Labour
Origins
The Labour Party, founded in 1900, emerged out of the trade union movement, and since the 1920s has either been the governing party or the main parliamentary opposition. The last time it was in government was in 2010, as it had failed to defeat the Conservative party at general elections (in 2015, 2017 and 2019) in the 14 years since.
Keir Starmer became leader of the Labour Party in April 2020, succeeding Jeremy Corbyn following Labour's heavy defeat at the 2019 general election. A former Director of Public Prosecutions and MP for Holborn and St Pancras since 2015, Starmer pitched himself as a unifying candidate who could restore the party's electability after its worst defeat since 1935, while pledging to keep some of the party's more left-wing commitments. Four years later, he led Labour to a landslide victory at the 2024 general election, the party’s return to power for the first time since 2010 and first election victory since 2005.
Over the next two years, Starmer's premiership quickly faced political trouble, from a series of U-turns on the winter fuel allowance and welfare reforms, to the Peter Mandelson scandal, the government was seen as lacking a plan and direction for the country. Pressure from Labour backbenchers for a change in leadership mounted, and Starmer announced his resignation as Prime Minister and Labour leader in June 2026, prompting a leadership contest. Andy Burnham, then Mayor of Greater Manchester, stood as the sole candidate. In his first speech outside Downing Street, Burnham pledged a "circuit-breaker" for the country, setting out priorities including re-industrialisation, tackling the cost-of-living crisis, and a bolder economic and political model.
Election Results
The 2024 general election saw the Labour Party win in a landslide, winning 411 seats, up from 209 in 2019. However the vote share was historically low for a winning party, with only 33.7% of the national vote, translating to over 9 million votes. In seats Labour gained, the average victory margin was only 12%, meaning many races were tightly contested. This indicated that voters wanted to punish the Conservatives after 14 years in government, but weren't too enthusiastic for Labour either.
There were a couple of factors which helped Labour win, the first being a sizable split of the vote on the right with Reform UK taking a lot of votes from the Conservatives, leaving Labour a clearer path to win in competitive seats. Secondly, tactical voting between Labour and the Liberal Democrats to oust Conservatives also left both parties with seat gains. The anti-incumbent sentiment in Scotland against the SNP also helped Labour, with Scottish Labour winning 35.3% of the Scottish vote, overtaking the SNP's 30%.
Key Voter Demographics
Polling from YouGov shows that support for the party is fairly even across most working-age groups, with 41-46% of all age groups under 50 backing Labour. Support then drops off with age, falling to 34% among 50-59 year olds, 28% among 60-69 year olds, and just 20% among the over-70s, the only group where Labour was not comfortably ahead.
Gender plays a smaller role in Labour's support than it does for other parties, with 34% of men and 35% of women backing the party overall. The gap widens a little within some age brackets, with women aged 25-49 and 50-64 around six points more likely to vote Labour than men in the same groups.
Education is one of the strongest dividing lines in Labour's coalition. Among graduates, Labour led the Conservatives by 42% to 18%, while among those with GCSEs or below, Labour (28%) narrowly trailed the Conservatives (31%).
Labour's highest regional vote share was in the North East of England, at 45.4%, a region where Labour also holds all but one of the 27 seats.
The Manifesto and Environmental Policy
As the next party of government, Labour’s manifesto should hold the key to understanding the types of climate action we can expect to see. Unfortunately, however, and perhaps as a result of the comfortable lead the party enjoyed for the entirety of the campaign, which disincentivizes promising too much or ‘rocking the boat’ – the Labour manifesto contains ‘relatively few actual policies’. Its focus is on presenting Labour as ‘the party of wealth creation’ (p.23), with the aim of improving living standards for working people. Central to this, and to the party’s environmental offering, is the launch of ‘Great British Energy’. A ‘publicly-owned clean power company’ to be headquartered in Scotland.
To support this, Labour have committed to spending £8.3 billion on the company over the next parliament. This will come out of the £23.7bn for green measures promised by the Party for the next parliament, the biggest spending commitment, on top of existing departmental budgets. This figure also includes £1.1bn a year for Labour’s Warm Homes Plan, which will offer ‘grants and low interest loans to support investment in insulation and other improvements such as solar panels, batteries and low carbon heating to cut bills’ (p.57).
However, whilst this may sound like a lot of money, the manifesto has raised questions about whether it will go far enough. Although then Chancellor Rachel Reeves was inspired by Joe Biden’s economic strategy of government subsidy-led investment for a green transition (‘bidenomics’), as the BBC has noted, the Labour Party’s offer represents a ‘fraction of the package worth hundreds of billions deployed in the US by President Biden’.
This came on the back of the controversy over Labour’s £28bn commitment to green investment.. To recap: Reeves initially announced that, in government, the party would spend £28bn over five years, but then, in the face of Conservative attacks, and after months of speculation, U-Turned and slashed the figure in half. The Warm Homes Plan bore the brunt of this cut, being reduced from £6bn a year to the £1.1bn mentioned above.
This controversy set the tone for the interpretation of Labour’s election manifesto amongst the green sector. In a joint analysis published by Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, Labour is ranked four times higher than the Conservatives, and applauded for ‘stating its intention to reduce the UK’s dependence on oil and gas and boost renewables to strengthen energy security, create jobs and cut bills’. However, at the same time, the green groups warn that if elected the party must draw up much bolder plans to ensure the UK’s domestic and global environmental targets are met, so that it can fully reap the massive economic rewards offered by the green transition. In contrast, the Green Party and the Liberal Democrats ‘topped the scoring’ with their more ambitious plans for raising money through taxation and borrowing in order to invest in a green transition.
While there are some green shoots, Labour stopped short of even bigger greener ambitions that it has previously committed to or other parties are more progressive on. For instance, on nature, Labour is promising nine new National River walks and establishing three new National Forests, expansion of nature-rich habitats such as wetlands and committing to meet existing Environment Act targets, but hasn’t committed to ‘the scale of funding needed for greener farming’ (according to Greenpeace and FOE), and has u-turned on enshrining a Scottish-style Right to Roam.
On river and sea pollution, Labour said they will ‘put failing water companies under special measures, give regulators new powers to block the payment of bonuses to executives who pollute our waterways and bring criminal charges against persistent law breakers’ (p.59) but they stop short of committing to nationalising water firms. However, this is subject to change under the leadership of Andy Burnham, who is actively looking at bringing Thames Water into public ownership through a cooperative model.
Policy Achievements and Changes
So what has the Labour government achieved since July 4th 2024? Probably the most important first step they took was overhauling the National Planning Policy Framework, tilting the planning system in favour of renewables. This allowed many small but meaningful changes, like lifting the on-shore wind ban, the approval of a large number of solar farms and expanding the grid so more renewable energy can be fed into the energy system.
Alongside this, Labour has begun the bigger, long term projects which will hopefully see improvements to the cost of living and environment in the future. They have committed £9.4 billion for Carbon Capture and Storage and £14.2billion for Sizewell C, the new nuclear power station in Suffolk. Great British Energy, the government's flagship and publicly-owned clean energy company was also allocated £8.3billion.
The biggest upset from Labour on climate and nature however, is on North Sea drilling and the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil fields whose fate still hangs in the balance. Former Energy Secretary Ed Miliband had previously called Rosebank's approval "climate vandalism" but by mid-2026 was reportedly ready to approve Jackdaw while remaining more sceptical of Rosebank, amid pressure from within Labour and the Treasury to protect energy security and jobs.
Labour's manifesto pledged no new North Sea licences but committed to honouring existing ones, which was made more complicated when the courts ruled the drilling unlawful in 2025. The developers, Equinor and Shell, were tasked with properly assessing the downstream emissions which they had not accounted for. Since Keir Starmer's resignation, Andy Burnham and new Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh have signalled a more pragmatic approach to the North Sea. As of September 2026, Jackdaw's approval is expected within weeks, with Rosebank's decision pushed to autumn amid concerns about the political optics given the record breaking heat and droughts over the summer. If the project is approved, it will no doubt upset many voters on the left as well as Labour members who campaigned against it.
Key Climate Figures in the New Government
Another way of gauging the type of climate action we can expect from the new government is by looking at the MPs appointed to key roles in Andy Burnham’s cabinet. It's also useful to know about them because they can be important figures to try to reach as part of a political engagement strategy.
The key individual here is Miatta Fahnbulleh , the new Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. Before becoming an MP she headed up the climate progressive New Economics Foundation, which campaigned for a Green New Deal and an ambitious home insulation scheme. She has also publicly called for a massive green reskilling program, stating that “We need to act today, in order to have any chance that, in ten years, we’ve started to shift the dial on [climate change]”. She is viewed positively by the sector and as an ally of her predecessor Ed Miliband, is likely to continue his policies in a lot of areas. So far, Miatta has not explicitly stated the government positions on key policy areas like the Rosebank oil field, but has signalled she is willing to go in a different position to Starmer’s government. Her first visit as Secretary of State was to the Port of Aberdeen, where she highlighted that oil and gas have to be a part of the energy mix if affordability and jobs to communities like Aberdeen are to be delivered.
It’s worth noting that out of six ministers in the department, three are MPs in Scottish constituencies, including Michael Shanks MP, Minister for Energy, Martin McCluskey MP, Minister for Local Energy and Jobs, and Blair McDougall MP, Minister for Reindustrialisation. This signifies that the Labour government is keen to demonstrate that its energy and reindustrialisation agenda has strong Scottish representation, at a time when Labour faces pressure from the SNP on issues like North Sea oil and gas transition.
Another key figure is Angela Eagle, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 27 years after her first ministerial role as a junior DEFRA minister. Angela is a veteran figure in the Labour Party, having been first elected to Parliament in 1992, and is seen as a safe pair of hands. She’s been in several junior positions in the Blair, Brown and Starmer governments, so she brings a wealth of experience to the role. Nationalising water companies including potentially Thames Water, is a big priority for the Prime Minister and plays a big role in his agenda on water, so Angela will play an important part in delivering that once an explicit position is made.
Key Climate and Nature Manifesto Commitments
£7.3billion for priority green industries and a National Wealth Fund to help decarbonise heavy industry. Establishing Scotland based Great British Energy which would invest directly in wind, solar and hydropower projects, backed by £8.3billion over the Parliament.
Energy: A pledge to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030 (brought forward from the previous 2035 ambition), achieved by private sector help to quadruple offshore wind, triple solar and double onshore wind capacity this decade. Two new large nuclear projects in Somerset and Suffolk, no new North Sea oil and gas exploration licences, but existing licences (Rosebank, Jackdaw) to be honoured.
Housing: Build 1.5 million new homes over five years through planning reform, restoring mandatory housing targets, a brownfield-first approach, releasing lower-quality "grey belt" land while protecting the wider Green Belt, and £6.6billion for home energy efficiency upgrades.
Nature: Commitment to meet the existing targets in the 2021 Environment Act. Concrete pledges included planting millions of trees and creating three new national forests in England (Oxford-Cambridge and Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and the West of England confirmed as two of the locations).
Agriculture: A target for half of all food purchased across the public sector to be locally produced or certified to higher environmental standards.
Transport: Bringing all train operators into public ownership as contracts expire and lifting the ban on municipal ownership so mayors can franchise local bus services. Commitment to restore the 2030 phase-out date for new petrol/diesel cars with internal combustion engines.
Foreign Policy: Leading by example on climate action and strengthening diplomacy so Britain has more influence abroad, and creating a new Clean Power Alliance, bringing together a coalition of countries to do climate action.
Conclusion
There are plenty of reasons to be hopeful that we will begin to see some much needed action on the climate and nature crises under the new government, but at the same time we should not expect it to be easy. As ever in politics, there are powerful counter-forces to action, which threaten to disempower those within the Labour Party committed to an ambitious green transition.
The political reality is that Labour is unlikely to change its leader once again, and Andy Burnham could still call a general election and present his own agenda to the country. This means the new Labour government is both vulnerable after numerous U-turns under Keir Starmer, and malleable as it will probably pursue a different agenda under Andy Burnham, and therefore will be keen to listen to voters and communities to form his future policies if there is a general election.
What will make the difference is how successfully we, as a climate movement, can mobilise to push climate action to the top of the political agenda. It will take people across the country campaigning to hold Labour to the rhetoric of the manifesto and beyond, and to persuade them to be more ambitious and creative when it comes to funding commitments and policy solutions.