A new poll published today reveals that Labour’s anti-nature rhetoric is damaging the confidence of voters across both the right and left.
According to a poll carried out by Savanta (1), nearly a third of Reform voters (28%) and Green voters (28%) are less likely to vote for Labour at the next election, as a result of the Prime Minister’s recent speech which described environmental regulations as “well-intentioned but fundamentally misguided”.
Overall, the poll finds that nearly a fifth (19%) of people who voted for Labour in 2024 are less likely to do so again following the PM’s speech deriding the laws that protect nature as “unnecessary red-tape”(2).
Matt Browne, head of public affairs at The Wildlife Trusts, says:
“The public, across the political spectrum, care deeply about nature and the role it plays in our nation’s identity, health and prosperity. They see straight through self-interested arguments from industry lobbyists who suggest that cherished wild spaces have to be sacrificed for growth.
“In siding with the most dinosaur developers over the public, the Prime Minister is risking huge environmental damage, undermining nature friendly developers – and blocking his own party’s path back to re-election. This new poll confirms that the voters the Government needs to win back to remain in office, on both the right and left, are united in rejecting the PM’s attacks on nature protections.
“Labour will never win back voters if it belittles the public’s love of wildlife, breaks its election promise to save nature, and gives developers a free rein to push the nature crisis towards catastrophe.”
As part of a speech welcoming the recent Nuclear Regulatory Review, Keir Starmer gave enthusiastic backing to proposals in the Review to get rid of some of nature’s strongest protections, including slashing the habitats regulations and rules affecting national parks.
Leading environmental organisations – including The Wildlife Trusts, RSPB, National Trust and Wildlife and Countryside Link – are warning that these recommendations are based on inaccuracies and would cause unnecessary environmental damage which could turn the nature crisis into a catastrophe.
The Office for Environmental Protection have shared similar concerns, stating just last week that the proposed “very broad brush approach” to the Habitats Regulations “would inevitably create contradictions within the government’s own environmental improvement and nature recovery strategies” (3).
The poll follows a parliamentary event which saw a rare cross-party consensus of concern as nature experts, MPs and peers spoke out about the potential environmental impact of Nuclear Regulatory Review’s recommendations (4). At the event, there were expressions of ‘horror’ at the flawed evidence upon which the review’s environmental recommendations were founded, exposed by The Wildlife Trusts’ new report: Why the Nuclear Regulatory Review is flawed and how it could turn the nature crisis into a catastrophe (5).
Matt Browne of The Wildlife Trusts continues:
“The evidence is clear: the Nuclear Regulatory Review has accepted inaccuracies from self-interested developers about the need for and costs of environmental mitigations. As it considers the flawed Review recommendations on nature, the Government must avoid taking these at face value without considering all the evidence. To do so would be to embark on deeply damaging environmental regression, based on poor evidence, to the detriment of nature, people and climate.”
The survey follows up on the Prime Minister’s speech which described environmental regulations as “well-intentioned but fundamentally misguided” and indicated that a review of some of these regulations could boost economic growth. Over 2000 people were asked: “How, if at all, does this statement and these plans affect your likelihood of supporting the Labour Government in the next election?”.
Amongst the strongest objections to these remarks from the Prime Minister were Yorkshire and Humber constituents, as well as non-graduates and those from lower-middle and working class backgrounds, demonstrating wide ranging concern for wildlife and wild spaces. This strength of feeling has also been echoed by two Early Day Motions, which express the same concerns and have been signed by over 90 MPs.
Over 11,000 people have now written to Ed Milliband, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, asking him to not to weaken wildlife protections.
