If you want to support the environment with your vote then my ranking of the political parties is as follows:
Labour (best by quite a long way: the greatest ambition coupled with the greatest detail)
Greens and LibDems (good)
Conservatives and Brexit Party (very poor; let’s ignore the Brexit Party but the Conservatives have said very little about environmental issues and have actually avoided saying much in their manifesto and in debating opportunities. That is simply not rising to the environmental challenge of our age, and of this crucial election).
This is based on my reading of the manifestos and accompanying documents:
Labour manifesto, Welfare manifesto, Nature plan
Brexit party contract with the people
But also have a look at this Q&A in the Guardian – rather remarkably, as a long-suffering Labour voter (but no longer a party member), the Labour answers sounded best to me here too. What has happened? Whatever it is, it is very welcome!
And Friends of the Earth come to a very similar conclusion to my own – click here and here – even though their view of ‘environment’ is heavily dominated by climate change alone.
It would be foolish to base your voting decision simply on one narrow aspect of the political parties’ policies – although arguably climate change and biodiversity loss are far less narrow than most aspects – but you care about climate change and the natural world then in this general election you must lean to the Left and lean most strongly to Labour.
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Even to the limited extent they go I do not trust the Conservative Party’s assurances on the environment. The European (Withdrawal) Act enables the transposition of EU derived regulations into UK law following our separation from the Union but this is just a temporary measure to provide legal continuity and prevent chaos on day one of our withdrawal. The ideologues in the Party who have driven the Brexit agenda have made it clear they want to see the UK changed into a low-regulation, ‘business friendly economy that is unfettered by ‘red-tape’ and other restrictions on what companies can do and will undoubtedly bring forward a legislative programme to achieve this as soon as they can. I do not see nature thriving in such an economic environment.
One of the main prizes that Johnson and his team have their eyes on is a free trade deal with the US. We are continually assured that this or that sacred cow ‘will not be on the table’ in the talks for such a deal but we have already seen evidence in the form of leaked documents that undermine these assurances. Furthermore the US will undoubtedly be pushing hard for the things it wants in such a deal and are likely to have a different view as to what should be on the table. I do not believe that we will be in a strong position in these negotiations (Trump will certainly smell Johnson’s desperate need for a deal) and as a result who knows what concessions we will be obliged to make? Protection of nature could easily fall victim to this, along with workers rights, food standards and so on.
I’d have to disagree with Mark’s blanket “Vote Labour” recommendation.
In a FPTP system, if your seat is in play at all, you usually can’t afford to vote for the party you want. Vote for the candidate ***in your constituency*** most likely to beat the party you most despise . Where I live the Libs might just beat the Tories, Labour has no chance.
The only good blanket recommendation is to vote tactically.
JBC, your absolutely right, under our current voting system one has to weigh up the best way of defeating the worst candidate on the ballot paper.
All politicians (and humans) have flaws, but the Conservatives that rally around Johnson are more flawed than most and in the arena of the environment, they have zero credibility.
I note that there is a chance that Johnson may actually lose his seat, now that would be worth celebrating!
Not an ice cream’s chance in Hell I would vote for parties that do nothing to counteract animal abuse, particularly animals in the wild, so that’s both the Tory and Brexit parties out And they’re run by cowards, one not standing after so many failures to get elected, the other scared to face Andrew Neil.
I have been canvassing for the Scottish Green Party and it is sad how many people say that they really support Green policies but are going to vote for someone else. Too often that’s accompanied by the thought that the Greens have no chance of winning so why vote for them. If that meant that people intended to vote tactically, or even that there was a meaninful contest, it might be understandable, but my constituency is one of the safest seats in the country, the outcome beyond question. So anyone can vote for the best candidate, policies or party without the remotest fear that it will affect the outcome.