Kemi Badenoch has pledged to repeal the Climate Change Act 2008 – and made a lot of noise in the process. This marks the Tory party’s biggest step yet away from the establishment consensus on Net Zero. It also represents another significant step away from voters.
Voters don’t choose Reform because of their policy position on net zero
The leader of the opposition is in an unenviable position. Her dire poll ratings, in contrast to Nigel Farage in the ascendant, make the prospect of a Reform-lite policy platform alluring. The problem with this strategy though is that Badenoch and her advisers have fundamentally misread what voters care about and why they are attracted to Reform.
Voters don’t choose Reform because of their policy position on net zero. In fact, most of the public cannot name a policy position held by Reform, beyond cutting immigration. Farage and his Reform party are appealing to voters because they punish the Tories and Labour for failing to deliver the promises they have made. That shouldn’t be taken as a reason to ditch the promises – quite the opposite. They instead show how they can actually be achieved. In her hurry to distance herself from her predecessors, Badenoch risks throwing the policy baby out with the bathwater.
The public are obsessed with the cost of living, immigration and the NHS above all else. Other issues, including climate change, are second-order. In focus groups I run, voters rarely mention the climate crisis unprompted; especially not the working-class voters in so-called Red Wall seats that the Tories are so desperate to win back. Such is their depression about the state of the country, these voters find it very difficult to consider problems beyond their own doorstep.
However, the gentle slide of climate change away from being a top tier issue identified by voters should not be taken as a lack of support for climate action. Rather, other issues have risen in prominence. Net zero commitments have held constant polling support among the public, including those rare creatures: potential Conservative voters. A recent Public First poll found that 37 per cent of 2024 Conservative voters say they would not consider voting for a party that didn’t back achieving net zero. Lest Kemi Badenoch be tempted to pursue climate scepticism further, her strategists might want to contemplate the 49 per cent of their 2024 voters who say they wouldn’t consider voting for a party that denied the role of humans in climate change.
This doesn’t just apply to the question of whether to pursue climate action in principle. Tory voters are also clearly supportive of the action itself. The British public consistently backs new energy infrastructure – even when it’s close to their homes. The Westminster debate about net zero overlooks a tired and frustrated public who simply want politicians to get on with building something, anything, that they have promised.
Tory defectors in the Midlands and the East of England, whom the party will need to win back to demonstrate any kind of recovery, made it clear in focus groups that they want climate action to continue ‘in the background’ of the big concerns. Above all, delivery matters. What frustrates voters most, as we hear time and time again, is the sense that politicians have made yet more empty promises.
For the Conservatives to now drop their climate commitments because they are playing catch up to Reform, having spent 14 years in government pushing this agenda, confirms voters’ worst prejudices about politicians.
The race to the bottom on climate commitments is not a race that the Conservatives can win. If the Tories want to bring themselves back from political exile, they’d do well to announce ideas that voters actually care about, not chase Reform down a dead-end road.
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