'We want the big five parties to steal our ideas'

The leader of a political party that has held its first conference says he wants the leaders of the big five parties to steal its climate change ideas.

Ed Gemmell, leader of the Buckinghamshire-based Climate Party, spoke to the BBC during a two-day event in High Wycombe.

He said he hoped his party, which has been officially registered and is pushing for a clean industrial revolution, would have the same impact with a single issue that Nigel Farage had with Brexit.

Gemmell said: "If our [climate] message was taken up by major parties and they started running with it, either we'd put our feet up and open a bottle of champagne, or join them and help them do it."

The Climate Party launched on the day Liz Truss became prime minister, and Gemmell said its mission was "to ensure the survival of humanity and other species on the planet, and get to net zero wildly faster than other countries".

He stood in the Makerfield by-election this year but finished 11th with 18 votes, having previously contested the Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat when Boris Johnson resigned.

Locally, he has also stood twice for parliament in the Wycombe seat and was re-elected as an independent councillor for Hazlemere on Buckinghamshire Council in 2025, having first been elected in 2021.

Speaking about Nigel Farage and UKIP's impact on Brexit, Gemmell said he hoped his party could do the same on the single issue of climate change - which he said set it apart from other mainstream parties.

"What he [Farage] did initially was set up a pressure group within the political system, and the idea of that pressure group was to get out the message of Brexit," said Gemmell.

"We are pressurising the big five parties to steal our ideas and run with it, and specifically invited all the leaders [to the conference] and said you're welcome to come here, as are all of your supporters.

"The climate crisis, nature crisis and clean industry should not be a right-left thing or a political football. We should be dealing with it together for the good of the world and Britain."

This summer was the UK's hottest on record, according to provisional data from the Met Office, but Gemmell said: "The message [on the climate] has not got through to the political classes.

"But that doesn't mean there aren't good people in each of the parties who know what they're talking about."

The Labour government is still committed to the 2050 goal of net zero, a policy also supported by the Liberal Democrats. But the Conservatives and Reform UK want to scrap the UK's net zero target because the parties say current plans are too costly and unachievable.

The Green Party wants net zero "as soon as possible, and more than a decade ahead of 2050", because of "the urgency of the climate crisis". A spokesperson said the party had "no special interests except people and planet".

Some of the speakers at the conference included chair of the Badger Trust Rosie Wood, Paul Powlesland from Lawyers for Nature, clean business investor Ian Pritchett from Greencore Homes - and Sue Bartlett-Reed, chair of the Marine Energy Council.

Chris Sadler, founder of a family-run renewable energy firm based in High Wycombe, was also attended, said it was "good to hear from the right people".

"We don't want to be hearing from politicians or people in the pub, but you want to hear from the scientists," he said.

Dr Rosie Miller, from campaign group Speak Up For Our Planet, added: "I was very encouraged to hear so many speakers from the construction industry talking about how we have to change the way the construction industry thinks, and they're getting on and doing it."

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