It’s deeply disturbing that a supposedly conservative government has been destroying property rights, undermining the middle classes and strangling the economy – all in the name of the environment. How on earth did this happen?

Looking at the incentives facing the party’s leaders might provide some clues.

The obvious explanation is they’re doing it to attract votes. To win the next election they need to go beyond their core support. So, they have to reach out to the centre, perhaps to voters who might consider backing the Lib Dems.

Such calculations also factor in the marginal seats needed to retain a majority and the particular voter groups they therefore need to attract. To give a specific example, a “green” policy of opposing Heathrow expansion might be cynically designed to gain marginal seats in south-west London.

However, if this strategy has been at play, then it is likely to have backfired spectacularly. The government’s green agenda is a major factor in a cost-of-living crisis that has caused its support to plummet.

Moreover, the Conservative majority relies on working-class voters in the North and Midlands – a group that has suffered particularly badly as energy bills have rocketed and real incomes declined.

Many voters don’t connect the cost-of-living crisis to green policies. Indeed, media propagandists deliberately hide the link by blaming other things.

The inconvenient truth is that the UK’s heavy dependence on imported gas is a direct result of the renewable energy agenda and in particular the forced closure of cheap and reliable coal-fired power stations. But whether voters understand this or not, they still tend to blame the government for the consequences and the marked decline in their living standards. 

So, the “going green to attract votes” hypothesis doesn’t stack up. If this was a factor, then it has been a huge miscalculation. In any case, more moderate measures combined with some environmentalist rhetoric could have ticked the “green box” without doing such immense damage to the economy.

A second possible explanation is that the government has to conform with the “metropolitan elite” in order to retain power. This group, so the theory goes, has different values and priorities to the rest of the country. It also has immense influence because it dominates the media, civil service and other pillars of the establishment.

London-centred, its members use public transport far more than people outside the capital. An often-vocal minority cycle to work. Many of them live in gentrified, densely populated inner-city areas, a very different environment to that experienced by the suburban and rural rich.

15-minute cities might seem normal and desirable to them. But in reality, the purchasing power of this group and the local services it supports are very far from the norm, and could not be replicated in more than a relatively small number of locations.

It seems likely that support for radical environmentalism is significantly stronger in the metropolitan elite than the general population. The Conservatives perhaps fear that reversing the radical green agenda would alienate this group, leading to negative media coverage, obstructive behaviour by the civil service and other problems.

Some Conservative politicians may also want to be part of this “elite” in order to enjoy the status, connections and financial rewards that come with it. If they reject the green agenda, they risk being ostracised.

It’s alarming to think that a small, privileged minority, concentrated in London, effectively has the whip hand over policies that affect the whole population, but this conclusion is certainly plausible when the incentives facing policymakers are considered.

A third hypothesis can almost certainly be rejected. Cynics often believe that politicians effectively get paid to implement various agendas.

A number of corporate interests are making vast profits from green measures. And it’s true they have a strong economic incentive to “capture” policy by investing in lobbying.

But this doesn’t seem to be taking the form of politicians benefiting financially. There are relatively few examples of former ministers getting well-paid jobs at renewable energy companies or other firms that benefit from green policies – and these may well be cases where the individuals concerned have genuine expertise in the industry. The phenomenon certainly isn’t widespread enough to explain government policy.

Moreover, there are also powerful vested interests that will lose out from the radical green agenda. They are attempting to sway politicians too – but, again, there is little evidence that this takes the form of substantial financial inducements. As previous scandals have shown, the reputational risks from exposure would be very high on both sides, which acts as a strong deterrent to any untoward activity.

Finally, there is the possibility that a significant number of ministers and MPs genuinely believe in radical environmentalism. It’s not about their careers, social status, or even the money, but ideological.

It’s striking that a significant proportion of Conservative MPs are not very conservative at all. They already support high taxes, heavy regulation, technocracy, political globalism, central planning, and rapid social change. This arguably makes them natural allies of the radical green agenda.

Their approach couldn’t be more different from genuinely conservative policies to protect the environment. These could focus on bolstering conservation and stewardship by restoring traditional property rights undermined by the state. For example, respecting private property by ending the practice of compulsory purchase would prevent a great deal of environmental damage.  

The key question is therefore how this not very conservative group came to dominate the Conservative Party and subsequently steer environmental policy in a non-conservative direction.

Whatever the real reason, the result is that the UK is effectively a one-party state when it comes to the radical green agenda. All the main parties support it and voters have little realistic choice.   

Richard Wellings