Climate Protestors Target Right Wing Think Tanks Demanding Labour ‘Cut Ties’ with Oil-Funded Lobbyists

Around 100 protesters gathered outside the Tufton Street offices of controversial think tanks on Wednesday before moving on to the Policy Exchange as they urged the Labour Party to cut ties with the groups at the heart of shaping Conservative policy.

The action was organised as part of the ‘Stop Polluting Politics’ campaign by Climate Resistance, in coalition with activists from six other climate, pro-Palestine, and migrant justice groups, including Tipping Point and No Borders in Climate Justice. 

The campaigners argue that the resident pressure groups have “fuelled climate denial, racism and transphobia by influencing decisions on net-zero, migration, trans rights, and economic policy”, while not disclosing their sources of funding. 

Most of the right-wing think tanks comprising the Tufton Street collective have an ‘E’ rating for transparency in political funding from the ‘Who Funds You?’ online tracker – the lowest possible score. What little is known of their backers reveals a rogues gallery of fossil fuel, gambling, tobacco, and “dark money” interests.

The Adam Smith Institute, Civitas, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), Legatum, Migration Watch, the Policy Exchange, and the Taxpayers’ Alliance all received the lowest possible grade, while the Centre for Policy Studies and Institute of Economic Affairs received a ‘D’ rating under the same methodology. 

Investigations into the funding of these opaque entities have previously revealed millions in donations from US-based climate deniers and fossil fuel companies, donors to the Conservative Party, Big Tobacco, and foreign right wing billionaires, raising serious questions about the effect of outside influences in British politics. 

The donations help fund favourable research which later shapes Government policy proposals.

Research conducted by Byline Times shows that over $14 million has made its way over from the US alone into these groups since 2012. 

Sam Simons, spokesperson for Stop Polluting Politics, said: “Schmoozing with MPs and ploughing money into political parties, rightwing pressure groups have come to exert a dangerous influence over our politics.”

The activists began the protest outside the offices of No.55 Tufton, which houses several of the above-mentioned entities, including the GWPF, Taxpayers’ Alliance, Civitas, the anti-trans lobby group the LGB Alliance, and, as recently exposed by Byline Times and Good Law Project, not one but two hardline anti-migration outfits; Migration Watch UK and ‘End Mass Migration’.

Activists later moved to the offices of the Policy Exchange, on Old Queen St, another influential think tank with ties to oil and gas. In 2023, then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak admitted that it was Policy Exchange that helped the Government draft draconian legislation specifically aimed at tactics employed by environmental protestors. 

A recent Byline Times investigation found that hedge-funder Paul Marshall, the backer of GB News who holds billions in fossil fuel investments, has donated nearly £900,000 to the Policy Exchange. The think tank has also taken money from US trusts linked to climate denial. 

Simons added: “It is pressure groups like Policy Exchange and its chums on Tufton Street that should be the target of Government scrutiny – not peaceful protestors. Labour must cut its ties with Policy Exchange and show they truly work for the people, not polluters.”

While the Tufton St and associated think tanks primarily serve the Conservatives, there’s more than a little crossover with the Labour Party, who, as the election drew nearer, have become “intensely relaxed” about big money interests in politics. The Party has also maintained connections to the think tanks that propped up the previous administration. 

As noted by Democracy For Sale, Labour and Wes Streeting have accepted money from John Armitage, a trustee of the Policy Exchange with interests in private health. Armitage has given £120,000 in a personal capacity since switching from the Conservatives in 2021, and Streeting has spoken at the Policy Exchange twice in the last year.

The Party also came under scrutiny from campaigners for reselecting Graham Stringer MP, a director at the GWPF, the UK’s leading climate science denial group. Stinger has been a Labour MP since 1997, and a director of the GWPF since 2015.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves has also taken money from the former GWPF chairman, Labour peer Lord Donoughue, shortly before Labour abandoned a £28 billion green energy investment pledge.

Speaking at the time a Party source told Sky News: “Lord Donoughue is a long-standing friend of Rachel’s and Labour peer. She does not share his views on climate change and has spoken of her determination to be Britain’s first green chancellor.”

The GWPF frequently publishes material downplaying the climate crisis, and has led the Conservative charge against net-zero policy while accepting hundreds of thousands in donations from oil and gas interests.

In a further statement to Byline Times, a spokesperson for Stop Polluting Politics said: “We targeted 55 Tufton Street alongside the Policy Exchange headquarters to send a clear message to our Government: it is time to cut opaquely funded rightwing lobbyists out of politics.”

The group are appealing to the new Labour Government to “impose stronger transparency rules on the think tanks themselves, making them disclose their funders, which they currently aren’t required to do.”

The group is demanding that Labour ban donations from fossil fuel companies to MPs and political parties.

“A bill to this effect was already proposed last year, and if we’re to take the Government’s plans to tackle the climate crisis seriously, it needs to be passed without delay.”