Badenoch ignored Tory opinion research when she abandoned net zero. Because she values winning Reform voters much more than others?

As we all know, Kemi Badenoch has broken with the policy of the last three Tory Prime Ministers (yes even Liz Truss as PM!) and abandoned ‘net zero’. She says it is ‘impossible’. ‘It’s fantasy politics. Built on nothing. Promising the earth. And costing it too.’ (See HERE). Why has Kemi Badenoch done this? What is remarkable is that the research upon which the Conservatives say they are basing this new policy (i.e. the claim that voters do not want to pay for climate action) actually says the exact opposite of what the Conservatives claim. Voters clearly are prepared to pay for or support government funding for climate action. So, if the new policy has nothing to do with what voters actually want, what is the explanation for the policy shift?

Badenoch’s recent ‘net zero’ address is contestable for a number of reasons, and commentators like Carbon Brief (see HERE) have made good rebuttals of her speech. But what I want to look at are the political reasons why the current Conservative Leader has decided to ditch net zero. I do not believe the explanations given so far. I shall go through what I see as the (quite glaring) inconsistencies in the official explanation (ie via Spectator magazine) compared to the public opinion research on the subject. I shall then suggest an explanation based on the dynamics of the relations between (and within) the Conservatives and Reform.

Essentially, what Kemi Badenoch seems to be doing is to try and steal votes from Reform even though ditching net zero will likely lose many more votes to other parties. Kemi Badenoch is no longer playing the game of trying to win the centre ground. Rather the climate issue is seen as a much more important game, first a battle for supremacy between herself, Nigel Farage, and, interlinked with that, a battle with other contenders for her crown within the party.

The contradictions of the (semi) official explanation

What appears, to be the case is that the Conservative Leadership seems to have made some very strange interpretations about the research made by their think-tank sympathizers called ‘Onward’. I refer to a piece of recent research into voters’ attitudes to energy and the environment, particularly into climate change. According to James Heale, writing in the Spectator on March 18th (see HERE):

‘The calculation for (Badenoch) and her allies is that while voters happily profess support for ‘green policies’ in polls, they are far less willing to put their money where their mouth is. Research by Onward – the think-tank run by ex-Tory MP Simon Clarke – shows that voters care about the environment but oppose tax increases to pay for net zero. Yes, almost two-thirds of Tory voters think it is important to tackle climate change: but only five percent would accept increases in individual taxes to fund climate policy.’

Previous research by Onward said that the Conservatives would lose over a million votes if they ditched net zero (see HERE). The strange thing is that the latest research by Onward, seems to me to say the exact opposite of what is implied in the article from the Spectator that I just quoted. The research implies that a large majority of voters support extra Government spending and also extra taxes to fund climate action (see HERE in particular pages 12, 13, and 14). That is, many more voters will put at least some money where their mouth is (ie to pay for action on climate change) than those who would not want to do so. Support for climate action remains very high among Tory voters.

Out of the voters who expressed an opinion to the Onward study, voters believe by a margin of 50 percent to 35 percent, that either a small or large amount of extra taxes should be raised to tackle climate change (page 12). An even bigger majority (54 percent to 25 percent) say that a small or large reduction in other areas of government spending would be acceptable as a means of funding climate action (page 13). In other words, there is a very large majority of those who express an opinion that money should be found, one way or another, by the Government, to pay extra for climate change policies.

I can only see evidence here supporting substantial action to tackle climate change, especially as a lot of it is relatively low-cost. I see no evidence whatsoever for the assertions that voters do not want to pay for action on climate change. It is worth adding that a great deal of climate action is undoubtedly rather lower cost than the energy measure that Badenoch does support, that is funding new nuclear power stations.

Research from Yougov (see HERE) indicates that over 60 percent of Reform voters think that too much is being done and spent on reducing carbon emissions. Just under 40 percent of Tory voters believe this, and only 25 percent of all voters believe this. The Conservatives’ policy shift on this issue seems to place them at great peril of being outflanked by all of the other major parties and green campaigners on this issue.

Greenpeace ran a successful ‘climate vote’ campaign in least year’s election (see HERE). Over 200,000 people were signed up to the campaign. Next time the Conservatives will be on the wrong side of the campaign. But Badenoch does not seem to worry too much about this. I suspect this is because she is more interested in other games.

Two games in electoral politics

The game that is most commonly assumed is that of trying to win over most voters. This may be about the position on issues, but opinion researchers tend to argue it is more often about parties’ perceived competence to achieve consensus goals. Kemi Badenoch has opted her party out of appearing to be competent on climate action. She seems more interested in a different type of game.

Badenoch seems to me to be more interested in how to dish Reform than win votes from the centre. Reform is out to cannibalise and replace the Conservatives. This existential crisis means that there is therefore a high premium on stealing votes from Reform. In this existential battle every vote gained from Reform counts double if the prize is to come out on top of Reform with more votes.

The problem, of course, is that the Conservatives may well lose more than double the votes that they gain from Reform by this maneuver. In short, abandoning the net zero pledge is an act of desperation. Besides this, Badenoch has had a history since 2019 of voting against climate policy measures (see HERE). She has received money from Neil Record, the Chair of the Net Zero Watch Group (see HERE).

Badenoch, though she firmly denies it now, may also have her eye on the terms of a pact between the Reform and Conservative parties at the next election. This assumes that she is not ousted before then, of course. The political lifetime of recent Tory leaders has been a lot shorter than the length of one Parliament!

Conclusion

It is interesting to see how a piece of opinion research can be so royally cited to suggest the more or less exact opposite of what it actually says. Yet, all of these electoral calculations will leave, climate campaigners cold. To them it is no good saying that it is too expensive to save the planet (whether it is or not). We only have one planet!