Hope is an active stance - and it's time to get active

Photo by Tania Malréchauffé on Unsplash

The recent local elections that took place in England in May 2025 don't paint a hopeful picture for climate justice in the UK. We have seen a broad shift to the right with Reform UK making gains it never has before, including winning 677 council seats, with overall control in 10 councils, 2 mayoralties, and a by-election by just 6 votes.

There are lots of caveats as to why this is not a representative picture of the state of UK politics. The recent elections only happened in England and were a subset of councils at that. The selection of councils up for grabs were predominantly in traditional Conservative seats, which were last voted on in 2021 at the height of the Johnson government post-vaccine rollout. People vote differently in local elections to general elections, and by-elections carry their own set of unique circumstances that often do not make them a perfect litmus test for the national mood.

However, it would be foolish not to read the writing on the wall: division is becoming political currency. Reasons for voting are complex; this is not to dismiss people's real concerns about their material livelihoods. Yet Reform UK ran on a platform of anti-net zero and migrant scapegoating and succeeded.

UKYCC is a non-partisan organisation, yet our reason for existing is to advocate for climate justice with young people especially in mind. So it is heartbreaking to see how profoundly politics of hate, discrimination and climate denial is resonating with the general public.

We deserve so much better from our politicians and our policies than back-pedalling on diversity, equality and inclusivity initiatives, scrapping of renewable energy projects, and persecuting asylum seekers for our own failure to invest in this country's infrastructure and jobs market. We deserve better than politicians abandoning their principles and pandering to populism, throwing vulnerable communities under the bus in the process. We deserve policies that invest in people and planet now and in the future, like the Future Generations Act that UKYCC is proposing, which would ensure all policy-making considers the long term impacts of decision-making on people, planet and the economy.

It is times like these where it is important to remember that hope is an active stance. Reform UK have told us their plan: to win the next general election in 2029. Now is the time to rise up and get organised, not lay down and pander to an agenda of bigotry and climate denialism. Now is the time to engage in our communities offline too, to foster actual conversations and create shared understanding. Now is the time to shout louder and further, to remind people that community care is how we triumph together. Now is the time to imagine alternative futures and deliver them, to prove that there are better options out there to win for people and win for the planet.

Sometimes changing 6 minds is all it takes to shift the tides.

If you would like to get involved with UKYCC and collaborate on organising for a climate just future for us all, please reach out to us at policyadvocacy@ukycc.org