The departure of the UK’s fourth Prime Minister in four years will leave many people feeling unsettled. It brings with it a sense of political instability, exacerbated by polling that shows people increasingly believe that life in the UK is getting worse and that politicians can’t turn this around.
The next few weeks will see intense debate in Westminster about the reasons for this. The Wildlife Trusts’ work with communities across the country provides some learnings to inform discussion about the growing perception of national decline, and to point the way towards fixing it.
For millions of people, nature is one of the good things in life
Our members and supporters are emphatic that day-in, day-out, nature brightens their lives. The sound of birdsong smooths the roughness of waking early for work, lunch has extra savour for being eaten on a park bench and the sight of a fox on a dark street gladdens an evening.
These moments of enjoyment from nature are reliably affordable, something more important than ever amidst the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. A dog walk in the park, a picnic at a beauty spot, raspberry picking on a sunny Saturday; these are treats that don’t have a price tag on them.
Polling shows that this shared, affordable source of joy makes people feel happy, and proud of belonging to the places that provide it. Polling by More in Common has found that 81% of people say that time in nature makes them very happy, and that British nature and the NHS are the two things that make people feel proudest about Britain. Polling by Public First shows that local green space is the most important factor to foster pride in people’s own villages, towns and cities, even more than pubs and high streets.
Strikingly, this high regard for nature and its role in our national life holds true across people of all backgrounds and political persuasions. In an age of increasing division, love of and pride in nature still holds communities together.
But these good things have been under attack
The everyday, affordable joys provided by nature are safeguarded by laws, passed by previous Parliaments, to safeguard wildlife and what wildlife means for people. Unfortunately, for well-over a decade, there has been an influential strand of thought in Westminster that says that these laws get in the way of growth, or to be more precise, the ability of large companies to increase profits.
This has meant sustained attacks on nature laws - waves of deregulation which have allowed big corporates to get away with polluting and diminishing the natural world, degrading our shared environment for private profit.
Lowered housebuilding standards have stripped communities of green spaces, greenlit chemical pollution has poisoned people and cuts to regulator budgets have produced sewage-choked rivers and a surge in fly-tipping.
Ministers have enjoyed brief headlines about cutting ‘red tape’, large companies have enjoyed and retained boosted profits, nature has declined, climate risks have grown and people have seen their lives get worse.
The broad-based economic growth that the advocates of deregulation promised in order to justify these changes has utterly failed to materialise.
These harmful policies have been pursued on a cross-party basis. The Coalition Government started a surge of deregulation, which was accelerated by Conservative Governments following Brexit and sustained by Keir Starmer’s Labour Government. In a stark break from Labour’s 2024 promise to ‘save nature’ the last two years have seen:
- toxic No 10 and No11 rhetoric about bats and newts blocking growth;
- a Planning and Infrastructure Act that threatens endangered species; and
- proposals to weaken National Park protections, 75 years after Clement Attlee’s Labour set the parks up for public enjoyment.
It is perhaps not surprising that Starmer’s U-turn on nature policy has alienated natural supporters of the Government and swelled the number of people who feel that No10 has prioritised the demands of powerful people over making everyday lives better.
Keir Starmer’s overall political legacy will be debated, but on nature it is clear – a mistaken embrace of environmental deregulation which delighted corporate lobbyists but made millions of people worried about the future of wildlife they cherish and contributed towards a sense of declining quality of life.
The anger of people who belong to The Wildlife Trusts and other environmental organisations has been rising, with campaign actions to resist recent attacks on nature attracting huge support.
Nature attacks illuminate damaging political disconnection
Successive Governments attacking something that make peoples feel happy and proud about where they live is illustrative of a wider problem. A sense that the interests of the wealthy are prioritised over the majority of people is nothing new in Westminster, and the 21st century embrace of deregulation has once again widened the gap between SW1 and the rest of the country.
Large corporates have increasingly been put in the driving seat of policy and asked to deliver Government objectives. In return, they have demanded deregulatory policy concessions to boost profits, such as repeated demands from big developers that nature protections be weakened as the price for their delivery of Labour’s housing targets.
It’s a dynamic that turns policy into a haggle between Ministers and big business, with the public shut out. The debate on last year’s Planning and Infrastructure Act was revealing in this regard; the huge public concern about the loss of cherished green spaces was largely shrugged off as it didn’t speak to Minister’s core objectives for the Bill – for it to meet developer demands.
Hundreds of thousands of expressions of public concern were rejected, sometimes with a sneer, as irrelevant to the agreement reached between Ministers and developers.
A political dynamic where public views are routinely marginalised in order to curry favour with a small group of corporates does not produce a strong, popular or long-lived Government, it makes for one disconnected from its democratic roots. Last year’s Planning and Infrastructure Act was one warning sign amongst many, pointing to the political crisis that has now engulfed No10.
This is a chance to turn away from deregulation and towards political reconnection
We will have a new Prime Minister by the time autumn leaves fall, and potentially much sooner. The Wildlife Trusts can offer one key piece of advice, drawn from our members – respect people’s love for every day, wild joys over self-interested corporate calls to weaken what safeguards these treasures. The road back to public trust in politics runs through this greater appreciation of what people love in their lives.
Ending the attacks on nature, and moving to the bold, coordinated action need to recover wildlife, would play an important part in ending the disconnect between Westminster and the country – and bring tangible policy benefits with it.
The happiness nature gives people sparks a virtuous cascade of social impacts. People who spend time in wild spaces report an increased sense of wellbeing and boosted health, which feeds through into healthier communities.
Wildlife Trust projects which bring communities together to look after shared nature-rich spaces report new connections between neighbours and increased self-esteem amongst participants. More everyday happiness, improved public health and better social cohesion, will have beneficial economic effects. Nature connection is a strikingly effective tool for improving life satisfaction, which in turn boosts economic growth.
As Westminster looks - yet again - for a new start that sticks, powerful people should reflect that when we fix nature we can fix so much more. The new Prime Minister will have a lot to do, but a shift on nature policy could be part of a fundamental political change.
A Government that heeds every day, real life joys, and works with people to protect and extend them, would be strengthening the taproot of democracy after years of disconnection. Put simply, more nature would mean better lives for more people – a worthy objective for Government.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines the phrase ‘touching grass’ as ‘to spend time outside in nature or doing activities in the real world, instead of spending time on the internet.’ Good advice, for the fifth Prime Minister in four years.