The National Trust, RSPCA, RSPB and the Woodland Trust have put the government on notice over its climate policies. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has effectively been told: water down your net zero commitments and you’ll have our 20 million members to answer to.
The warning came in an open letter in which the PM was told: ‘We will not stand by whilst politicians use the environment as a political football. It is courage and leadership that we need now.’
Sunak can smile at the irony of the National Trust demanding the environment cease to be used as a ‘political football’
It looked like a slam dunk for the climate change lobby: millions of voters, enough and more to make or break any party at a general election, thought so strongly about the matter that they would march to the ballot-box in the event of any climate backsliding. The reality is slightly different, but the episode still shows a great deal about the way arguments like this are conducted these days.
The letter’s first signatory is the executive director of the think-tank-cum-pressure-group the Green Alliance, Shaun Spiers, who is an ex-Labour MEP. The other organisations were also represented by the signatures of their CEOs. But this hardly means that the members of these organisations, not least a big one like the National Trust, agree with everything in the letter. Most National Trust members just want to enjoy a walk and have a drink at the tearoom.
The letter circulated to the press – and reported in the Guardian – suggests an overwhelming public desire to defend net zero. But this was not a spontaneous expression of the views of any large number of people, let alone 20 million. It was rather a cri de coeur from 52 members of the charitable great and good, most of whom probably took a short time to sign it when it most likely landed oven-ready on their desks.
What’s more, a number of the signatory organisations, including high-profile bodies like the National Trust, the RSPB and the CPRE, were already affiliated ‘partners’ (and probably funders) of the Green Alliance.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the charitable sector has taken a leaf from the book of corporate Britain’s senior management, which has been lining up to express support for causes like Black Lives Matter and to gain the favour of Stonewall. They do so, not so much for immediate corporate financial advantage, but so as not to be seen to be unfashionable. In the same way, doubtless under pressure from a growing army of reputation managers, charitable organisations now find it difficult not to make statements, and join clubs, with a view to being seen to be on board with progressive environmental thinking.
But in the case of certain high-profile charities, like the National Trust, what is lacking is much evidence that any of this is really wanted by the rank-and-file membership. True, if prompted by a survey question such as: ‘Do you think dealing with climate change is a vital issue of our time?’ they will no doubt agree. Who wouldn’t?
But one suspects that the ordinary people who join the National Trust to preserve and look over beautiful buildings, or the RSPB to help the bluetits in their gardens, or the CPRE to rein in the worst excesses of the get-rich-quick developers, have no desire to practise large-scale environmental activism or strong-arm the government into observing net zero targets.
They are merely dragged into supporting it with their money because the rules of these organisations entrust their management to a growing class of professionals with their own agendas. And it is a growing class. When James Lees-Milne joined the National Trust in 1936, its head office staff was about half-a-dozen, and they were said to be more like priests than office workers.
Increasingly it is these management figures who call the political shots, and who hit back at those who challenge them. This happened last year with the attempt by Restore Trust to challenge the politicisation of the National Trust.
In short, whatever the Guardian might say in its report, Rishi Sunak and the Tories should ignore this bid by a small coterie of self-important charity bosses to dictate to government by threatening to wield an imaginary block vote. For that matter, so should Keir Starmer, who must know by now that he cannot go on for ever portraying Labour as the party of Just Stop Oil.
Sunak, at least, can afford a smile at the delicious irony of a thoroughly politicised National Trust demanding that the environment cease, in the words of the joint letter, to be used as a ‘political football’. Meanwhile the charitable activists will quickly realise that they must indeed leave the politicians to work out what degree of environmental asceticism they can persuade a sceptical electorate to stomach. If it’s not very much, that’s just too bad.
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