The Political Aspects of Environmentalism in the UK

IES u Analysis

Political Aspects of

Environmentalism

The Political Aspects of Environmentalism in the UK | December 2012 | www.the-ies.org | 1

The Political Aspects of

Environmentalism in the UK

“Amongst the certainties of political opinion on

almost every other subject, the apparently perplexing

character of many environmental problems - their

lack of ‘fit’ with conventional frameworks for thinking

about politics - is very marked”

. Michael Jacobs (1999)

Mounting pressures on the natural environment have seen

environmental degradation become an increasing concern for

governments. Environmental issues are now established as a

distinct area of policy, and their consideration as a dimension

of existing programmes, the norm. But to a unique degree,

environmental challenges, and the reaction they have elicited

among politicians have defied predictions along familiar

political fault-lines. The ideological grounding across the

political spectrum appears to both incline parties toward

environmentalism as well as inhibit an affirmative stand on such

issues. This dichotomy is the subject of this discussion paper.

Reference to the ‘environment’ as a distinct policy area did

not feature in the manifestos of Britain’s political parties until

the 1970’s. Conversely, the issues beneath this label have been

political issues for centuries longer. In his history of ‘Greening

of British Party Politics’ Mike Robinson observes that;

“whilst the name is novel and the costume may have

adapted, in terms of the physical and human environment

as an object of political attention, the essential character

of concern has been little altered since the 19th century.”

Environmental issues have been well-argued since the late

19th Century when the Liberal MP James Bryce first started

a campaign for public access to the countryside. His initial

proposition failed but the argument raged on until finally

Clement Attlee and the Labour Party passed an Act of

Parliament in 1949 to establish National Parks. It was described

at the time by the Minister for Town and Country Planning as

“…the most exciting Act of the post-war Parliament.”

History of the environment in UK politics

While environmental policies today span many sectors and

consist of an unprecedented number of delineated sub-

categories - transport, waste, energy, conservation, agriculture,

air quality – the origins of political attention to environmental

issues fell broadly into two categories: public health and

sanitation and the amenity movement. Public health and

sanitation issues were first brought into the political arena

with the Poor Law Commission of 1834 whilst the ‘amenity

movement’, concerned with landscape and habitat preservation

began with the formation of the Commons, Open Spaces and

Footpaths Preservation Society in 1865. Legislation addressing

grievances relating to the quality of people’s surroundings and

their impact on the human condition date followed shortly

after, with Torren’s Artisans’ and Labourers’ Dwellings Act of

1868 and the 1875 Improvement Act which tackled visible and

pressing public health and sanitation problems.

By the 1970’s and 80’s, developments in environmental science,

public awareness and the emergence of the environmental lobby

saw an increasingly institutional response to environmental

problems and the introduction of administrative provisions

to deal with them. The changing attitudes and unpredictable

responses of the Conservative and Labour parties toward

environmental issues during this period have earned their

detailed analysis. Whilst a consensus has judged the response

of both parties as relatively ad hoc and erratic, developments

nonetheless marked the beginning of an ongoing process of

‘greening’ of political parties, defined by Robinson as “the

translation of ideas, attitudes, motivations, symbols and ways

of thinking from the constituent cells of the environmental

movement to the mainstream political parties in terms of

rhetoric, policy and ideology”.

In 1990, the three main political parties issued Environment

White Papers in quick succession. The publication of ‘This

Common Heritance’ (Conservative), ‘An Earthly Chance’ (Labour)

and ‘What Price Our Planet?’ (Liberal Democrats) marked the

first concerted political efforts to assess different policy tools

for sustainable development and their relative value. The

remarkable success of the Green Party in the EU election of

1989 (receiving 15% of the overall vote) and the international

profile of environmental issues which accompanied the 1992

Rio Earth Summit saw ‘emphasis on environmental issues’

in the 1992 manifestos of Labour and the Conservative Party

peak

with 6.6% and 5.8% emphasis respectively, compared

with an average of 3.5% for both parties during the 1980s

These encouraging trends were relatively short lived however,

followed by a decade during which both parties “tempered

their interest in the environment”

(‘emphasis’ in the manifestos

dropped back to 2.4% and 2.0% in 1997).

Evaluation of Labour’s contribution to the environmental agenda

from 1997 until 2010 has produced mixed results. Progress was

made in areas including the reduction of emissions via the

Climate Change Levy (2001)

, improvement of UK’s historically

poor ranking among EU countries in recycling and the share of

electricity generated from renewable sources

, introduction of

the world’s first long-term legally binding framework to tackle

climate change was introduced (2008) and their contribution

to international negotiations; “the UK was consistently in the

vanguard of developed nations promoting international action

The two main political parties in the UK often seem to have an inconsitent approach towards environmental

protection. There are many historic and ideological reasons for this. Rachel Godfrey investigates.

IES u Analysis

Political Aspects of

Environmentalism

The Political Aspects of

Environmentalism in the UK

The Political Aspects of Environmentalism in the UK | December 2012 | www.the-ies.org | 2

on climate change”

. In 2005 Defra produced a guide to quality

of life indicators that listed Five New Principles upon which

the sustainable development strategy was based. Newly-

introduced into Government thinking was a more explicit

focus on Environmental Limits

. In its 2010 Evaluation of

Environmental Policy Since 1997, the Institute for Fiscal Studies

deemed the overall outcome of Labour’s policies as one of

‘steady progress’, but its critics have argued that “the Labour

Government took some action that began to address climate

change, but not nearly enough to tackle the extent of the

problem as indicated by the science.”

From 2006 - 2010, ‘politicisation of the environment’ reached

an unprecedented level as a result of the high profile attached

to the sector by David Cameron both during his bid for party

leadership and the Conservative election campaign. Overall

political commentators have deemed Cameron’s strategy aimed

at ‘detoxifying’ the Conservative party’s environmental image a

success

. This change has “transformed the environment into a

field of intense party competition.”

Ideological Compatibility: Making the Case for the

environment

The process of party ‘greening’ has also been described as an

“unconscious absorption of the environmental movement

by the political parties”, commonly attributed to Britain’s

historically weak tradition of political expression through social

movements and a strong precedent of political integration and

accommodation

This absorption has not however, been an altogether easy

one. The environmental movement fitted awkwardly with the

political landscape and programme of issues that politicians

were used to in the mid 20th century. Events since have shown

the environment to be a “classic ‘new politics’ issue which cuts

across the left-right cleavage”.

Environmental activists from both the Labour and the

Conservative Party, have fought to portray their political

philosophy as congruent with the key principles of the

environmental movement. These efforts have prompted

resistance from opposing elements of the party, loyal to

causes that clash with the goal of ‘greening’ their party. On

such occasions, the ensuing internal party debate has revealed

the differing motivations, interests and interest groups which

incline each party toward or pit them against the interests

of the environment. Such instances provide rich material for

analysis and understanding of this subject.

This discussion paper is concerned with the following

overlapping (and often confused) questions:

• What ideological foundations at the heart of Britain’s two

major political parties have a) supported and b) inhibited

the absorption and prioritisation of environmental issues.

• How have preferred delivery models for the Labour

and Conservative Party’s affected their track record of

environmental protection and shaped their reputation in

his realm in the public eye?

Whilst the preliminary question has been widely debated for

many decades, the second has become relevant more recently.

Left and right leaning politicians, traditionally advocate

diametrically opposed approaches to the delivery of public

services. Whilst the Labour party is characterised by a belief

in public ownership and planned use of resources and a

willingness to use regulatory mechanisms to intervene in

the operation of the market, a cherished strand of modern

Conservative philosophy is its faith in market forces and its

commitment to privatisation and deregulation. Although more

nuanced in reality, these caricatures broadly define the parties’

economic policies and exist prior to and independently of

environmental issues. Over recent decades, these preferences

have been superimposed upon environmental problems as they

have come to the fore, with significant consequences upon for

the fortunes of the environment versus other interests.

The Conservative Party

“There is much in Toryism and the intellectual tradition of

Burke to stimulate Conservative interest in the environment.”

Robinson (1992)

Since becoming party leader in 2005, David Cameron has

given the environment prominence in his ‘modernisation’

strategy for the Conservative Party. He has sought to dispel

the image of a “property developing, polluting government"

a rebranding effort complete with logo, with the Party’s red,

white and blue torch emblem being replaced with a sketch of

"Environmental activists from both the

Labour and the Conservative Party, have

fought to portray their political philosophy

as congruent with the key principles of

the environmental movement."

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Political Aspects of

Environmentalism

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The Political Aspects of

Environmentalism in the UK

an oak tree in 2006. During the Thatcher era, the Conservatives

attracted criticism around issues such as acid rain and nuclear

waste, shouldering Britain with the title of the ‘dirty man of

Europe’. However, by the late 1980s the government sought,

with reasonable success, to take a “firm and positive stand

on international environmental issues such as the hole in the

ozone layer and acid deposition, firmly rooted in scientific

diagnosis.”

Until David Cameron, Thatcher’s successors had

made limited attempts to strengthen Conservative policy on

this issue, and an increasingly Eurosceptic party was often

seen to be deliberately obstructing progressive European

environmental legislation.

Despite Cameron’s claim in May 2010, that his would be

the ‘greenest government ever’

, evidence suggests that

Conservative Party’s reputation in this area remains weak. A poll

carried out in 2011 found that public trust in the Conservatives

to ‘protect the environment’, remains the lowest of the three

main political parties

. A Populus poll carried out several years

earlier, looked at public trust in political parties honouring

their environmental promises and found that a significant

majority (53%) agreed with the statement ‘I wouldn’t trust

the Conservative party to implement policies to help the

environment’

. In 2010 the Government held a consultation on

shaping the nature of England that led to the publication of the

Natural Environment White Paper in 2012 and the creation of

the Natural Capital Committee. The Committee’s sole aim is

to provide independent expert advice on the state of English

Natural Capital

On the whole, the party’s environmental track record since

the 80’s suggests its centre-right system of beliefs predispose

its suppression of environmental issues in favour of other

competing interests. But environmental groups and activists

from within the party have argued the opposite, insisting

on a “long-standing and deep-rooted affinity between the

traditional Tory philosophy and conservationists’ concerns.”

Political scholars have made similar observations, with

prominent authors on the subject such as John Gray arguing

that “rather than possessing a natural home on the left, concern

for the environment is most in harmony with the outlook of

traditional conservativism of the British and European varieties.”

The reasons behind this oft-cited harmony are predominantly

rooted in the ‘guiding governing principles’ that lie at the heart

of the party, and less with the social outcomes that tend to

underpin Labour’s rationale to act. Complimentary ideological

elements fall into four key areas, together creating a clear

narrative for environmental protection.

1. A commitment to tradition and preservation of the past

The Conservative party was set up before any other in Britain

(1832), and its origins date back even further, to the Restoration

of 1660 – 1688. Generally viewed as the philosophical founder

of modern Conservativism, Edmund Burke (1729 –1797)

emphasised the importance of hierarchy, moral values derived

from the religious traditions of Christianity and natural law,

evolutionary reform and importantly tradition. The notion of

a political and social responsibility to preserve the values and

riches of the country is central to the political philosophy of

‘traditional conservativism’, one of the prominent ideological

groups within today’s Conservative Party. This shared instinct

for preserving “what is good and fine and traditional around

us”

has been the basis upon which Conservative MP’s have

claimed “the nature conservationist is a natural Conservative"

2. Appreciation of limits

Closely linked to the theme of tradition, is the Conservative

distrust of heedless experimentation. According to David

Pilbeam conservatives share environmentalists’ understanding

of limits, he cites Edmund Burke’s “railing against a spirit of

innovation”

and the tendency among Conservative parties to

invoke the notion of limits when considering what change is

acceptable and does not overstep sensible boundaries. Pilbeam

extends this theory further than most claiming that “more,

than simply a bare notion of limit [greens and traditionalist

conservatives] share [...] the view that what defines these limits

is deficiencies in human understanding”.

3. Attachment to the countryside

Recurrent and well known trends in the electoral success of

the Conservatives in rural seats provides tangible evidence

of the third common ground. A prominent environmental

‘wet’ of the Conservative party, Minister of State in 1985 and

Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1994), William

Waldegrave, emphasised that “It is the countryside with which

Conservatives have always had a natural affinity and where they

have also had strong support”

. In the Centre for Policy Studies’

paper, ‘Greening the Tories’, Andrew Sullivan highlighted the

traditional Conservative links to a “national culture deeply

attached to the past and its physical surroundings”

. Often,

pressure from this support base has forced the conservative

party to take a more environmentally sensitive approach. In

the mid 1980’s, opposition from backbench Conservative MP’s

in the shires to proposed circulars on ‘Green Belts and Land

for Housing’, and their pressure for strict land-use controls

to be retained resulted in the amendment of these circulars.

Similar sentiments may yet sink plans for a high speed train line

between London and Birmingham.

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Political Aspects of

Environmentalism

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Environmentalism in the UK

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4. Stewardship and obligation to future generations

Paternalistic Tory sentiments which evoke the idea of

stewardship of the environment come very close to the concept

of intergenerational justice, a key principle of Bruntland’s

universally accepted definition of sustainable development.

In 1984, Secretary of State for the Environment Chris Patten,

wrote “we do not have freeholders’ rights to the land we live in

which allow us to do what we want with it. We are its trustees,

obliged to pass what we inherited from the last generation to

the next”

drawing strongly on the Burkean concept of society

and government as “a partnership not only between those living,

but between those who are living, those who are dead and

those who are to be born.”

Similarly, in his publication ‘Caring

for the Environment: A Policy for Conservatives’ (1981), Stanley

Johnson, author and Conservative MP put his environmental

case to the party by stressing traditions of the Tory “sense that

we hold land on trust for prosperity”

concluding that “not

permitting random destruction and degradation is very much

part of the Conservative spirit.”

Thatcherite neo-liberal thinking

With so rich an intellectual tradition of ‘harmony’ with the

environment, why have Conservative politicians struggled to

build a credible record in this domain? The principle obstacles

to Conservative success on the environmental agenda stem

from its approach to economic management. The Conservative

Party’s desire to be non-interventionist, its belief in the free

market and aversion to state planning, create a natural barrier

to concerted action toward the damaging consequences of

economic development upon the environment.

During the 1980’s, calls for tighter planning in the countryside,

public access to land, controls on factory emissions and the

pollution of land, air and water, together with increased public

spending, were met with Conservative assurances that “the

market would be responsive and regulate itself, voluntary

action would succeed in the place of control, and the private

sector could deal with environmental problems far more

efficiently and cost-effectively”

. The Thatcher government

faced a dilemma between favouring its free market principles

or the conservationism of the suburbs and the rural shire. The

tension between a desire to simplify the planning system,

accelerate decision making and ensure adequate land is made

available for development on the one hand, and the party’s

obligation to “local authorities and a Conservative electorate

demanding effective systems of local consultation and

effective mechanisms of development control”

to conserve

local amenities and the environment is well documented.

The neo-liberal radicalism that characterised the Thatcher

era has left a strong legacy with the party, ensuring that this

conflict of interest has become a recurrent theme since the

1980’s. As Cameron’s Conservatives came to power in 2010, Barry

Goodchild noted in his paper ‘Conservative Party Policy for

planning: caught between the market and local communities’

that “the tension is unlikely to disappear in the near future”.

Other beliefs which both characterise conservative political

thought and obstruct environmental action include strong

commitment to protection of Britain’s national interest

and a common suspicion of the precautionary principle.

The Conservative reaction toward environmental directives

emanating from Brussels, offers a useful case in point with

which to understand some of these conflicts of interest.

As the European Union has become an increasingly important

source of environmental legislation in the UK, resistance

among Conservative party ranks has often followed. Such

a response is in keeping with well-known Conservative

aversion toward European interference in British affairs, but

specific complaints with regard to environmental directives

have compounded these sentiments. Firstly, the cost of

implementing measures have been viewed as burdensome to

the British economy, costly for business and therefore against

Britain’s national interest. Second, there has been a perception

among Conservatives that the European community relies

excessively on the precautionary principle with respect to

pollution control measures and a desire to see more extensive,

robust scientific evidence as the basis of new legislation rather

than references to ‘emotion’ statements

"The Conservative Party’s desire to

be non-interventionist, its belief in

the free market and aversion to state

planning, create a natural barrier to

concerted action toward the damaging

consequences of economic development

upon the environment."

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Political Aspects of

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The Political Aspects of

Environmentalism in the UK

Vote Blue, Go Green

It is in the context of Goodchild’s predictions that this subject

is timelier than ever. The economic fortunes of the country

together with mounting disgruntlement within the Tory ranks

regarding Cameron’s “pragmatic political case that greenery and

liberal talk on social issues are crucial to future Tory success”

are once again exposing this long-standing divisive issue.

Over the past two years, the Conservative Government’s

actions have become increasingly divorced from Cameron’s pro-

environment and electoral pledges. In 2011, George Osborne

earned cheers from the Tory right by attacking environmental

regulation as “costly” and a “burden”.

The Chancellor has

been described by Labour as representative of Tories who “not

only believe that the green agenda is bad for business, bad for

jobs and bad for growth, but actively revel in contempt for

environmental protection.”

Critics suggest that Cameron’s cabinet reshuffle of 4th

September 2012 has revealed the shallow nature of his election

slogan “Vote Blue, Go Green”.

The party’s “renewed emphasis on

growth and a desire to court business folk who feel neglected”

was made clear with the appointment of economic liberals to

environment, transport and local government ministries who

are keen to accelerate new housing developments, roads and

airport runways. “The new Environment Secretary is a fan of

shale gas”

and “an MP who once dismissed conservationists

as ‘Luddites’”

has reportedly been tasked with preparing new

planning laws which may question Britain’s historically sacred

and inviolable Green Belt, although such changes have not yet

been validated with concrete proposals from Downing Street.

The Labour Party

“There are strong areas of congruence between socialist

and ecological theorists in their rejection of the capitalist

organisation of production.”

Robin Cook (1984)

The beliefs underpinning Labour’s political agenda, do not

inherently rule out its support for environmental protection

measures. In fact, the rationale behind many of the party’s

central values, are readily extended to the environment, in

such a way as to justify the implementation of progressive

environmental policies.

Charting its history in ‘Greening of Labour’ (1992), Neil

Carter credits the Labour Party with “a respectable record

of introducing regulatory legislation on many traditional

environmental issues”

, including the 1947 Town and Country

Planning Statues, the formation of the Nature Conservancy

Council (1973), and adoption of the main piece of UK-initiated

environmental legislation of the 1970s, the Control of Pollution

Act (1974).

Many Labour MP’s have insisted that their allegiance to the

environmental movement represents a revival of concern

voiced by prominent socialists of the 18th and 19th centuries,

rather than a novel appreciation of such issues. Emphasis on the

importance of preservation of open spaces, conservation of the

natural world, and the belief that people are products of their

environment in order to justify its protection has been traced

back to Libertarian socialists including Robert Owen (1771-1858),

William Morris (1834 – 1896), John Ruskin (1819 – 1900), Edward

Carpenter (1844 – 1929) and Robert Blatchford (1851 – 1943).

Labour’s ideological base has been described by some as “less

cohesive” than that of the Conservative Party, “reflecting not

only its shorter political history of the party, but also the

variety of principles it encompasses”.

However, the existence

of a set of core socialist principles to which the party uniformly

subscribes, and which precedes its existence are those of “social

justice, the equal worth of each citizen, equality of opportunity

and community”

. It is this set of principles, which provide the

driving force for many of Labour’s environmental policies.

The most consistent and important ideological premise of

Labour’s action on environmental issues is the belief in the

“injustice of the inequality of wealth and the consequent

inequality within society”

this theme lies at the heart of

Labour’s position on the environment. More than two hundred

years before the formation of the Labour party (in 1900), a

group of Protestant agrarian communists known as the Diggers,

advocated absolute human equality based upon socialist

principles and “anticipated today’s environmental green

movements”.

Their emphasis on the interdependency of the

natural environment and human beings and explicit focus on

the inequality of resource use and exploitation still resonates

with Labour politicians today. The group’s founder and leader,

Gerard Winstanley, declared in the 1649 publication ‘The True

Levellers’ Standard Advanced’ that:

“Man had Domination given to him, over the Beasts, Birds and

Fishes; but not one word was spoken in the beginning, that one

branch of mankind should rule over another… and that Earth

that is within this Creation made a Common Storehouse for all,

is bought and sold, and kept in the hands of a few, whereby the

great Creator is mightily dishonoured.”

In the 1970’s and 80’s the visible nature of pollution caused by

industrial development starkly revealed the unfair distribution

of the financial benefits relative to the worsening physical

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Political Aspects of

Environmentalism

The Political Aspects of

Environmentalism in the UK

The Political Aspects of Environmentalism in the UK | December 2012 | www.the-ies.org | 6

conditions which resulted from economic progress. The

unequal distribution of wealth which grew more pronounced

with the onset of the industrial revolution and Labour’s

traditional commitment to addressing this imbalance has

thus been applied to the physical world to advocate equal

rights to a healthy environment. The strong correlation

between environmental prosperity, income and class in

Britain strengthened the coherence of this narrative and has

formed the basis of many of Labour politician’s environmental

campaigns. A paper published in 1973, titled ‘The Politics of the

Environment’ observed that:

“The pit owner never lived in the shadow of the slag heap. The

soot from the factory chimney did not fall on the bonnet of

the owner’s wife. Those who spoiled the environment of the

workplaces, which produced their profit, could buy themselves

out of those surroundings. But the people whose labour

created wealth for others were left with the noise, the dirt, the

ugliness, the stench and congestion at every growing point of

the capitalist enterprise”.

The Labour Party Conference of 1986 saw Sawyer declare

that “for many, certainly the poor and the disadvantaged,

environmental decay crushes their development, damages the

quality of their lives and limits their horizons”.

With its natural

support base among working class citizens disproportionately

affected by pollution, Labour had a clear duty and motivation

to tackle such problems.

David Clark, MP (1979-2001), former cabinet minister and

author applied the principle of social equality to advocate

the importance of policies for the environment stating that

“everyone has a right to a clean and pleasant environment in

which to live and work, whether they be rich or poor, black or

white, urban or country dweller”.

This approach fits with New

Labour’s commitments to ensuring equality of access to public

services and goods and with the rhetoric upon this subject in

particular.

More recently, under the Blair and Brown Government’s,

Labour began to adopt domestic environmental policies which

explicitly brought together social welfare targeting low income

groups with environmental goals. Its focus on fuel poverty

and the assistance provided to replace inefficient boilers

and improve the thermal properties of households through

schemes such as Warm Front are examples of this strategy.

Finally, the Socialist principle of state intervention to manage

public assets sits more comfortably with the hopes and

demands of environmentalists. Regulated use of resources

as opposed to a reliance on voluntarism (as preferred

by proponents of Conservative laissez-faire approach) is

understood by many as offering greater potential for state-led

mitigation of resource exploitation. As public awareness and

concern for the environment has grown, Labour’s ability and

willingness to use regulatory mechanisms, create agencies with

extensive monitoring and enforcement powers has offered

it greater freedom to introduce far-reaching policies and to

appear more committed to environmental protection.

Tripping over its own ideological tail

Longstanding strategic and ideological dilemmas have, however,

negatively influenced Labour’s response to environmental

degradation, opening the party to similar criticisms levelled

at its opposition. Labour’s interest in the environment

during the 1970’s and 80’s has been dismissed as “sporadic

and uncoordinated, which […] simply reflected wider public

indifference”

Traditional class-based socialism claims common ground

with the Greens with regard to a concern with community,

participatory politics, egalitarianism in resource distribution

and activism. However, Britain’s Labour party has traditionally

been more comfortable with the gradualism of Fabian socialists,

a less radical socialism than the “quasi-scientific view of

socialism that is based on a notion of economic determinism”

and a greater emphasis on class. As such, Labour government’s

such as that of Neil Kinnock (leader between 1983 - 92) have

often been accused of failing to recognise the unified system

of values which characterised ‘being green’ and draw upon

these socialist values to the extent necessary to develop its

environmental thinking.

A consistent shortfall of Labour’s absorption of environmental

concerns has been its inability to “bring together fragmented

elements coherently [...] integrating Labour’s broad programme

into its environmental policies”

. Instead it has been said that

“with few exceptions, Labour talks about the environment only

when it is talking about the environment”

Two recurring themes have obstructed Labour from the pursuit

of progressive environmental policies.

" with few exceptions, Labour talks about

the environment only when it is talking

about the environment."

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Political Aspects of

Environmentalism

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The Political Aspects of

Environmentalism in the UK

1. Jobs and Trade Unions

The party’s “subconscious belief in an industrialised society

with productivist traditions”

and the power of Trade Union

forces have often constricted the politically viable options

with regard to environmental measures and protection.

Whilst the Labour Party’s Statement of Democratic Aims and

Values attempts to direct the party toward addressing a de-

industrialised society, the party’s traditional support base lies

in the industrial working class. The voice of trade unions which

were instrumental in the formation of the party continue to

carry great weight and these have frequently been opposed to

the pro-environment proposals from within the party.

“Primarily concerned with short-term considerations of job

protection and wages, unions expect Labour to be committed

to economic policies based on growth and have objected to

environmental proposals that directly threaten the livelihoods

of their members”

Examples of the Labour party making overt gestures to satisfy

Trade Unions to the detriment of its environmental credentials

are numerous. Carter highlights the close proximity of the

progressive landmark environmental publication ‘Statement on

the Environment’ in 1986 with contradictory promises to the

general unions in a document on Labour and the Motor Industry

prior to this. The opposition which emanated from Trade Union

leaders reportedly took two forms; “overt opposition involving

direct lobbying by MPs or trade unions on specific issues along

with a less overt, but probably just as effective overwhelming

scepticism, and apathy towards environmental issues”

In times of economic difficulty the public association

between environmental improvement and job cuts became

more pronounced. In particular, during the late 1970’s and

80’s as Britain experienced stagflation, recession and mass

unemployment, Labour’s primary concern inevitably lay with

such issues. As a result, the party “either ignored environmental

issues or produced contradictory policy statements about

them”

. A prime example of this is response provoked by

the closure of nuclear plants, against which campaigners

insisted “people must realise that all anti-nuclear lobbying is

endangering employment”

Anti-environmental pressure exerted upon Labour policy from

Trade Unions has certainly lessened over the decades since the

1980’s. This has been in part a result of the increase in public

awareness of environmental problems and partly due to a shift

in their appreciation of the impact of environmental degradation

upon “their members as citizens, not simply as employees”

2. A Middle Class Concern

The Labour Party has often struggled to support a political

issue which has been stigmatised as a ‘middle class concern’.

In 1971, Crossland condemned “middle class environmentalists

for wanting to kick the ladder down behind them”

. Indeed the

environmental movement, represented by conservation groups

of the 1960’s and 1970’s consisted of middle class socialist

conservationist groups (in 1973 the Socialist and Environment

Resource Association formed within the Labour party). These

campaigns against damage to the countryside were viewed as

“marginal to the mainstream labour movement” and alienated

certain Labour members by “focusing on threats to rural peace,

wildlife and beauty spots, while ignoring urban decay”

. It has

been said that members of the party holding more left-leaning

views remain hostile to the process of greening, due to the

perceived social constituency and geographical location of

many environmentalists.

New Labour, New Problems

Since Labour’s electoral defeat in 2010, a broad consensus judged

the efforts of the Blair and Brown Governments to ‘politicise’

the environment as part of its modernisation, a failure. The

emergence of New Labour, and the particular brand of ideology

it championed, has been viewed as negatively affecting the

party’s ideological compatibility with the environment.

Neil Carter highlights the additional barrier to Labour’s

pursuit of environmental policies which came into play due

to New Labour’s “rapprochement with Thatcherite political

economy that marginalised both old social democratic

and post-materialist values and promoted business, lauded

entrepreneurship and embraced neoliberal market values”

The alterations in Labour’s approach to the economy thus

made it “less enthusiastic” about policy instruments which

traditionally “appeal to social democrats and green parties

alike”, namely tough regulations and progressive taxation”

With the rise of a consumer culture in full swing, New Labour’s

obligation and desire to support this levelling of material

wealth. In the words of Michael Jacobs in his 1999 publication

‘Environmental modernisation: the New Labour agenda’, “New

Labour identifies strongly, and wishes to be identified in the

public mind, with ordinary families and their desires to get on

in life”

. The “lifestyle compromises” implied by environmental

policies were seen as “irrelevant and unappealing to its target

voters. Middle England drives cars, enjoys shopping, wants

to own more material things and to go on more foreign

holidays”. Jacob’s interpretation of the friction between these

New Labour goals and the environmental agenda takes this

argument further than most, claiming that “New Labour [was]

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fundamentally suspicious of environmentalism [… ] seeing the

green movement as anti-aspirational”

Conclusion: A schizophrenic approach

This series of papers has evaluated the compatibility of the

‘environmental movement’ with the ideologies of Britain’s

two main political parties. It has asked whether the traditional

values of these parties have enabled or obstructed the

adoption and integration of this ‘new politics’ issue into their

agendas, tracing the response of the Labour and Conservative

parties to environmental challenges since the 1960’s.

Although environmental issues have become steadily more

electorally salient, and politicisation

of the environment has

followed apace, peaking in recent years, the consistency of both

parties’ treatment of the environment has been slight. Rather

than a gradual and sustained build up of interest, “the parties

seem periodically to have rediscovered the environment as a

political issue”

Engagement and environmental pledges, closely followed by

total disregard toward previous policy statements indicates

the severe difficulties in embracing environmental concerns

for both parties. This has been understood as a symptom

of their belief systems “with origins almost exclusively in an

era of industrial and colonial expansion, which, by and large,

have worked well for most of the late twentieth century.”

Comparison with the relatively comfortable relationship

between Liberal Democrats and environmentalists further

demonstrates this point, as “crucially, they have been

historically free of the productivist interests – business and

the trade unions – whose pro-growth aims have made the

Conservative and Labour parties ideologically less receptive to

environmental ideas”.

However neither of the parties’ ideological grounding

has uniformly obstructed their adoption of progressive

environmental policies. This is because of the varied nature of

values at the heart of Labour and the Conservative party. As

Pilbeam points out:

“Conservativism possesses no unitary meaning, with

conservatives ranging from arch-traditionalists (typically

concerned with defending authority and upholding cultural

and moral absolutes) to committed devotees of the free

market (who emphasize the priority of market relations

and individual economic liberty). […] Much of the literature

implicitly operates with a simply two-fold distinction

between free-market and traditionalist varieties, [but]

the realities of contemporary conservatism are more

complex, [and] do not fit easily within the bounds of their

conventionally assigned roles.”

This multiplicity of political thought applies to the

philosophies underpinning the Labour Party in equal measure,

and provides another crucial explanation for the conflicting

attitudes toward environmental issues among members of the

same party. Figures such as Chris Patten, William Waldegrave

and Nicholas Ridley of the Conservative Party, and Labour

politicians Tom Sawyer, David Clark and Michael Jacobs, have

for example, found ample justification for a policies tackling

environmental problems within the ideological texts of their

parties. These elements have enabled the internalisation of

the environmental agenda into Britain’s mainstream political

parties and in doing so, have sustained often divisive internal

party debates on the subject for many decades.

Perhaps the most important lesson to be learned from a historical

examination of the push and pull between opposing factions

of each party, is the inability of environmental interests and

their advocates to withstand periods of economic difficulty.

When times are good, and elections being fought, both parties

are often keen to boast their environmental credentials. The

ideological tenets of the Labour and Conservative party offer

the legitimacy and drive needed for politicians of both creeds

to justify such claims. But the malleability of their belief systems

has meant that this agenda is never secure, and often short-

lived. Environmental activists are silenced once economic

stability and success is seen to be under threat and the voices

of those arguing that the economic costs of environmental

protection are too great carry greater weight.

This tendency is more apt than ever today. Mr Cameron

reportedly told one MP that it was necessary to “finish ‘level

one’ (change the party’s image) before advancing to ‘level two’

([..return to] traditional Tory strengths)”

. Today’s government,

despite its previous portrayal as environmentally aware and its

promise of being the ‘greenest government ever’ appears to be

finding this position less and less tenable as powerful opposing

ranks in the party stress the economic costs of such an

approach. Shadow Energy Secretary, Caroline Flint, has warned

that “we are fortunate in the UK that one of the legacies of

Labour’s period in office was broad acceptance of the need

to tackle climate change…[but] today, the question marks over

the government’s green credentials have proliferated and raise

genuine scepticism over whether the Government is sincere

in its support for that consensus”.

It appears that once more,

the environmental affinities between conservativism and

environmentalism offered a convenient basis upon which to

secure votes and power in 2010, whilst two years on, the narrow

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The Political Aspects of Environmentalism in the UK | December 2012 | www.the-ies.org | 9

The Political Aspects of

Environmentalism in the UK

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Fabian Pamphlet 591, Fabian Society, 1999. p.1.

Robinson M, The Greening of British Party Politics, Manchester

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‘Emphasis’ is an indicator used to compare the political salience of

competing policy interests by research groups such as the Manifesto

Research Group. It measures the amount of discussion devoted to a

specific political issues as a percentage of the entire party manifesto.

Carter N, Party Politization of the Environment in Britain, Party

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Carter N, & Ockwell D., New Labour, New Environment? An Analysis

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Loss, Report Commissioned by Friends of the Earth, July 2007, p.11.

Rollinson S, Changing Dynamics of Environmental Politics in Britain:

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Winter 2010.

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Robinson M, The Greening of British Party Politics, Manchester

Univeristy Press, 1992.

Carter N, Party Politization of the Environment in Britain, Party

Politics 12 (6), Vol 12. No. 6 pp. 747-767.

Ibid.

Robinson M, The Greening of British Party Politics, Manchester

University Press, 1992.

Ibid.

Rachel Godfrey is a research intern at the Institution

of Environmental Sciences. She was has previously been

employed as an intern at the IES and as a researcher with

PP4SD both in 2011. Rachel will shortly be returning to

university to study an MPhil in Environmental Policy at

Hughes Hall, Cambridge.

interpretation of this agenda as irreconcilable with Britain’s

economic interests, prominent among a powerful faction of

the party, will likely now prevail.

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Party and the Environment, in Rudig W, (ed.) Green Politics Two, pp.

9-36, Edinburgh University Press, 1992.

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Party and the Environment, in Rudig W, (ed.) Green Politics Two, pp.

9-36, Edinburgh University Press, 1992.

Ibid.

Flynn A, & Lowe P, The Greening of the Tories: The Conservative

Party and the Environment, in Rudig W, (ed.) Green Politics Two, pp.

9-36, Edinburgh University Press, 1992.

Ibid.

Pilbeam B, Natural Allies? Mapping the Relationship between

Conservatism and Environmentalism, Political Studies: 2003 Vol 51. pp.

490-508.

Ibid.

Robinson M, The Greening of British Party Politics, Manchester

Univeristy Press, 1992.

Sullivan A, Greening the Tories, Centre for Policy Studies.

Robinson M, The Greening of British Party Politics, Manchester

Univeristy Press, 1992, p.144.

Ibid.

Flynn A, & Lowe P, The Greening of the Tories: The Conservative

Party and the Environment, in Rudig W, (ed.) Green Politics Two, pp.

9-36, Edinburgh University Press, 1992.

Ibid.

Robinson M, The Greening of British Party Politics, Manchester

University Press, 1992, p.189.

Goodchild B, Conservative Party policy for planning: caught between

the market and local communities, People, Place & Policy Online, 4/1.

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Ibid.

Robinson M, The Greening of British Party Politics, Manchester

University Press, 1992. p.116.

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2012, pp. 25-26.

Harvey F, ‘Labour accuses Tory right of 'contempt’ for the

environment, The Guardian, February 2012.

Ibid.

Rollinson S, Changing Dynamics of Environmental Politics in Britain:

A Case Study of the UK Climate Change Act, POLIS Journal Vol 3.

Winter 2010. Carter. N, Vote Blue, Go Green: have the Conservatives

Forgotten about the Environment? www.psa.ac.uk/journals/

pdf/5/2010/130_1187.pdf.

The Economist, The Reshuffle, All the Right Noises, September 8th

2012, pp. 25-26.

Ibid.

The Economist, Planning and Greenery, Belt Too Tight September

8th 2012, p.29.

Carter N, “The Greening of Labour” in The Changing Labour Party, by

Smith M J, & Spear J, London 1992, pp.118-133.

Ibid.

Robinson M, The Greening of British Party Politics, Manchester

Univeristy Press, 1992.

Blair T, Socialism, Fabian Pamphlet, Fabian Society, London, 1994.

Robinson M, The Greening of British Party Politics, Manchester

Univeristy Press, 1992.

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The Political Aspects of

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Robinson M, The Greening of British Party Politics, Manchester

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Ibid, p.146.

Ibid.

“The Labour Party too can find itself tripping over its ideological

tail”, Robinson M, The Greening of British Party Politics, Manchester

University Press, 1992, p.191.

Carter N, “The Greening of Labour” in The Changing Labour Party, by

Smith M J, & Spear J, London 1992, pp.118-133.

Blair T, Socialism, Fabian Pamphlet, Fabian Society, London, 1994.

Carter N, “The Greening of Labour” in The Changing Labour Party, by

Smith M J, & Spear J, London 1992, pp.118-133.

Ibid.

Robinson M, The Greening of British Party Politics, Manchester

University Press, 1992.

Carter N, “The Greening of Labour” in The Changing Labour Party, by

Smith. M J, & Spear J, London 1992, p.120.

Ibid, p.121.

Ibid, pp.118-133.

Ibid.

Carter N, Party Politicization of the Environment in Britain, Party

Politics 12 (6), Vol 12. No. 6, p.762.

Carter N, Politicization of the Environment, Party Politics 12 (6), Vol

12. No. 6, p.762.

Jacobs M, Environmental Modernisation: The New Labour Agenda,

Fabian Pamphlet 591, Fabian Society, 1999, p.9.

Ibid.

The process by which this issue ascends the political agenda to

become the subject of party competition.

Flynn A, & Lowe P, The Greening of the Tories: The Conservative

Party and the Environment, in Rudig W, (ed.) Green Politics Two, pp.9-

36, Edinburgh University Press, 1992.

Robinson M, The Greening of British Party Politics, Manchester

University Press, 1992.

Carter N, Party Politization of the Environment in Britain, Party

Politics 12 (6), Vol 12. No. 6, p.761.

Pilbeam B, Natural Allies? Mapping the Relationship between

Conservatism and Environmentalism, Political Studies: 2003 Vol 51,

p.491.

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2012, pp.25-26.

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environment, The Guardian, February 2012. www.guardian.co.uk/

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environment [Accessed 8th October 2012].

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