After a number of viral headlines last month incorrectly claimed that Tory MPs had voted that animals weren’t sentient and don’t feel pain, Conservative MPs wanted social media users to be left in no doubt where they stood on marine conservation issues.
As the final episode of the BBC’s Blue Planet II finished on Sunday evening, MP after MP went on Twitter to push the government’s environmental policies, with a string of preprepared, Conservative-branded graphics.
To protect our wildlife in the future #BluePlanet2 pic.twitter.com/SnHhTaZ4ga
— Antoinette Sandbach (@Sandbach) December 10, 2017
— Andrew Rosindell MP (@AndrewRosindell) December 10, 2017
Very encouraging to see progress on protecting our beautiful marine environment #blueplanet @Conservatives pic.twitter.com/A57nYtn4LY
— Rachel Maclean MP (@redditchrachel) December 10, 2017
I’m not the only MP who has been profoundly touched by the stunning #BluePlanet2. Time to step up & take action to #SaveOurBluePlanet https://t.co/ttsGsuCrfg
— Anna Soubry MP (@Anna_Soubry) December 10, 2017
The Chelmsford MP, Vicky Ford, even weighed in with a series of exotic marine emojis.
👍So important 🐡🦐🦑🐟🐬🐋 pic.twitter.com/SkVRRhSIBc
— Vicky Ford (@vickyford) December 10, 2017
Other Conservative MPs to post or retweet Blue Planet II-themed social media posts included Anne-Marie Trevelyan, Steve Baker and Zac Goldsmith.
The Tory social media onslaught is part of a strategy devised by Downing Street and CCHQ, on which Conservative MPs have been briefed by Theresa May’s chief of staff, Gavin Barwell.
No 10’s new digital special adviser is Mario Creatura, Barwell’s former parliamentary assistant when he was the MP for Croydon Central. CCHQ’s director of communications, Carrie Symonds, is known to feel particularly strongly about the environment and animal welfare, tweeting about plastic microbeads and the ivory trade long before the majority of MPs were on board with the strategy.
One MP said they had been told in a presentation from special advisers that the stategy was “a house where the roof is Brexit and the economy, but the three key pillars underneath are schools, housing and the environment”.
Environmental legislation has been a theme that the Conservative party’s main Twitter account has returned to again and again.
The @Conservatives are protecting our environment for future generations:
— CCHQ Press Office (@CCHQPress) December 4, 2017
🐘Banned the ivory trade
📹CCTV mandatory in all slaughterhouses
🐬Banned microbeads
👮🏼♀️Increased sentences for animal cruelty
♻️Working to cut single-use plastics
🐝Banned harmful pesticides
The approach also showed in official government communication channels – the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) also produced social media material branded with the #BluePlanet2 hashtag, and retweeted the Defra minister Therese Coffey endorsing the programme.
We are committed to protecting our oceans from plastics - our 5p plastic bag charge has reduced usage by 83%, raising £95m for environmental & other good causes #BluePlanet2 https://t.co/ZtPL1FYCUL pic.twitter.com/WEXaQdBaXd
— Defra UK (@DefraGovUK) December 10, 2017
Perhaps less surprisingly, on the morning after the transmission, the Green party MP and co-leader, Caroline Lucas, sent a series of tweets addressing the issues raised in the programme.
Last night, like so many others, I watched #BluePlanet2 and felt that alarming mixture of despair and hope for our collective futures. pic.twitter.com/6fP71aoaCM
— Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) December 11, 2017
The planet is in peril. From plastics, from pollution, and most of all from burning fossil fuels.
— Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) December 11, 2017
We have to change the way we live, and we have to do it fast.
