Why Contact your MP?
One of THE most important things you can do to tackle climate change is make your voice heard to your elected representatives. Meeting with or writing to your MP is an opportunity to see real, tangible action on climate change at both a local and national level. You can create an open dialogue about climate change and build a positive future together.
Politicians face challenges in their roles due to the makeup of our political system. They generally have a short time in office between elections and when deciding whether or not to take action on a specific topic, they are thinking about retaining the vote at the next election. Tailoring each correspondence you have with your MP to be local and personal can help you to combat this.
This is especially important as politicians get inundated with hundreds of emails each day, many of which are stock campaign emails. Many MPs claim to ignore unpersonalised correspondence, or in some cases, they’ll send off a standard auto-generated reply. Talking to your MP in person is the best way to see tangible, concrete action in parliament and at the local level. It allows you to open up a dialogue and enables MPs to put a face to your request, providing a constituency mandate for action on climate change. MPs rarely hear the words ‘thank you’ from their constituents so a simple thank you for meeting with you or agreeing to an action can set you in good stead for maintaining their interest and sustaining a long term relationship.
How to Talk to your MP
Many politicians are now running virtual surgeries so you can meet with them online. Remember, your MP is elected to represent you.
You can find out your MP’s voting record on the environment at: They Work for You. By typing in your MPs name or constituency, you can bring up a profile that shows their voting record, appearances in Parliament and register of interests.
Hope for the Future is another organisation set up to tackle climate change by encouraging and facilitating political engagement. They support communities and individuals to communicate with MPs and even run regular training courses on How to Engage with your MP on Climate Change. They can support you in writing to and requesting a meeting with your MP, researching your MP, and preparing for the meeting itself. Get in touch with Hope for the Future. They also provide template letters if you’d prefer to write to your MP instead.
Here’s some links to help you find your local, national and UK representatives:
- Local Councillors: www.gov.uk/find-your-local-councillors
- Members of the Scottish Parliament: www.parliament.scot/msps
- Members of the Welsh Assembly: senedd.wales/find-a-member-of-the-senedd/
- Members of the UK Parliament: members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP
Climate change needs to be tackled on all levels so make sure you talk to all your representatives. Your voice matters in translating this general message into tangible and concrete action that your MP can take. Tell your MP why climate action is important to you.
Through Hope for the Future’s 8 years of experience, they’ve found that seeing your MP engagement as one part of a longer relationship building process with your MP is the best way to enact change. Hope for the Future can support you in holding your MP to account on the requests you make of them, by following up and arranging further meetings to discuss progress.
