Green Tories have had their say on who should be the next leader of the party. While one candidate has a strong lead, the survey reveals big questions remaining about most hopefuls’ environmental beliefs.
Under Rishi Sunak, the Tories appeared to drift away from the environmentalism pioneered by David Cameron and Theresa May.
The previous government pushed back a number of Net Zero deadlines, arguing they were set too early and posed a risk to Britons’ finances amid the cost of living crisis.
However a number of Tories still argue the party must embrace the opportunities of Net Zero, and not echo the scepticism of Reform UK and others on the hard right.
With the Tory leadership race ongoing, members of the Conservative Environment Network have now suggested that centrist Tom Tugendhat is their pick to be the next party leader.
Supporters of CEN who are also confirmed members of the party put Mr Tugendhat in first place, with 30.7% of the vote.
He was distantly followed by Kemi Badenoch on 17.2%, James Cleverly on 14.9% and Robert Jenrick on 14.9%.
While this polling will be a boost for Mr Tugendhat, there is one major caveat: Conservative members do not know what most of the candidates stand for on the environment.
When CEN asked members ‘who do you associate with championing the environment, the winning answer was ‘none of the above’ on 27.7%, closely followed by ‘don’t know’ on 26.1%.
While Mr Tugendhat came in third place, just one in five members associate him with championing the environment.
All five of the other candidates failed to win double digit percentage points in the question, with James Cleverly on 8.6%, and Mel Stride coming bottom with just 1%.
Among the wider CEN support network, which includes non Tory members, this questions reflected even more poorly on the candidates, with ‘don’t know’ and ‘none of the above’ rising from 54.8% to 56.4%.
The poll suggest that while Mr Tugendhat has a solid head start among members still concerned about the environment, all candidates have the potential to reap votes by standing out on the hot-button political issue.
Conservative Environment Network director Sam Hall told the Express: “Protecting the environment is a core part of the conservative tradition and has champions from across the Conservative Party’s broad church.”
“A pro-growth, pro-environment agenda can unite the party. This survey suggests the green conservative vote is still up for grabs in the leadership contest.
“All candidates should take the opportunity to set out their positive agenda for tackling climate change and restoring nature based on conservative principles around free markets and individual responsibility.”
