CORNWALL, England — The Conservatives have dominated politics in sleepy south-west England for nearly a decade. Suddenly, they’re in deep trouble.
A surge in support for the Liberal Democrats, the U.K.’s traditional third party, coupled with the Tories’ own collapsing vote, threatens to unseat dozens of Conservative MPs in the region at today’s general election. Opposition Labour candidates are also slated to claim a handful of local scalps.
The region “is going to be really difficult, generally [for the Tories], because there’s a real pincer movement from the Lib Dems and Labour,” said Tom Lubbock, co-founder of the polling firm JL Partners.
That means Steve Double, the MP who has represented St Austell and Newquay for the Tories since 2015, is now a man seeking a legacy.
He wants to make this picture-postcard corner of England part of the U.K.’s green revolution, and that’s pitting Cornwall — population: 570,000 — against the runaway might of the Chinese economy.
Double is an outspoken advocate for Cornish lithium production. The mineral is plentiful in the region and can be extracted from once-dormant local copper and tin mines, before being refined and manufactured into the sort of lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles (EVs.)
As the U.K. races to try and hit its net zero climate targets, demand for EVs is set to soar. That means more demand from manufacturers to build the batteries that power them — which is where Cornwall hits up against China.
Chinese EV exports, heavily subsidized by Beijing, are worth $34 billion (£27 billion) a year, according to the U.S. think tank Atlantic Council. The country also controls a chunk of global lithium production and nearly three-quarters of the capacity to process the mineral.
But experts reckon Cornwall’s old mines could meet half the U.K.’s lithium demand by the end of this decade. The British government has poured millions into the region to try to make this into a reality. The idea is to bypass China by sending it off to be refined in friendly European markets like France or Germany.
“I got very quickly what a huge potential opportunity this was,” said Double, speaking in his constituency office, a large picture of his own grinning face hanging over the door.
“In a world where there is increasing global instability, where China is trying to dominate and control the supply of car batteries and lithium — for the U.K. to be able to say, ‘We’ve got 50 percent of our requirements supplied domestically in a secure way’ … I think [it] can’t be underestimated just how important that could be in the coming decades.”
Get lobbying
After extensive lobbying, the U.K. government two years ago set out plans to build critical minerals supply chains with allies across the world, as well as boosting domestic industry — precisely what Double is eyeing in his constituency.
Double, who spoke to POLITICO before the election was called, said he had been “regularly speaking” to top Cabinet ministers like Kemi Badenoch and Claire Coutinho about the plan. Cornish business leaders have hosted a flow of senior ministers, too.
“We’re really seeing a renewed understanding from government that [this] is important,” said Jeremy Wrathall, CEO of Cornish Lithium Ltd.
Rishi Sunak’s decision to call a snap general election in May put a hold on things. It might even end Double’s career (polling has Labour narrowly overturning his 16,000 majority.) But Noah Law, the Labour candidate gunning to win St Austell and Newquay, already has his eye on how a new government might bring more green cash to Cornwall as it takes on China.
The area should get a “fair share” from Labour’s promised £5 billion Green Prosperity Plan, Law told POLITICO. “[Shadow Business Secretary] Jonny Reynolds was in Cornwall meeting with the lithium players just a couple of months ago. [Shadow Energy Secretary] Ed Miliband has been down as well, and they’re both so well versed in this supply chain.”
The Chinese are coming
At the heart of this future vision for Cornwall is a transformation in U.K. transport.
Transport generated more than a quarter of the U.K.’s total carbon emissions in 2021. If the country is to get to net zero emissions by 2050 — a legally-binding target — it will mean wholesale changes for the sector — including its 40 million registered vehicles, of which only one million or so are currently EVs.
To this end, the Conservative government pledged to ban sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035, with EV production ramped up to replace them. Labour wants to bring forward that target to 2030.
But the rush to EVs risks leaving the U.K. worryingly reliant upon the Chinese economy. Ministers “have lacked the foresight to respond to the aggressive capture of large parts of the [critical minerals] market, over the last three decades, by China,” the House of Commons’ foreign affairs committee warned last year.
Johann Beckford, senior policy adviser at environmental think tank Green Alliance, said China’s early investment in EVs has handed the country “first mover benefit.”
“China [has] been extremely smart. They saw the electric energy change coming before everybody else,” agreed Cornish Lithium’s Wrathall. “They created a supply chain around the world for lithium, and a refinery capacity in China to support their own electric vehicle industry.”
“We’re going to be seeing more and more Chinese vehicles on European roads and U.K. roads,” Beckford added. A new, cheap China-made EV, for example, sold by Vauxhall owner Stellantis, is due to come to the U.K. in March 2025.
It is naive to imagine the U.K. would ever stop trading with China, Double said — but he argued that a domestic battery market will help avoid the risk of being “totally beholden to them.”
“Clearly, there is a strategy from China to try and control the market supply. I think the West really needs to wake up to some of this — working with friends and allies around the world to ensure that we’re not totally dependent on China,” he said.
Cornish cash
The response, in part, has been a stream of green investment into Double’s backyard. The money has been steady, rather than spectacular — so far.
Wrathall’s Cornish Lithium has secured £55 million in funding, with a further £71 million to come if it meets its targets. Rival developer British Lithium has received over £5 million for research and development.
British Lithium is furthest along in its operations, with a pilot plant up and running. It eventually hopes to generate enough lithium carbonate to service half a million EVs per year over 30 years.
“We can and should source at least 50,000 tons of this from Cornwall, which is the biggest source of lithium in Europe,” said Adam Bell, a former Whitehall energy official and now director at the consultancy Stonehaven. “Without this, our EV transition stands likely to be more expensive and our supply chains vulnerable to further protectionist measures.”
Up close, the British Lithium plant looks more like a giant chemistry set than a mine.
Donning ear protectors, glasses and hi-viz jackets, bosses walked POLITICO through the process of extracting waste rock from the clay mining pits. The rock was ground down to locate granite, and rotating magnetic strips noisily isolate lithium mica — the remnant minerals — which are carted off to a laboratory to be heated and refined to create lithium carbonate.
British Lithium expects to submit a planning application for a fully operational mine next year, begin construction in 2026, and get the plant up and running by 2030.
The two companies aim, by their most optimistic forecasts, to extract a combined total of 45,000 tons a year of battery-grade lithium once their operations are in commercial production. The mineral would serve huge battery factories such as Jaguar Land Rover’s planned £4 billion gigafactory in Somerset. Other factories producing EVs and EV parts are proposed in the West Midlands and Wearside.
Changing landscape
On the ground in St Austell, the landscape is scarred by clay china pits and mountains of dirt, the legacy of generations of industrial activity. Copper and tin mining dominated Cornwall for two centuries, ending only with the closure of the South Crofty mine in 1998.
Tim Smit, environmentalist and the founder of the nearby Eden Project biomes, described the revival of the industry in almost mystical terms. Mineral extraction was “the face of a dawning new green enlightenment,” he said, with the potential to “transform our perceptions of what we could become.”
But that transformation hasn’t hit home quite yet.
“What’s lithium?” asked one punter at the fish and chip stall in the St Austell village of Charlestown, when approached by POLITICO. Queries in the local hotel met with blank stares. Cornwall’s lithium-driven revolution is not, Double admitted, a “doorstep issue.”
The local Tory MPs may have been campaigning for more support for the industry, but it’s unlikely to help them at the ballot box.
Nevertheless, Mark Hewson, leader of Imerys, which has entered into a joint venture with British Lithium, said he was confident that backing for the industry will survive any electoral upheava
“I’ve met with a number of shadow ministers in recent months, and the mood music is very much ‘hit the ground running’,” Hewson said. “Net zero remains an absolute key part of the U.K. long-term future.”
For Law, the Labour candidate, this fledgling market represents a chance to air yet again well-tested campaign lines about jobs and energy security.
A local lithium boom would mean the chance to train “the next generation of Cornish mineral workers and engineers, and basically communicate to people that these jobs and this opportunity exists,” he said.
Ushering in that process may well fall to him.