Reform UK councillor calls man-made global warming a 'hoax'
Bingham was speaking during a debate on a motion tabled by Labour councillors which called for the Reform-run authority to recommit to becoming carbon neutral by 2030."I've been involved in award-winning sustainability projects for 25 years, and I've never seen such nonsense as the anthropogenic global warming hoax," he said."The statistics are manipulated. I've followed it over decades, there's lots of science out there, but at the moment it seems to be as in a lot of matters with Covid, if you follow the money, you find the science or the pseudoscience."Scientists around the world agree human activities are causing temperatures to rise, and the year 2024 was the world's hottest on record.It was also the first calendar year to surpass 1.5C (34.7F) of warming, according to the Copernicus climate service.The UN's climate body - the IPCC - concluded in 2023 that "human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming".Bingham said Reform UK is opposed to net zero targets "but that does not mean we don't support environmental protection, sustainability, resource efficiency, industrial symbiosis - many areas I've worked in."He added that declaring a climate emergency was "absolutely ridiculous and nonsensical"."They'll have us back living in mud huts - if even living at all - by the time they're done," he said.He said he was "happy to debate people at any time on the price of energy and how it's manipulated".He declined to be interviewed by the BBC at the end of the meeting, saying he had a prior engagement.
Labour county councillor Helen Faccio, who tabled the motion, said she was "stunned" by the comments.She added: "I don't think it's really appropriate that you think you know better than a whole body of evidence and scientists who present all this information all the time and have told us this is happening - we can see it is happening."Other Reform UK councillors applauded at the end of Bingham's speech.Council leader Mick Barton told the BBC he does not agree with Bingham that man-made global warming is a hoax, but is "more than happy" for him to continue in his cabinet role."I'm the leader but I don't tell Bert what to say and I don't tell Bert what not to say, that's up to councillor Bingham.""Bert Bingham is one of the best cabinet members I've got and if he's got his own opinions on climate change, I ain't got a problem with that."
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BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
The Green Party is at a crossroads. Is it time they get angry?
Warning: This article contains strong languageThe video opens with some white cliffs and a politician standing on a beach. This isn't Dover, and it's not Nigel Farage (although the echoes with Reform UK are deliberate). Rather, it's a campaign video for the Green Party's leadership hopeful, Zack slick filming and a moody orchestral soundtrack, he delivers an animated and uncompromising boats, he declares, are an "obsession that has gripped the country," blamed for a "crumbling" NHS and "obscene" rents, while people are told there's no money left."Well," he says, looking into the camera, "I call bullshit."The real problem, he continues, are the "super-rich and their yachts". The Green Party is on the brink of choosing its new leader. It usually does it once every two years and the contest can go fairly unnoticed. Not this a former actor who is the party's deputy leader, has turbo-charged the race, the result of which will be announced on 2 calls his approach "eco-populism" and says it's about being "bolder" and more clearly anti-elite in communicating social and economic issues, as well as environmental he argues, is the style of messaging that the Green party needs to embrace. He wants to "connect with people's anger" and then offer solutions, something the Greens are, in his view, often "too nice" to do. He worries it leaves them looking "out of touch"."I think far too often in the past we've equivocated or we've been too worried to challenge wealth and power in as blunt a way as possible. This isn't about shouting, it isn't about being louder, it's about being more effective." Tried and tested vs a radical approach The Greens had record success at the General Election last summer, going from one to four seats in Parliament and overturning large Labour and Conservative majorities. Together with the Scottish Greens and the Green Party of Northern Ireland, they won 6.7% of the the party is at a crossroads: does it stick with what it knows has worked or pick something more radical? And, given the candidates don't really differ on policy, just how big a difference could new leadership make to the party's national chances? Polanski, who is a member of the London Assembly, wants the Greens to replace Labour as the "party of the left". But his opponents, the current co-leader Adrian Ramsay and new MP Ellie Chowns, who are running on a joint-ticket, believe Polanski would explode a winning formula that has brought them their greatest ever electoral and Chowns were elected to Parliament in last year's general style is, mostly, less combative - they believe it's important that the Greens have broad appeal and that the party is seen to be at the heart of Westminster if it wants to bring about change. Chowns says many voters already have a "generalised warm feeling" towards the Greens, they just need convincing they're a credible option."It's really the difference between populism and popularity," she says."What they need to know is that if they put their vote in the Green box on the ballot paper that's got a really, really good chance of electing somebody." Time to capitalise on discontent? Plenty of analysts, and Green party members themselves, have questioned why the party hasn't already capitalised more on left-wing discontent with Labour, or why it hasn't pitched itself more effectively as an alternative to the traditional parties, in the way Reform UK Zarb-Cousin, a former spokesperson for Jeremy Corbyn who joined the Greens in 2022, is a founding member of Greens Organise, a group that wants the party to take a more socialist stance. He argues that it is "inexcusable" that the party hasn't made a breakthrough in the polls since the Polanski, he believes that voters understand the party's environmental credentials and so it needs to highlight its policies on the cost of living, inequality and taxing wealth over work."It's not just about saying we support those things, it's about how you frame that argument: who are the enemies? Whose side are you on?" Former Green party councillor Rupert Read, who is an environmental philosopher and a co-director of the campaign group Climate Majority Project, says a lot of Green party policy is left-wing, but adds that this is often the result of "making green policies that work for ordinary people"."You need to come from a starting point that is not dogmatically and self-avowedly left. If you do there'll be a strict ceiling on the level of support which is possible."Ramsay and Chowns make a similar argument. Ramsay says that Polanski is "about appealing to a narrow base of activists," which he and Chowns argue isn't enough to win in the UK's first past the past electoral system. Chowns also believes that Polanski's approach is too similar to strategies that have failed in the past. "We spent years as the Green party engaging in the sort of politics where we stood on street corners and told people why we were very passionate about things..."It's all well and good but it's not the way to win people over." Return of the 'Green surge'? The Green Peer Baroness Bennett, who led the party between 2012 and 2016, said there had been "a level of excitement and interest around this leadership election more than I've ever seen before by a very large scale".It is reporting a "significant increase" in members in the past few months, although it won't yet give an exact figure. (The cut-off date to join and be able to vote in the leadership contest was July 31.)Baroness Bennett also points to "organic growth in the grassroots" since the general party has held 12 seats in council by-elections since 4 July 2024, and won another 14 - mostly at the expense of Labour, while losing four to the all marks a significant change from the past - the so-called "Green Surge" in 2015, under Baroness Bennett's leadership, saw the party's membership and vote share grow but still only returned Caroline Lucas to Parliament. Prof Neil Carter from the University of York, a long-time observer of environmental politics, says he can see an argument for following Polanski's strategy, as the Greens have traditionally had the greatest success with "metropolitan, liberal-minded, young, professionals".The sort of voters who are key to Chowns and Ramsay's approach could be harder to win over, he argues. "The trouble is you can reach out to a sort of middle-class Tory rural voter to some extent, if you just talk Green, but as soon as you start to talk about all of those other issues that the Greens like to talk about, you're going to alienate those voters."But Chowns, who, like Ramsay, won a formerly Conservative seat, says that's not her experience. "People across the political spectrum find a lot to like in what we stand for." Attracting 'anti-system' voters Getting noticed is often a struggle for smaller political parties. For that reason, Luke Tryl, who is UK director of the political research organisation More in Common, believes that Polanski's approach might be the Greens' quickest route to boosting its numbers."If you are trying to get 10 to 15%, it's probably what gets you noticed." But he argues it would net the party far fewer seats than the 40 that Polanski believes he can win. He says that the party is rarely brought up in the focus groups which he runs outside of Green areas and that a charismatic leader could help the party cut is a segment of the population that is "anti-system", he says, to whom a more radical pitch from the Greens might Tryl, however, believes that while eco-populism could be a good way of getting known, the Greens would then need to "moderate" to become a "genuine mass movement party with potential for power".On getting into government, he says: "The Adrian and Ellie approach is right because you need to win over more of the North Herefordshires and Waveney Valleys (Chowns' and Ramsay's seats) and actually places like the Isle of Wight - but they are a long way from that". Where Corbyn's new party fits in There is another challenge facing all candidates: the new party that will soon be launched by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, a former Labour Prof Carter and Mr Tryl warn that Polanski's strategy could be crowded out by this new party that has yet to be named but which, according to Corbyn, had 600,000 people sign up by early August. Ramsay goes further. He believes the new Corbyn party would blow Polanski's pitch "out of the water". Research carried out in June by More in Common suggested that the establishment of a Corbyn led-party could cut the Green's nationwide vote share from 9% to 5%. (This did not take into account who would be leading the Greens).Polanski has signalled he would be willing to co-operate with a possible Corbyn-led project and believes the Greens' position as an already established party will mean he can is Ramsay and Chowns who have secured what could be considered the "OG" of Green endorsements: the former MP Caroline Lucas. The strategy they propose sticking with is based on the one she used to get elected as the first ever Green MP in 2010, and focuses on intensive local campaigning. The question of who to target Both leadership pitches include carrying on with local targeting but Polanski believes it can't be scaled up sufficiently to get large numbers of seats on its dismisses this idea: "My vision at the next general election is that we will have multiple large numbers of target seats and definitely more than one in every region." With either approach, the Greens face other obstacles, such as party's principle of not being funded by large donors means they lack the financial resources of other political parties. During the election period, the party raised just £160,000, compared with more than £1.6m for both Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats, and £9.5m by Green leader has also little direct control over policy, as it is set by the members - not that there is much difference between the candidates. Polanski has gone further than current party policy by suggesting the UK should leave Nato, but there are only a few differences between the candidates' public positions. Ultimately, whoever is chosen to lead the party this time will likely face re-election again before the next general election. The political landscape may have changed further but there is certainly an opportunity for the Greens if they land on the right Mr Tryl puts it, "In the age of very fragmented multi party politics, small vote shares can deliver outsized results".Top picture credit: Dan Kitwood / Leon Neal via Getty BBC InDepth is the home on the website and app for the best analysis, with fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions and deep reporting on the biggest issues of the day. And we showcase thought-provoking content from across BBC Sounds and iPlayer too. You can send us your feedback on the InDepth section by clicking on the button below.
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Rachel Reeves to take aim at environmental protections in bid to speed up infrastructure projects, say reports
Rachel Reeves is preparing to strip back environmental protections in an attempt to accelerate infrastructure building and boost the economy, according to reports. The chancellor is considering major reforms that would make it more difficult for wildlife concerns to hold up developments, according to The Times. Treasury officials are said to be drafting another planning reform bill, the publication reported. The move reportedly involves tearing up parts of European environmental rules, which developers have argued slow down crucial projects. While Labour ministers have previously insisted their current planning overhaul would balance growth with nature, Ms Reeves is understood to believe that the government must go further. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill going through Parliament overrides existing habitat and nature protections, which, if passed, would allow developers to make general environmental improvements and pay into a nature restoration fund that improves habitats on other sites. But Ms Reeves is considering more contentious reforms that are likely to trigger further backlash from environmental groups, according to The Times. Among the changes under discussion are plans for a smaller, UK-only list of protected species, which would give less weight to wildlife considered rare across Europe but relatively common in Britain, The Times said. Ms Reeves is also reportedly considering abolishing the EU 'precautionary principle' that forces developers to prove projects will have no impact on protected natural sites. Instead, a new test would assess the risks and benefits of building. The chancellor is also exploring limits on legal challenges from environmental campaigners. Speaking to the House of Lords economic affairs committee last month, Ms Reeves said: 'The reason that HS2 is not coming to my city of Leeds anymore anytime soon, is because I'm afraid, as a country, we've cared more about the bats than we have about the commuter times for people in Leeds and West Yorkshire, and we've got to change that, 'Because I care more about a young family getting on the housing ladder than I do about protecting some snails, and I care more about my energy bills and my constituents than I do about the views of people from their windows.' High-profile examples of costly protections include the £100m Buckinghamshire 'bat tunnel' built to protect wildlife from HS2 trains and the so-called 'fish disco' at Hinkley Point C nuclear plant, which uses sound to deter fish from cooling system intakes. The existing Planning and Infrastructure Bill already proposes a 'nature restoration fund' under which developers could offset environmental damage by paying for conservation schemes elsewhere. But the bill has faced criticism from both environmental groups and developers, who fear it will fail to speed up construction. Paul Miner of the countryside charity CPRE told The Times that targeting habitats regulations would 'take us backwards rather than forwards on nature recovery'.
Times
2 hours ago
- Times
Rachel Reeves to cut ‘bats and newts' in boost to developers
Rachel Reeves is preparing to strip back environmental protections in an effort to boost the economy by speeding up infrastructure projects. The chancellor is considering reforms that would make it far harder for concerns about nature to stop development, which she insists is crucial to restoring growth and improving living standards. The Treasury has begun preparing for another planning reform bill and is thinking about tearing up key parts of European environmental rules that developers say are making it harder to build key projects. Labour ministers have repeatedly insisted that their current planning overhaul will not come at the expense of nature, promising a 'win-win' system where developers will pay to offset environmental damage. But Reeves is understood to believe that the government must go significantly further, after expressing frustration that the interests of 'bats and newts' are being allowed to stymie critical infrastructure. She has tasked officials with looking at much more contentious reforms, which are likely to provoke a furious backlash from environmentalists and cause unease for some Labour MPs. A smaller, UK-only list of protected species is being planned, which would place less weight on wildlife — including types of newt — that is rare elsewhere in Europe but more common in Britain. Developers would also no longer have to prove that projects would have no impact on protected natural sites, under plans that would abolish the 'precautionary principle' enshrined in European rules. Instead, a new test would look at risks and benefits of potential projects. Further curbs to judicial review are also being considered by Reeves to stop key projects being delayed by legal challenges from environmentalists. No decisions have been made, but work is underway and Treasury sources acknowledged there was a growing belief that the government needed to go further, as Reeves says she wants to make boosting Britain's sluggish productivity the centrepiece of her autumn budget. She argued this week that building more infrastructure such as roads and railways were crucial to this aim. A Planning and Infrastructure Bill currently going through parliament attempts to encourage development through a 'nature restoration fund' through which developers will be allowed to press ahead with projects by setting up schemes elsewhere to offset their environmental impact. • The grid is struggling — and our green future hangs in the balance But the plan has been criticised by environmental groups while also attracting scepticism from some developers, who fear it will not work in practice and do little to speed up building. Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, who stood down as energy minister in May, is urging his former colleagues to go further to achieve Labour's promise of 150 major infrastructure projects. 'While I think the planning bill will work for housing, I don't think it is sufficiently focused on the major infrastructure projects, so it is encouraging that the Treasury is going to have another look at whether we've really got this right,' he said. 'The government has to face up to the tensions in the Habitat Regulations which are making it hard to build essential infrastructure and the reality is that at some point someone needs to make a hard decision and say 'on some things, you just have to press ahead'.' The rules, which incorporate the EU Habitats Directive into British law, ban killing of hundreds of species, including types of bats, news, voles, snails, spiders, insects and woodlice. Developers must prove there is no risk to protected sites and species before being allowed to go ahead with projects, under rules which critics say impose an 'impossibly high standard' on vital projects. Reeves is increasingly sympathetic to such criticism, after repeatedly hitting out at 'ridiculous' environmental protections. She said last month that she cared 'more about the young family getting on the housing ladder than I do about protecting some snails', after a speech in January in which she said developers should be able to 'focus on getting things built, and stop worrying about bats and newts'. Sir Keir Starmer has also expressed frustration with the ability of campaigners to delay projects through legal challenges, and is already introducing rules which limit judicial review to override the 'whims of nimbys'. Campaign groups and residents, who currently have three opportunities to apply for judicial review, which will be reduced to two, or one in cases deemed by a judge 'totally without merit'. Reeves is now considering allowing only one opportunity to bring any challenge. Some Labour MPs and peers want her to go further by using dedicated acts of parliament to prevent any legal challenge to specific named projects. The plans are at an early stage and are likely to cause tension with ministers in other departments who have pledged to protect the environment. Paul Miner, of the countryside charity CPRE, said targeting habitats regulations would 'take us backwards rather than forwards on nature recovery', adding: 'We urge the government to drop the worn-out 'builders versus blockers' narrative which wrongly frames climate and nature as being in conflict with economic growth.' Becky Pullinger, of the Wildlife Trusts, said maintaining environmental standards was 'essential if we are to achieve targets to protect and restore the natural world which is suffering huge declines, saying Reeves should abandon 'the myth that deregulation will lead to economic growth'. But Robbie Owen, head of infrastructure planning at Pinsent Masons, said: 'Ministers are finally realising that their rhetoric about reform doesn't match up up the reality of their bill. We have been saying to ministers and officials all year that the bill needs to go further and it seems that message has finally been heard.'
