David Cameron once campaigned under the slogan “vote blue, go green”, aiming to rebrand the Conservatives as a party which would take action on climate change. But is Nigel Farage about to try the same thing, only replacing Tory blue with Reform turquoise?

According to a report in The Guardian, Ben Goldsmith, the leading environmentalist and brother of former Tory minister Zac Goldsmith, is now working with Farage’s party on green policy. That might seem scarcely believable given Reform’s well-advertised hostility to the Net Zero agenda, but on closer examination it makes a degree of sense.

It should be emphasised that the collaboration is at an early stage, and that neither of the Goldsmiths is joining Reform. Nevertheless, it is significant that the initial approach was made from Farage’s side. According to the report, the party has polling showing that its “opposition to Net Zero has made it unpalatable to some green Conservatives”.

There’s certainly a gulf between the deep scepticism of Reform’s core supporters towards climate policy and the rest of the British public, including Conservative supporters. And yet there’s a limit to anti-greenery within the Reform camp, too. For instance, in 2024 YouGov found that only 32% of the party’s supporters believed “the UK should not try to reduce its carbon emissions.”

Clearly, the party needs a more balanced message. It helps that environmentalism isn’t only about climate policy. Indeed, many within the wider green movement are frustrated that so little attention is paid to the more tangible challenge of protecting nature. In particular, there’s deep disappointment with the current Labour government, whose ministers are willing to burn political capital on additional decarbonisation targets while showing next to no interest in the depletion of Britain’s wildlife. The Tories, following Boris Johnson’s downfall, also retreated from the conservation agenda — leading to Zac Goldsmith’s resignation from Rishi Sunak’s government in 2023 and contributing to the loss of true-blue territory to the Green Party.

In other words, there’s an open goal here for Reform to become the party of conservation. This could take the form of a series of grand bargains. For instance, in return for ripping up the green tape that produces bureaucratic lunacies such as the £125 million bat tunnel, a Reform government could commit to net gains in biodiversity across Britain as a whole. It is absurd that we halt construction projects to save a few non-endangered newts, while failing to protect rare habitats such as chalk streams, of which this country has 85% of the world’s total. For Reform politicians including Danny Kruger, who is already campaigning on this issue, patriotic conservatism should come naturally.

Of course, protecting the planet’s biodiversity requires an international effort, and that’s a less obvious fit for Reform UK. One angle might be to throw the party’s weight behind global British conservation efforts — for instance, the creation of marine protected areas around UK overseas territories. Whereas David Cameron once went to the Arctic Circle for his “hug a husky” moment, Farage could travel to the tropics to save a sea turtle. That said, these good news stories have their complexities, such as the patchy record of the UK Government in protecting the marine environment around the Chagos Islands.

For these and other reasons, Reform may prefer to stick to an environmental cause closest to the hearts of its own voters: the British countryside. And yet Farage needs to remember that his chances of victory don’t just depend on maximising turnout among his core supporters, but also minimising anti-Reform tactical voting, which has the potential to cost the party dozens of seats and therefore a majority.

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Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.

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