| This isn't how policy making works though. An excellent example is Brexit. The Brexit referendum existed solely because of UKIP and UKIP have only ever won 2 parliamentary seats. And those were both for sitting MPs that had defected. However, UKIP did get 4-odd million votes, plenty of local councillors, MEPs etc. In other words, they clearly had a lot of support for their flagship policies and that caused the main parties, that had UKIP voters in their constituencies, to take notice. Unfortunately. This has also, to a lesser extent, been the case with green issues. The Greens increased their vote from the 80's onwards and the main parties started to adopt green policies accordingly. So, in the UK at least, there are well worn paths to get policies, like climate change action, to the top of the heap. I'd argue that there are a few reasons why they're not top of the heap today: 1) Other things are deemed more important. Clearly Brexit is one. Whether you agree that it should be more important, or not, it's fairly undeniable that it's true. 2) The folk that have expressed most interest in green issues have tended to not be very engaged in formal politics. <30s predominantly. That changed somewhat in the 2017 election primarily because of Corbyn (though Greens did particularly badly). So it may be that green issues become more important as a byproduct of other changes. 3) There's a strong argument that UKIP's popularity was, in large part, due to Nigel Farage. He may well be a cock but he's a cock that was on TV a lot reinforcing his message. I mean, I like Sian Berry (no idea who the other bloke is) but she's no Nigel Farage. |
>(no idea who the other bloke is) Jonathan Bartley [0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Bartley