One of the more curious developments in British politics is the apparent willingness of environmental charities to let the Labour government off the hook for policies they once railed against. When Liz Truss’s brief tenure in Downing Street saw proposals for planning deregulation, habitat law reforms, and changes to the Green Belt, these groups reacted with fury. Now, many of those same proposals are back under Labour – yet the response has been muted, even deferential.
Heathrow’s third runway, strengthened housing targets, a stronger presumption in favour of development without any extra environmental safeguards: these were once red lines for Britain’s biggest nature charities. Under the Conservatives, such measures were met with petitions, protest letters, and PR campaigns denouncing them as an assault on nature.
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