Following our recent poll on the coverage of environmental issues in the General Election, and as part of our theme on politics and the environment, we decided to find out which prospective Labour leader IES members thought would be the strongest advocate for the environment.
Now that the contest is complete our poll has also closed, and Jeremy Corbyn has been successful with voters once again!
With 66% of the vote, Jeremy Corbyn is the clear winner in this poll, with the large majority of voters having the greatest confidence in him as an advocate for the environment. Meanwhile, the remaining vote is split fairly equally between the other three candidates Yvette Cooper, Liz Kendall and Andy Burnham.
Perhaps voters in our poll were reassured by the policy proposals set out by Corbyn in his 'Protecting our planet' pamphlet, which includes a series of pledges on green energy, as well as proposals across a range of other policy areas including air pollution and ecosystem protection. We look forward to seeing how Labour's environmental policies develop under Corbyn's leadership, and hope that he will promote greater environmental awareness across UK politics.
Our other resources on politics in 2015 and the environment include:
- Manifesto factsheets - the environment in the party manifestos
- 'Moving on from the greenest government ever' - a blog on what the election result means for environmental policy
- Conservative manifesto pledges on the environment - a summary
- Poll results: the environment and the general election campaign
- Influencing the UK parliament - a report detailing the various ways to access politicians and the decision making process in the UK.
