{"id":3115,"date":"2024-08-27T20:37:46","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T19:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=3115"},"modified":"2024-10-18T10:40:16","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T09:40:16","slug":"focus-on-culture-not-policy-to-restore-uk-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=3115","title":{"rendered":"Focus On Culture Not Policy To Restore UK Nature"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Rose, August 27, 2024 – \u00a0 https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=3115\u00a0 download this post as a pdf, here<\/a><\/p>\n

In July 2024 the UK got a new Labour Government. \u00a0As part of it\u2019s preparations for fighting the election, the Labour Party cut its \u2018Green Prosperity Plan\u2019 to invest \u00a328bn a year in a green transition, by 80%. \u00a0\u00a0We also got a spring and early summer almost without insects, much to the alarm of a small section of the population who follow these things closely but with no discernible political reaction.\u00a0 At midsummer, London saw the largest ever mobilisation of nature groups, in the 60,000 strong \u2018Restore Nature Now\u2019 march. It was ignored by the BBC.\u00a0 The day after the election, David Attenborough got a standing ovation when he visited the tennis at Wimbledon. \u00a0What\u2019s this say about the prospects for nature under Keir Starmer\u2019s Labour?<\/h2>\n

For decades UK politicians of both main UK Parties have treated the environment and particularly nature, as a politically optional and ultimately disposable \u2018priority\u2019. \u00a0I\u2019ve reached the conclusion that until nature is less invisible, and more embedded and expressed in everyday social culture, this will remain a limiting factor because Westminster politicians not-so secretly believe the UK population doesn\u2019t really care that much. \u00a0To change that, Britain\u2019s nature groups need to focus on culture more than policy.<\/h2>\n

In this post I look at the political situation for nature and the environment under Keir Starmer\u2019s Government, and at \u00a0Westminster political culture. \u00a0A subsequent post will look at what could be done to widen and deepen connection to nature as part the culture of UK society.<\/h2>\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the morning of 5 July, the day after along with most of the country, campaigners for nature and environmental protection heaved a sigh of relief. \u00a0The unpopular Conservative government was gone in a landslide General Election victory for Keir Starmer\u2019s Labour Party, which secured 412 seats, a huge majority of 172.<\/p>\n

Environmentalists had endured 14 years of broken promises, false starts and regulatory failure on issues from climate change to food and farming, to water pollution and nature protection, punctuated by periodic attempts to consolidate right-wing support by denigrating and reversing pro-nature, pro-climate policies, with ruling politcians even attacking<\/a> their own nature agency, Natural England.<\/p>\n

It’s a bizarre feature of this sad story that UK public opinion was in favour of stronger environmental action throughout, and Conservative voters were if anything, more in favour than Labour voters.\u00a0 Why this had so little effect on government nature policies has to do with the lowly and untethered place of nature in UK political culture, and that in turn, reflects a social culture, informing political predicates and convictions, which has a very limited connection to real nature.<\/p>\n

For generations, Britain\u2019s environment movement has succeeded in protecting thousands of individual nature sites, produced swathes of reports and analyses of issues and now, has taken to cross sector mobilisation in marches.\u00a0 But with it\u2019s influence largely confined within its own base, that not been enough to stop politicians treating environment as a marginal, optional concern.<\/p>\n

Consequently with nature almost absent from social connections between voters and their political representatives, government environmental policies and the outcomes they seek to achieve, are only weakly accountable to public opinion.\u00a0 \u00a0Culture, as they say, trumps both process and strategy. \u00a0For most of our politicians, nature in UK culture is socially invisible, and thus politically disposable.<\/p>\n

This blog explores why in my view, UK campaigners and advocates need to look beyond policies to social culture, meaning popular culture, what people do and value doing. \u00a0Without that, nature can\u2019t be really restored in the UK, rather that just celebrated as a nice-to-have concept. \u00a0Keir Starmer is said to be a \u2018committed environmentalist\u2019 but he is also boxed in by many constraints which we have to be realistic about. All the more reason to make a start on the long game of changing the social invisibility of nature now. It does not involve inventing a wheel: many ingredients for doing so, already exist.<\/p>\n

A Nature and Politics Strategy Framework<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a crude strategy framework to show how I at least, see the issues discussed in this paper.\u00a0 It\u2019s specific to the UK and particular England, where almost all key nature related policies are directly or indirectly controlled from Westminster. \u00a0The content and implementation of nature policies is determined by Westminster Parliament, Government and Whitehall Departments and below them, agencies they control. \u00a0Behind those policies lie the ideas politicians have about how important nature really is, part of Westminster culture. \u00a0Those are somewhat tenuously derived from wider social culture.\u00a0 NGOs can try to affect all three.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The default focus of UK NGO political efforts has been on Westminster and Whitehall.\u00a0 Political culture, particularly among MPs, is quite impervious to external influence.\u00a0 Political and Parliamentary tradecraft is conservative \u2018with a small c\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There is abundant evidence, a lot of it collected by the environmental NGOs themselves, \u00a0that the default approach has been an historic failure<\/a> and UK nature is one of the most depleted in the world.<\/p>\n

My conclusion is that this is doomed to continue so long as the political culture in Westminster remains cynically disbelieving about the importance of nature to voters, and the only realistic way to change this, is bottom up social evidence of nature being culturally important to voters, and not just to representatives of the \u2018NGO lobby\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Part 1: The Place of Nature Under Keir Starmer<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Wimbledon 2024: \u00a0A Good Omen?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

David Attenborough receives a standing ovation at Wimbledon, 5 July 2024<\/em><\/p>\n

On the day after the General Election, Sir David Attenborough received a standing ovation as he took take his place in the \u2018Royal Box\u2019 at the Wimbledon tennis tournament.\u00a0 The 74 seats in the Royal Box are invitation-only from the Lawn Tennis Association and stuffed with top rank celebrities, the rich, powerful and famous. \u00a0\u00a0Outside the Royal Box another 14,000 mainly rich and influential people make up the rest of Centre Court, and it was these people who rose to give Attenborough his standing ovation. Millions more (not me) avidly follow Wimbledon on tv or online.<\/p>\n

When It Hits the Fan<\/em> is an interesting BBC podcast presented by corporate communications gurus Simon Lewis (ex Buckingham Palace) and David Yelland (ex Sun newspaper). \u00a0I recommend it.\u00a0 In the July 2nd episode \u201cWhy PR loves Wimbledon<\/a>\u201d, \u00a0Yelland described passes into Wimbledon as the \u201cgolden tickets\u201d of UK PR, and the Royal Box as \u201cprobably the best bit of PR in maybe the entire world … part of the soft power of this country\u201d. \u00a0In this country Wimbledon is a cultural fixture , an occasion for the UK to feel reassured and good about itself.<\/p>\n

So was Attenborough\u2019s Wimbledon endorsement, seen on TV and online by millions, a good omen for nature under Starmer? \u00a0It was a cultural moment but they were celebrating the David Attenborough, not nature. \u00a0It was best summed up by a commentator for Australian Broadcaster @9NewsAUS who said<\/a> \u201cfor much of his 98 years, Sir David Attenborough brought the world\u2019s wildlife into our homes\u201d.\u00a0 The Daily Express described him as \u2018revered\u2019 and \u2018iconic\u2019.<\/p>\n

All true although as has been discussed many times<\/a>, for most of his career Attenborough brought us living-room nature-tainment without revealing the reality of environmental <\/span>destruction that was eliminating the very nature shown in his programmes. \u00a0Within the BBC it was known as \u2018the bubble\u2019: nature escapism, a treasured part of domestic tv culture.<\/p>\n

To be fair to Attenborough, it\u2019s also true that his 2017 series Blue Planet II, made well after he had become a global tv phenomenon, \u00a0broke that mould by showing the impacts of plastic and did a lot of heavy lifting<\/a> to enable plastic campaigns.\u00a0 And, that in recent decades he departed from his insistence that he was \u2018just a film-maker\u2019 and became an overt conservation advocate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chris Packham: \u2018Restore Nature Now\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

A better bellwether of Wimbledon\u2019s commitment to restoring nature would have been to invite Chris Packham<\/a>to the Royal Box.\u00a0 (Or possibly the charismatic Feargal Sharkey, musician and fly-fisherman turned clean rivers activist \u2013 of whom more below).<\/p>\n

Not world-famous but well known in the UK, Packham (age 63) is a zoologist who built a following through fronting popular TV programmes from The Really Wild Show <\/em>in 1986, to BBC\u2019s Springwatch<\/em> (since 2009).\u00a0 Packham is spikier than the emollient Attenborough, and has become increasingly activist.<\/p>\n

Like Greta Thunberg, Chris Packham has Aspergers and \u201csays it like he sees it\u201d. \u00a0In 2015 he called out major UK conservation groups for their weakness on Fox hunting, Badger culling and the perscution of Hen Harriers. \u00a0His home has been attacked by arsonists and he has been villified by pro-hunting groups. \u00a0Perhaps down to him, the popular Springwatch<\/em> series has changed from just promoting UK natural history to actively calling for conservation action.<\/p>\n

Packham can also take credit for gradually unifying the UK\u2019s diverse collection of environmental NGOs in public and demure demonstrations.\u00a0 In 2018 he organised a Manifesto for Wildlife and delivered it to Downing Street with a march of 10,000 people, \u2018The Peoples Walk For Wildlife\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Chris Packham\u2019s Walk for Wildlife, 2018 (photo <\/em>www.dailypost.co.uk<\/em><\/a>) <\/em><\/p>\n

The 2018 March was something of a watershed in that it was supported by the main conservation NGOs as well as animal welfare groups, who then backed a second Packham walk slated for November 2022.\u00a0 That was postponed<\/a> three times due to rail strikes, and finally cancelled<\/a><\/span>\u00a0in 2023 after Packham attended another family-friendly four-day event, The Big One<\/a> (April 2023) led by Extinction Rebellion, with a consortium of groups including Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace but without the main conservation NGOs. \u00a0XR said 60,000 people took part.<\/p>\n

This year Chris Packham got together 350 organisations including businesses, for Restore Nature Now<\/a> (RNN) another march from Hyde Park to Westminster, on 22 June. \u00a0It was billed as the country\u2019s \u2018biggest ever march for nature\u2019 and had been planned months before the moment when, on May 22, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak surprised almost everyone by calling a General Election for July 4.\u00a0 The police estimated 60,000 took part.\u00a0 Some of the organisers said more. The most A-list participant was actress Emma Thompson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Emma Thomspon, Chris Packham and pro-nature group leaders front the Restore Nature Now march, 2024.\u00a0Image from <\/em>www.restorenaturenow.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Sky News, ITV News, Al Jazeera \u00a0and other broadcasters covered RNN and it was covered in the press but the BBC did not turn up, prompting a spate of angry and disappointed complaints on Twitter (X) and in other social media.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBBC news didn\u2019t even cover the restore nature demo of 60,000 … why?\u201d – @BellaDonnelly; \u201cShameful absence of BBC News …\u201d – @NatureNerdTech; \u00a0\u201cShhh! @BBCNews thinks 60,000 or more protesting in central London to #RestoreNatureNow never happened … But it\u2019s OK … @BBCNews features an ugly dog, and a boxer wanting his son to be an accountant\u201d – @artgelling; \u201cwhere is your coverage of this pivotal pre-election event?\u201d – @dmokell \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

More complaints poiting out covergae of Taylor Swift, previous BBC failures and accusing the BBC [fairly] of having a \u201cbiodiversity news blind spot\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

Not News<\/strong><\/p>\n

Internal BBC politics probably played a part but for those of the organisers who understood news, being ignored by the BBC could not have come as a surprise. You didn\u2019t have to be David Yelland and Simon Lewis to see the basic problem.\u00a0 Standing in Parliament Square at the end of the march, as people around us complained about those media present focusing on Emma Thomspon and asking her if she supported Just Stop Oil throwing \u2018orange paint\u2019 onto Stonehenge (that happened three days earlier and was condemned by Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer), a campaigner friend said simply: \u201cif they wanted news they should have provided some: there wasn\u2019t any\u201d.<\/p>\n

Organisationally, to go from 10,000 to 60,000 was an achievement but it wasn\u2019t news.\u00a0 Plus news is about an interesting or surprising twist on something people already understand, so the media focused on the most famous person involved and asked her about something <\/span>controversial because if nothing controversial or consequential is happening, such as some form of disruption, then someone well-known saying something controversial, is second best. \u00a0\u00a0News journalists look for the conflict in events<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0If Thompson struggled to move the conversation on, perhaps it was because after the slogan \u2018restore nature now\u2019, chanted on the march, there was no single stand-out demand or consequence but a five point rather general and predictable set of \u2018aims\u2019, directed at politicians in general, too long to get into a soundbite:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Any one of those points could have been sharpened and directed at particular politicians or other groups, so as to demand a response but none were, nor in the context of an imminent election, did they directly relate to voting.<\/p>\n

Beyond demonstrating numbers, it wasn\u2019t clear to me at least, what was at stake, or where the political jeopardy was for any politician in not doing any more than sympathetically acknowledging the concerns of the well-tempered marchers. Is this how environment groups should try to influence the Starmer administration?<\/p>\n

The Numbers Game Trap<\/strong><\/p>\n

Depending on what the organisers were hoping to signal, perhaps the most unfortunate fact was that if you are holding a \u2018mass protest\u2019 in London, the media idea of \u201cbiggest ever\u201d is a lot bigger than 60,000 or even 100,000.<\/p>\n

The 2003 Stop the (Iraq) War protest on the same London route, was put at a million strong by the BBC<\/a>.\u00a0 The 2019 Second Referendum march against Brexit, also in the same spot, \u00a0was reported by Sky<\/a> News as a million. I was at both and you could see the police starting to lose control as marchers spilt out from the organised routes and flooded through side roads and parks towards Parliament.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From Sky News<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

That loss of control registers politically: the sense of being physically overwhelmed by manifest public opinion is visceral. \u00a0If such a march happens at the weekend, by Monday morning, advisers, officials and Ministers across Whitehall and Westminster will be in \u201cdo we need to recalibrate?\u201d mode. If a march passes off unremarkably, it won\u2019t be noticed. If it fails to match the organisers public expectations, that will be noted down for future discounting of your claims.\u00a0 A case of, to quote Josef Stalin, \u201chow many divisions does the Pope have?\u201d.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all the more awkward because the UK green NGOs still like to claim that between them they have 8 million members<\/a>, and imply that politicians should therefore listen to them.\u00a0 In one sense that is probably true but if it\u2019s in fact 8 million direct debits and includes \u2018family members\u2019, that\u2019s not 8 million voters. Mark Avery, a colleague of Chris Packham at Wild Justice<\/a>, has argued that in reality the combined membership of the NGOs may represent just 500,000 \u2018committed\u2019 individuals.<\/p>\n

Avery, who spent years working for the RSPB, wrote in his Reflections<\/em><\/a> \u201cif government really believed that the wildlife conservation movement had 8 million supporters it might well take a lot more notice of what it said\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/live\/vqjSaJ9z9WA<\/em><\/a>\u00a0 Feargal Sharkey addresses the Restore Nature Now marchers.<\/em><\/p>\n

As the march ended, former Undertones singer and fly-fisherman turned rivers campaigner Feargal Sharkey delivered a firebrand \u201cwe\u2019ll be back\u201d speech with cadences<\/a> of J F Kennedy:<\/p>\n

\u201cI need you to make a promise today. If, under a new government, (these problems are) not resolved …. if the needs be, promise me you will be back here again, two times more, three times more, and if need be we will be back here one hundred times and bring a million people\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

As Sharkey implied, if you do embark on a numbers game, you had better show signs of winning by upping the turnout.\u00a0 A million is a lot more people who need to be persuaded to take a day off from fishing, family weekends or pleasant trips of nature reserves or National Trust tea rooms, to join a political march in London. \u00a0It\u2019s may be impossible without pinning a march to an impending cliff-edge political decision, as applied in the case of the Iraq War and Brexit. \u00a0\u00a0But in truth the environment groups could get a long way without needing any qualitative change in strategy. \u00a0Just more effort and organising might raise the turnout say, tenfold, to 600,000.\u00a0 The NGOs have the money and mandate to do that, if they have the will.<\/p>\n

Turning out 600k in 2025 would at least pass the Avery Threshold but there are other issues than time and cost which I\u2019d suggest are more significant, and underly the very reasons the environment movement struggles to gain real political traction on nature. These do require a qualitative change, with a focus on culture beyond Westminster, indeed beyond what\u2019s obviously political. {See part 3}.<\/p>\n

In August Sharkey announced a \u2018March for Clean water\u2019 in London on 26 October, supported by Surfers Against sewage and others.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Business As Usual Trap<\/strong><\/p>\n

After the election, The Independent<\/em> reported<\/a> that some of the organisers of Restore Nature Now had re-addressed its five demands to Prime Minister Keir Starmer.\u00a0 The Independent<\/em> noted that \u2018groups plan a \u201cmass lobby\u201d of Parliament \u2018which aims for thousands of people to travel to Westminster to talk to their MPs\u2019, and \u2018the first UK Nature Conference\u2019\u2019.<\/p>\n

It also reported: \u2018A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesperson as saying:<\/p>\n

\u201cNature underpins everything. That is why this government is absolutely committed to restoring and protecting nature. We will ensure the Environmental Improvement Plan is fit for purpose and focused on delivering our Environment Act targets, improve access to nature and protect our landscapes and wildlife.\u201d\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the Business As Usual trap: trying to address the problem of inadequate policy or implementation by arguing about policy, and responding to an invitation to discuss plans,<\/span>policies and process with government, rather than changing politics and culture which create the preconditions for government attitudes to nature.<\/p>\n

\n

Of course some policy developments do have to be engaged with but the greater the focus and effort put into those, the greater the risk that more significant things not already on the policy conveyor belt, go un-addressed.\u00a0 The fact that the Starmer administration has shot into action with announcements on climate, energy and water pollution, and is currently positive to most NGOs, may make this all the risk all the more acute.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In July, instructed by Starmer\u2019s enforcer Pat McFadden MP to talk up the challenge they were inheriting from the Conservatives, the new Ministerial team issued appraisals which were s startlingly and deliberately blunt.\u00a0 Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced<\/a> \u201cthe NHS is broken\u201d. Steve Reed, the new Environment Secretary declared<\/a> \u201cnature is dying\u201d: powerful words of alignment with the perceptions of environmentalists.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Despite such encouraging mood music, simple mechanical factors of bandwidth and loyalties will work against the environmental NGOs having much impact on the Starmer Government\u2019s green plans in its first year, and maybe longer.\u00a0 After so long in the wilderness of Opposition, the new Labour Government is not short of policy ideas, and those produced within the Party will take priority. \u00a0It\u2019s also short of money, partly as a result of boxing itself in<\/a> before the election, with self imposed \u2018rules\u2019 on tax, spend and borrowing, as it tried (successfully) to avoid showing the Conservatives an open flank on the economy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

So there will not be much space or appetite to consider alternative policy ideas until the shine has well and truly come off some of its initial agenda. \u00a0Ironically a tired old government unexpectedly returned to office \u00a0may be more likely to adopt new ideas, as it\u2019s tried so many that haven\u2019t worked, it\u2019s no longer particularly attached to them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

We were in a similar position with the old New Labour back in 1997, which also had a large majority, and also had spent a long time out of power, and struck a very different tone to the outgoing Thatcherite Conservatives. When Tony Blair spoke of a new dawn breaking on the morning after, he was channelling a national mood.\u00a0Anything seemed possible, and there was some money.\u00a0 Poor Keir Starmer has also brought relief but more like the fire brigade finally turning up to hose down the wreckage of a burning home.<\/p>\n

\n

Orange Wall, Green Belt, Grey Belt, Brownfield And The Greens<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

If opinion polling is discounted, what difference might the actual votes cast make to how environment fares under Starmer?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Immigration, cost of living and most of all, the state of the National Health service were battleground issues in common between Conservatives and Labour at the election, with simple despair at the broken state of the country under the Conservatives, Labour\u2019s strongest card.\u00a0 Nature and climate did not really feature. Now there is a Labour Government, a lot of non-featuring issues will re-emerge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Outside climate and energy policy where even after Reeve\u2019s raid on the funding, Ed Miliband\u2019s plans <\/a>will probably keep environmentalists on side, two buckets of issues may bump up the political salience of environment for Labour in government.\u00a0 The first could be called Belt issues, and the second, the Wall issues.\u00a0 The latter might even convince some calculating Westminster politicians that a \u2018nature vote\u2019 is becoming a real thing.<\/p>\n

\n

Belt Issues<\/b><\/p>\n

\n

From a conventional political perspective the most obvious \u2018green\u2019 flashpoints for Labour to have to deal with in Government centre on its long-trailed intention to take on \u2018NIMBY\u2019 (Not In My Backyard) opponents to development, particularly on housing and new powerlines to distribute renewable energy.\u00a0 Labour\u2019s hopes for growth rest on pushing through such developments<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In spring 2024 Labour adopted the term \u2018Grey Belt\u2019<\/a> originated, presumably as a device to stimulate business, by development consultants KnightFrank<\/a>.\u00a0 They claimed to have identified 11,000 sites covered by longstanding \u2018Green Belt\u2019 but which are in some way \u2018grey\u2019, for example previously developed.\u00a0 Labour\u2019s favourite example, was disused petrol stations. \u00a0(The Green Belt planning designation was originally designed to prevent \u2018sprawl\u2019 and the coalesecence of settlements and \u2018defending the Green Belt\u2019 long ago became a NIMBY rallying call in more prosperous, usually Conservative voting areas).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

As simplifying media-friendly handles, Green Belt and Grey Belt now sit alongside \u2018Brownfield\u2019.\u00a0 Focusing development in Brownfield, usually taken to mean previously developed land in urban areas, has been the favoured place to put more homes, for groups like the CPRE (Campaign for the Protection of Rural England), and rural or anti-urban lobby groups like the Countryside Alliance, Country Landowners Association, and the NFU (National Farmers Union).\u00a0 To varying degrees all those have traditionally leant to the Conservatives rather than Labour.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

So Labour might hope its tricoloured triangulation, described by Simon Lewis as \u201cvery clever\u201d, lines up the Conservatives as the political losers in the anticipated bushfires of local opposition to its drive for economic growth through development.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

An issue for nature conservation groups is that many Brownfield sites are effectively prewilded islands of landscape, in some cases far richer in nature than 90% of the \u2018rural\u2019 farmed landscape. Many politicians and most of the political media have absolutely no idea of this because they have almost no ability to read nature, and assume that if it looks green, that\u2019s better than if it looks brown.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Up for sale \u2013 \u2018brownfield\u2019 ex industrial land at Swanscombe Peninsula, just east of London, and one of the most nature rich\u00a0 sites in the UK (not in the Green Belt)<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

One brownfield case described in a previous blog<\/a> is Swanscombe Peninsula in urban North Kent just outside London. \u00a0Because it\u2019s a complex of old marshland which was enveloped by housing before intensive industrial farming took hold, and old mineral workings which left a legacy of very infertile soils, Swanscombe Peninsula is one of the most nature-rich places in the UK.\u00a0 Following a vigorous campaign led by local groups and backed by a raft of national conservation NGOs (including CPRE), it was designated a SSSI in 2021, leading to plans for a giant theme park to be abandoned.\u00a0 (Although that didn\u2019t stop Savills, the giant estate agent, from describing part of it as having \u201cscope for development\u201d<\/a> when the site was put up for sale shortly before the 2024 election).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Deftly handled, Labour in government could navigate these granular and complex place-based issues and avoid much political damage.\u00a0 Done badly, it could get itself into a right mess and alienate a lot of its 2024 voters, especially recent switchers to Labour.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Wall Issues<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The 2024 election produced another colour coded addition to Britains political lexicon, the \u2018Orange Wall\u2019, to add to Blue Wall and Red Wall.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

LibDem leader Ed Davey gained national media attention (normally the LibDems are ignored) by a series of one-man stunts that usually involved plunging into water. The LibDems campaigned on water pollution.\u00a0 They enough seats to create a sea-to-sea \u2018Orange Arch\u2019 in Southern England. <\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

This slightly joking handle refers to the swathe of seats in Southern England won by the Liberal Democrats, who ran a geographically focused campaign successfully aimed at the now largely demolished Conservative \u2018Blue Wall\u2019, with its Remain-leaning, more liberal Conservative voters. Many switched to LibDem, and some to the Greens or Labour. The LibDems won 73 seats, a record for recent\u00a0 years.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Voters switching between 2019 and 2024 \u2013 More In Common: <\/i>General election 2024 \u2013 What Happened? \u00a0Webinar 8 July 2024<\/i><\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

The Orange Wall may be significant for nature politics because it was almost the only part of the country where environmental concern played an obvious part in the Conservative wipe-out.\u00a0 Although only 17% of LibDem voters put \u2018their policies on the environment\u2019 as one of three reasons they voted for the party in 2024 [below] my guess is that this is probably a fairly true representation of the wider \u2018nature vote\u2019 in the UK.\u00a0 [Before the election The Wildlife Trusts suggested<\/a> there might be a \u2018nature majority\u2019 in 28 UK seats, by deducting the number of their members from a predicted majority in each seat, on the basis that 84% of Conservative voters were dissatisfied with their Party on nature issues].<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

More in Common also found that climate and environment was a top five issue across all voters and in the top three for Labour and LibDem voters (20)% (below):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>From More in Common <\/i>climate and energy analysis<\/i><\/a>, 2024 General Election<\/i><\/p>\n

\n

The LibDems and the Greens ran with much stronger environmental commitments than Labour and say they will now try to use their increased influence in Parliament to strengthen Labour\u2019s environmental agenda. River and marine pollution from sewage, and from intensive farming, was a big issue in many of these areas. It\u2019s currently the single environmental issue with potential to make some lasting impression on cynical Westminster politicians during the Starmer Government.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The Greens also took North Herefordshire<\/a>, a very conservative rural seat, where mainly agricultural pollution of the River Wye had become an iconic battle between local and national environment groups on the one side, and agribusiness, Water Companies and the Conservative Government on the other.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Unlike planning issue conflicts which will be very case-by-case, the water pollution issue which involves just a handful of giant and unpopular private water companies, and its possible extension into rethinking policies on farming including<\/a> the failure to resolve the UK\u2019s chronic Bovine TB disaster and badger culling, and the potential role of rewilding, is likely to be the focus of renewed national environmental campaigns. Getting on the wrong side of this could be problematic for Starmer\u2019s Labour Government because it is eminently \u2018campaignable\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

From \u00a0More In Common: <\/i>General election 2024 \u2013 What Happened?\u00a0 Webinar 8 July 2024<\/i><\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Finally [above], the Greens came second to Labour in 35 seats. In areas with a high proportion of university educated younger voters concered about the environment, the Greens could become a more significant threat to Labour at a subsequent election.\u00a0 Which also means there are 35 Labour MPs looking over their shoulder at the Greens.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

UK environmental and nature campaigners could be kept very busy trying to maximise gains on such issues but my guess is that until nature is far more embedded in social culture in the UK, progress under Starmer will look rather like progress under previous administrations.<\/p>\n

Part 2: \u00a0\u00a0The UK\u2019s Nature-Cynical Political Culture<\/strong><\/p>\n

Few UK politicians dare to directly speak out against \u2018nature\u2019 but by their actions, and private utterances, it\u2019s clear that the prevailing political culture of Westminster is to regard nature as an optional nice-to-have and not a real-terms political imperative to deliver on.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve Been Here Before With Labour<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1997 the iconic domestic environmental issue inherited by New Labour was road building. \u00a0Since the Twyford Down campaign at Winchester in 1992, the direct action based \u2018roads movement\u2019<\/a> had won considerable public support, and the Conservatives downsized their roads programme twice, while also crushing the movement by changing the laws on protest.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

One of the Roads Protest campaigns \u2013 against the M11 link road<\/a> at Wanstead in London. In 1993 a 250 year old Chestnut tree on Georges Green, was defended by locals and protestors in a battle with 200 police, before being uprooted. \u00a0A tree house was built in the tree.\u00a0 It received its own postcode and 400 letters. In the end the road did not require the tree\u2019s space and it\u2019s remains were left.<\/i><\/p>\n

\n

John Prescott<\/a>, was Tony Blair\u2019s wing man connecting with the Old Labour base and Trade Unions, and a passionate believer in more sustainable transport, especially buses. In 1997 Prescott agreed with NGOs and analysts that roadspace should be reduced and better public transport introduced<\/a> to induce motorists to switch \u2018modes\u2019. It promised a direct reversal of Thatcher\u2019s vision for \u2018the Great Car Economy\u2019 and her \u2018greatest road building programme since the Romans\u2019. \u00a0Environmentalists were hopeful.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

1998\/9 – John Prescott\u2019s plans to prioritise public transport over road building were partially successful \u2013 use of public transport went up but the expansion of roads and road traffic continued<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Prescott produced a White paper calling for a \u201crenaissance\u201d in public transport<\/a> but Blair was wary of upsetting motorists<\/a> and had other legislative and spending priorities.\u00a0 By 2000<\/a> Blair\u2019s government had planned 360 miles of new motorway and industry demanded 465 new \u2018by-passes\u2019, many of which got built and looked very like motorways.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Right now Starmer is serious about \u2018winning back trust\u2019 for government and the environment lobby may be part of it, until they are not.\u00a0 In the end, it will come down to priorities. \u00a0Starmer has already demonstrated how this might work on the environment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Shredding the \u00a328bn<\/b><\/p>\n

\n

Keir Starmer became Labour leader in 2020 and was criticized for a lack of big clear ideas. To great enthusiasm at the 2021 Labour Party Conference, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves produced a big idea: the Green Prosperity Plan (GPP).\u00a0 It was to be a smaller UK version of Joe Biden\u2019s \u2018green-deal\u2019 Inflation Reduction Act<\/a>, environmental action sensibly framed as economics and jobs.\u00a0 Reeves claimed she would be the \u201cfirst green Chancellor\u201d. It didn\u2019t last.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The name GPP is already largely forgotten but Reeve\u2019s pledge to borrow to invest \u00a328bn a year for five years in a net-zero transition, has not been forgotten.\u00a0 As Labour\u2019s\u00a0 flagship economic policy, it was mentioned hundreds of times, until she dropped<\/a> it in June 2023.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Reeves blamed the 45-day Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss for having \u2018crashed the economy\u2019 (almost nobody except Truss argued with that), interest rates had rocketed and there wasn\u2019t enough money.\u00a0 The \u00a328bn might build up over time. In February 2024, after painful but internal arguments, Starmer and Reeves quietly briefed a few journalists that only \u00a34.7bn a year would be spent<\/a>, a reduction of over 80%.\u00a0 Labour decided to make a virtue of dropping the \u00a328bn to prove that their fiscal rigour came before green virtue: a tactical decision which implied they believed voters thought likewise.<\/p>\n

\u00a328bn would have been about 90 times the budget<\/a> of conservation agency Natural England but it\u2019s not a lot relative to government spending.\u00a0 In 2023 government Departments were allocated \u00a3558billion<\/a>, of which \u00a328bn would be about 5%, and \u00a34.7bn, 0.8%.<\/p>\n

Compared to the UK economy as a whole (GDP of \u00a32.27 trillion<\/a> or \u00a32,270bn), it\u2019s just 1.2%.\u00a0\u00a0 To give it a real world comparison, according<\/a> to the Horticultural Trades Association, \u00a328bn is slightly less than annual contribution to GDP of the \u2018ornamental horticulture and landscaping\u2019 sector, at \u00a328.2bn. So \u00a34.7bn is about what the nation spends on ornamental horticulture and landscaping in two months.<\/p>\n

Elements of the \u00a328bn plan remain, such as Great British Energy, a state owned renewables company, which is a hugely popular idea.\u00a0 Other bits have gone or been severely downsized.\u00a0 There has been some criticism, especially from energy industrialists and economists who fear that the dramatically reduced investment cannot deliver the green energy transformation which Labour plans, such as fully decarbonizing electricity by 2030.\u00a0 Outside the policy communities, my guess is that the wider public were probably a bit disappointed and not surprised, or didn\u2019t notice.<\/p>\n

Personally I was not surprised at the way Labour abandoned its \u00a328bn GPP pledge so lightly, and chose to drop a big \u2018green\u2019 policy rather than rule out spending in other areas.\u00a0 Doing so matched the default political culture amongst Westminster politicians that environment could be safely, even beneficially ditched, if that became expedient.<\/p>\n

[it\u2019s not just Westminster – on 25 August, to the dismay of nature groups, the BBC reported<\/a> that Scottish Government Ministers had told Councils to divert \u00a35m from the small Nature Restoration Fund to help fund new public sector wage settlements].<\/p>\n

According to the FT<\/a>, although Starmer wanted to keep the \u00a328bn pledge, \u2018election coordinator Pat McFadden and campaigns supremo Morgan McSweeney, pushed hard for the number to be killed\u2019.\u00a0 I\u2019ve never met either man but nature and environment does not seem to feature in causes they have espoused, so as highly professional \u2018hard headed realist\u2019 political operators, they might share the conventional wisdom of the two large British political parties, that when push comes to shove, environment and nature are just not that important to voters, and thus politically disposable.<\/p>\n

Even Paddy Ashdown, then leader of the LibDems, long known as the party of lost causes, once said to me with a smile, \u201cshow me the environmental vote and I\u2019ll go for it\u201d.\u00a0 (Read this article<\/a> from Politico for more on Keir Starmer on climate change, if not nature).<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying Sweeney or McFadden actively despise environment groups, although there have long been those who do in both the Conservatives and Labour, the latter mainly because they see them as competition for activists and attention, or a rival ideology (as do the Greens who now have four UK MPs rather than one), as well as not being reliably committed to social causes or in tune with working people.<\/p>\n

A friend who has been involved in the nature conservation movement since the 1970s commented to me:<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth major parties are embedded in unhelpful mindsets. The Right is quite fond of nature , provided it owns <\/u>it. The traditional left still sees it as the enemy. I read Alfred Schmidts The Concept of Nature in Marx when I was at uni, and the idea that nature and all its restrictions was – along \u00a0with the bourgeoisie – what the working class had to be liberated from. In the 20th C this translated into the cliche of nature or<\/u> jobs and houses – an outlook which is in the DNA of Labour and the trades unions\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Wildlife Trust\u2019s poll featured on twitter July 2 2024<\/em><\/p>\n

Before the 2024 election The Wildlife Trusts published a national poll<\/a> showing most people thought the main parties were doing poorly on a range of environmental issues, and a majority thought they were at least important as other issues facing the country.\u00a0 At different times, polls have found similar or even stronger results, for decades.\u00a0 Yet the political culture of Westminster does not work in favour of prioritising action for the environment.<\/p>\n

Culture is set at the top and emulated lower down.\u00a0 Culture is what we do, it\u2019s learnt, and assumed to make sense.\u00a0 Young MPs learn the art of the possible from older MPs.\u00a0 Culture is resistant to change.\u00a0 Environment may be one of the great social causes of the last sixty years but in Westminster it\u2019s not one of the \u2018great offices of state<\/a>\u2019 which ambitious politicians aspire to.\u00a0 In fact it\u2019s near the bottom of the pecking order.<\/p>\n

In his revealing and brilliant 2023 account of life as an MP supporting dysfunctional Conservative governments, Politics on the Edge<\/em>,\u00a0 Rory Stewart describes going in to see Prime Minister David Cameron and his Chief Of Staff, after the 2015 election, to be given his first Ministerial job.<\/p>\n

\u2018The most junior department in government\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stewart recalls that Cameron seemed \u2018distracted\u2019 and remembers him saying\u00a0 \u201cI would like you to be …\u201d [consulting his notes], \u201c… the parliamentary under-secretary in the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, dealing … with issues like farming\u201d.\u00a0 Cameron didn\u2019t even know what was involved in the role he offered Stewart.\u00a0 His Chief of Staff had to jump in to add: \u201cActually, probably more with the environment\u201d.\u00a0 Stewart accepted, despite knowing that it was, in his words: \u2018the most junior position in perhaps the most junior department in government\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018Humdrum\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

The lowly Westminster status of the environment in 2015 had not changed much since 1982, when fighting the \u2018Falklands War\u2019 rescued Margaret Thatcher from electoral unpopularity, leading her to declare:\u00a0 \u201cWhen you\u2019ve spent half your political life dealing with humdrum issues like the environment, it\u2019s exciting to have a real crisis on your hands.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exciting to have a real crisis on your hands\u201d. Margaret Thatcher in a tank. (Photo Daily Mirror).<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

When<\/a> in 2016 political scientist Rebecca Willis tried to understand why politicians in favour of climate action struggled to make a difference once elected to Westminster, she found a major factor was the sceptical, even hostile, culture. As she describes in \u00a0<\/span>Too Hot to Handle<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>, \u00a0pro-climate MPs soon discovered that colleagues saw it as marginal or \u201cniche\u201d concern.\u00a0 They wanted to avoid being seen as part of a \u201clunatic fringe\u201d [read as the environment groups], appearing like \u201ca zealot\u201d, or being a \u201cfreak\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

According to conventional Westminster thinking, often repeated by the UK political media, there\u2019s a pragmatic reason for discounting expressions of environmental concern.\u00a0 \u00a0It\u2019s that nature and environment have expressive support (eg in opinion polls) but not instrumental support among voters. Voters say they\u2019d like to see more action on it but when it comes to election day they don\u2019t vote for it, or when it comes to implementation, they oppose necessary changes, or don\u2019t want to pay.<\/p>\n

\n

The intertwined nature and climate crises may be in the process of rendering the planet uninhabitable for most species and human beings but that does not translate into political advancement and career opportunities in Westminster.\u00a0 Put crudely, MPs may know that their voters want more action on nature but those who have ambitions to get into powerful positions, have limited interest in pressing for it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Critics rightly point out that because \u2018nature\u2019 and \u2018environment\u2019 rarely feature in the priority offerings of major parties, voters believe politicians don\u2019t care so mostly don\u2019t ask for them,\u00a0 so these assumptions go untested and the status quo is sustained.\u00a0 That\u2019s true and it\u2019s also true that the position has changed a bit, especially on climate and energy but not yet enough to prevent decisions like Labour shredding the \u00a328bn.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The Environment As A Disposable Commitment <\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

If Westminster politicians have been sceptical that voters will actually cast votes in favour of the environment as they claim, their actions suggest they believe that some can be won over by talking down the importance of environment.\u00a0 For decades, both Conservatives and Labour Party have blown hot and cold on green issues, right up to this years General Election. \u00a0\u00a0A clear and consequential example was David Cameron\u2019s transition (see Killing The Wind Of England<\/a>\u2019 2018) from being an advocate of onshore wind energy, with a turbine on his own roof, to effectively banning it and denouncing \u2018green crap\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

From <\/i>Killing the Wind of England<\/i><\/a>, 2018<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The fact that Conservative politicians did this despite contrary evidence from polling their own voters, is down to convictions of MPs and activists, not voters.\u00a0 Once a narrative becomes accepted wisdom, it can be highly impervious to contrary evidence.\u00a0 The conviction that voters didn\u2019t like wind farms was so embedded that when<\/a>a 2017 government tracking poll of 2000 people found just one person \u2018strongly\u2019 opposed, a Conservative MP simply refused to believe it.<\/p>\n

\n

After Cameron, came Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May, who committed<\/a> the UK to Net Zero in 2019.\u00a0 Then Boris Johnson who went from<\/a> being a climate sceptic to promoting his own Net Zero strategy.\u00a0 Then for just 44 days, Liz Truss, who moved<\/a> to outlaw solar power on most farmland, approve fracking and new oil wells, and scrap hundreds of laws and funding designed to protect nature. Major nature groups threatened<\/a>\u2018direct action\u2019, although it was not clear what that might mean.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Then Rishi Sunak, who delayed action on car pollution, gas boilers and insulation in 2023 in the hope<\/a> of convincing Working Class voters that Labour\u2019s plans, to spend \u00a328bn a year on green measures, would make them poorer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Also in 2023, Labour was itself spooked by not winning a by-election in Uxbridge (Boris Johnson\u2019s old seat) and seemed convinced by claims that anti-pollution fees attached to ULEZ, the London Ultra-low Emission Zone had been a vote loser.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u2018Party insiders\u2019, reported<\/a> The Independent<\/i>, had dubbed support for environmental measures as the \u201cUloss Factor\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 By February 2024 Labour had abandoned the \u00a328bn pledge.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

July 2023 \u2013 Labour veers to seeing environment as a vote loser (<\/i>The Independent<\/i><\/a>)<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The enormous 10,000 poll and 60 focus groups run by More in Common over the 2024 election have now shown that voters were more pro-environmental than many politicians believed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Sunak gambled on attracting Reform Party voters back to the Conservatives by ostentatiously abandoning green policies but it failed.\u00a0 More in Common found the rightwing\/populist Reform vote was overwhelmingly driven by opposition to immigration, not the environment.\u00a0 Indeed most Reform voters supported climate action. (See More in Common\u2019s \u2018Post Mortem<\/a>\u2019 analysis Change Pending<\/a> report).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From<\/em><\/a> More in Common, 2024 <\/em><\/p>\n

So rational assessment might now lead Labour to conclude that backpedalling on nature or climate commitments is not a vote winner. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But politics is not always rational so it’s as yet unclear to me at least, what lessons Starmer\u2019s Labour will draw.<\/p>\n

More in Common\u2019s post election polling showed majority support for Labour\u2019s \u2018green jobs\u2019 renewable energy project, GB Energy across all political affinities. \u00a0\u00a0The risk for government must now be that the hopes raised by this idea, do not materialise, given the massively reduced funding.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

General election 2024 \u2013 What Happened?\u00a0 Webinar 8 July 2024<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

More in Common say<\/a>: \u2018climate has become a political hygiene issue for the public \u2013 with the Conservatives\u2019 fluctuating positions on transition reinforcing broader perceptions that the party is inconsistent on the big issues\u2019.\u00a0 A hygiene issue means you don\u2019t get a lot of credit for getting it right \u2013 it\u2019s expected \u2013 but you are in trouble if you get it wrong.\u00a0 Which perhaps leaves action on energy and climate, and possibly nature, in the middle ground.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

George Eaton, senior political editor of the New Statesman, argues<\/a> that a gift for \u2018the Common Ground\u2019 is Keir Starmer\u2019s \u2018superpower\u2019. \u00a0\u00a0Eaton cites Luke Tryl, a former special adviser to the Conservatives and head of More in Common, as believing Starmer is \u201cis probably much closer to median public opinion than a PM has been for a long time\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Eaton also says Keir Starmer is \u2018a committed environmentalist\u2019.\u00a0 Perhaps, optimistically, this will ensure that Labour now decides environment is no longer in the optional category. I hope so but I wouldn\u2019t bet on it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Mrs Thatcher changed Britain in many ways and she did so through actions she took, such as the allowing people to sell their Council houses, creating a whole new constituency of beneficiaries.\u00a0 If Starmer is to embed \u2018green\u2019 policies as beneficial at the centre, he will have to find a way to make individuals feel it benefits them. \u00a0For example so they experience that renewable energy, electrification and insulation makes them individually better off.\u00a0 Or they register that some nature policy, large or small<\/a>, makes their lives notably better.<\/p>\n

There are limits to what the voluntary sector environment groups can do to help Starmer secure that, and elevating nature protection to a must-have rather than a nice-to-have is an even harder task than achieving success on energy. \u00a0But there is a lot those groups could do to embed nature in UK culture, so politicians meet it coming from the bottom up, and this would be a good time to invest in the groundwork needed for that.<\/p>\n

\n

Part 3 on social culture and nature has now been published in seven sections, with a summary<\/p>\n

download as pdfs:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Summary-Nature-Culture-and-Politics-blogs.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Section-1-Campaign-for-Nature-in-Culture-Introduction-.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Section-2-Missing-The-Garden-Opportunity.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Section-3-Signalling-And-Marking-Moments.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Section-4-Nature-Events-In-Popular-Culture.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Section-5-Why-Conservation-Should-Embrace-Natural-History.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Section-6-Organising-Strategy-and-Ways-and-Means.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Section-7-Afterword-Arent-we-doing-this-already.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

[contact Chris Rose here<\/a>]<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Rose, August 27, 2024 – \u00a0 https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=3115\u00a0 download this post as a pdf, here In July 2024 the UK got a new Labour Government. \u00a0As part of it\u2019s preparations for fighting the election, the Labour Party cut its \u2018Green … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3115"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3442,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3115\/revisions\/3442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}