Conservatives should capture the Green movement. Lots of centre-Right politicians across Europe are active on this issue, and there are groups like the Conservative Environment Network, but especially in the US the issue has been caught up in the culture wars — which, overall, are slightly less important than the planet. It’s perfectly possible for Conservative and green politics to align; indeed they are more obviously in alignment, since we believe large, dramatic change tends to be for the worse, and conservatism is by nature more rural. In Austria the conservatives and Greens have indeed just formed a coalition, and while it seems unlikely this will be replicated across Europe — Green parties tend to be progressive graduate-identity movements — at the very least it will make the idea of mixing blue and green seem less strange than it currently is.
Unherd 3rd Jan 2020 read more »