Labour’s bold new climate plan: More runways, More fish farms!
If there’s one thing that sends environmentalists into apoplexy, it’s the twin evils of industrial salmon farming and air travel. One clogs the seas with fish farms, the other chokes the skies with jet fuel, and both are symbols of a world that stubbornly refuses to return to some imagined pre-industrial idyll.
And yet, these same environmentalists make up a vital part of Labour’s activist base—the foot soldiers who marched, campaigned, and voted in the hope of delivering ‘the greenest government in British history’. So imagine their outrage when Rachel Reeves stood up and defended Heathrow’s expansion—not on the usual grounds of trade or connectivity, but as a vital artery for flying out intensively farmed Scottish salmon.
Scottish salmon, as Reeves alluded, is the single biggest export by volume out of Heathrow Airport. It is a £1 billion industry that depends on the fast, carbon-efficient transport of fresh fish to global markets. A third runway, in her view, is not just an infrastructure project, but an investment in the UK’s top food export.
Why the UK government says Heathrow’s third runway is crucial for Scottish salmon
For the activists who have spent decades blocking runways and denouncing the aquaculture industry, this was nothing short of a declaration of war. The British government is no longer just allowing industries they despise—it is actively celebrating them.
The ‘Dirty Deal’ Between Salmon and Heathrow
For years, environmental groups have treated salmon farming and aviation as distinct but equally loathsome targets. Airlines pollute the skies, facilitate mass consumerism, and enable the unchecked expansion of global capitalism. Salmon farms, meanwhile, industrialise the oceans, threaten biodiversity, and turn pristine coastal waters into protein factories.
And yet, here they are, working in perfect harmony, one industry literally fuelling the other. It is an evil alliance of environmental destruction: the mass production of farmed fish, sent soaring across the skies in carbon-spewing aircraft, all in the name of profit and consumer convenience.
And now, Labour is standing proudly behind it.
Labour’s Awkward Embrace of Growth
The reality, of course, is that Reeves is not trolling anyone. She is simply stating a basic economic truth: Heathrow expansion will support jobs, trade, and exports. Scottish salmon farming—whatever one’s views on its environmental impact—is a world-leading industry that contributes billions to the economy.
But here’s the problem for Labour: many of its most committed activists do not believe in economic growth at all.
For years, Labour MPs (including the Prime Minister) denounced Heathrow expansion as an environmental catastrophe. The eco-left opposes big infrastructure projects, industry, and anything that remotely resembles capitalism. They dream of a world where people fly less, consume less, and stop industrial-scale food production altogether.
Congratulations to the climate campaigners.
There is no more important challenge than the climate emergency. That is why I voted against Heathrow expansion.https://t.co/AgoQChESns
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) February 27, 2020
And yet, here is the Labour government making the case for a major infrastructure project on explicitly pro-business terms. Heathrow, they now argue, is essential for Britain’s exports, and salmon farming is an industry worth supporting. This is not the language of climate emergency and economic degrowth—this is the language of free market pragmatism.
Backlash from the Left
Predictably, the eco-wing of the party is outraged. Within hours of Reeves’ speech, activists, climate groups, and Twitter’s usual suspects lined up to denounce Labour’s “corporate sellout”.
The government has now managed to alienate the very people who thought they were finally getting the greenest, most progressive Labour administration in history. What they are getting instead is a party that, when faced with a choice between ideological purity and economic reality, has chosen the latter.
The Real Question: Does Labour Believe in Anything?
Labour’s problem is not just a handful of angry activists. It is that the party has spent years promising different things to different people—and now those contradictions are becoming impossible to manage.
It wants to be pro-business, but also the party of radical climate action.
It wants to support exports, but also hates the industries that make them possible.
It wants economic growth, but doesn’t want to offend the people who think growth itself is a problem.
The Heathrow-salmon defence is just the first in a long series of uncomfortable compromises Labour will have to make. Reeves and Starmer may try to frame themselves as economic realists, but the more they lean into trade, infrastructure, and industry, the more they risk losing the very people who thought they were voting for a government of radical environmental action.
For now, though, the salmon will keep flying out of Heathrow, the eco-left will continue to rage, and Labour will find itself increasingly caught between the economy it needs and the activists it no longer wants to admit it has outgrown.
