph.
But it’s green energy; the diamonds take carbon, a greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere; and the car was electric, charged by Ecotricity turbines, and has since been given to the Science Museum.
Vince says capitalism and environmentalism go hand-in-hand. “We’ve done a study with Imperial College London, which isn’t published yet, showing sticking with fossil fuels will cost twice as much as moving to green energy,” said Vince. “The truth, the economics, and the science are all on my side. Yet Sunak’s told people they can’t afford to do it. We can’t afford not to.”
Sunak’s knack for exploiting divisive issues convinced Vince to stop funding Just Stop Oil, the climate protesters who have blockaded roads to highlight continuing use of fossil fuels.
“It just feeds into Tory propaganda. They were turning it into a culture war,” said Vince. “You can’t stop oil with protests, the only thing you’d change is they’d make the law on protesting harder, at the expense of our liberties.
“I’m not a zealot, I’m passionate. If they want to call me an eco-zealot that’s fine, but Rishi Sunak’s a fossil fuel zealot.”
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PM Sunak has been burning up the skies in a government helicopter funded by the taxpayer (JEREMY SELWYN)He’s even called for denial of man-made climate change to be against the law. Posting a dramatic video of a river flooding down a street to his 75,000 followers on X, he wrote: “FGR's game vs Mansfield was called off this weekend due to pitch flooding, but it was no ordinary waterlogged pitch - Mansfield itself was flooded. Climate denial is dangerous and should be illegal.”
He said: “Climate denial is not a victimless crime - the UN says 4m people have died from climate change, 40,000 from excess heat in Europe the summer before last. To deny that is to slow down progress, sow confusion, and it’s quite frankly killing people.”
Thirty years ago Vince was a New Age protester, living in a camper van with a tiny wind turbine for power. Thousands of turbines later, his ripped jeans are designer, his hair is in a trendy undercut, and he’s got the attention of those in power, or about to be.
He won’t talk about whether he’d accept a peerage from Keir Starmer, but he’s happy to work with him. “It’s better to be in the tent if you want to end injustice," he said.
A millionaire with a conscience - now that *is* unusual.
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