I feel a lot more optimistic about this direction than you. It’s a theory of change that you seem to think is unrealistic, when I think it is highly realistic, and thus you’re focused on the downside risks when I think the upside is potentially huge and worthwhile.
My theory goes something like: we block all factory farm expansions → people realize that we don’t want factory farmed products in the UK at all → public opinion shifts quickly → multiple policy changes are now simultaneously possible: we ban new factory farms, start working on closing/improving existing ones, and ban low welfare imports.
We know political winds can shift and change can happen quickly, like same-sex marriage. We know activism is critical to such change. We know momentum is crucial for activism, and as a result we need to see consistent wins. This strategy is actively and consistently producing wins in a cause area that really struggles to produce wins.
Sure, there are many ways it can fail. Nobody is claiming this will definitely work. But the evidence you are looking for seems either downstream (like the government policy commitment) or irrelevant to the theory of change (where or how quickly do imports replace UK products). Sure, they are relevant to the downside, and I can definitely imagine ways that downside risk can make the upside not worth it, but when I look holistically I am pretty optimistic overall even seeing the risks.
The evidence which would convince me to stop is mainly loss of momentum on the short term strategy. If blocking factory farms at the planning stage stopped working, for example, and activists spent a year trying hard to restart it but failing, then I would change my mind. I don’t think I would want to stop in most cases if it were creating backlash (because backlash triggers discussion and can be useful) but I would want to study the form of backlash carefully.
I also think that if there were other activist strategies that were working better, I would want to stop this one and move onto higher priority strategies. But to me this is one of the ones that’s working best.
“we block all factory farm expansions → people realize that we don’t want factory farmed products in the UK at all → public opinion shifts quickly → multiple policy changes are now simultaneously possible”
I think this ToC is much less clean than it sounds.
We block all factory farm expansions—somewhat unlikely. I don’t think you can’t block them on welfare grounds, you have to find some other reason to block an expansion like environmental grounds so each fight is unique and the chance of winning every time is consequently lower.
Note: there was a case, Animal Equality v North East Lincolnshire Council recently which Animal Equality claim sets president for animal welfare as a material consideration. They are wrong to claim this. The dispute wasn’t about whether or not animal welfare is capable of being a material consideration and so remarks regarding this point are obiter. The Council did not dispute the point (they won on other grounds). This is good, but it might be that the council chose not to dispute this for tactical reasons (I don’t know enough about planning law to say either way.)
People realize that we don’t want factory farmed products in the UK at all—seems like the strongest link to me. Generally people are already pretty anti-factory farming. However, they don’t realise so much of their food comes from factory farms. I think it is unclear how support for factory farming changes if people had to face the real consequences of not being able to access factory farmed products
We ban new factory farms, start working on closing/improving existing ones—Less likely than it sounds. In this world the public don’t like factory farming but they also probably don’t like higher food prices (no one does), less access to meat and dairy etc. Unlike gay marriage, the voter is faced with a tradeoff whereby they have to want a ban on factory farming more than they want low prices. This is a high bar but you then also have to convince politicians that this is the case (for example, despite lots of polling saying people are prepared to pay for higher welfare products, politicians are still reluctant to implement any measure than has a meaningful impact on food prices).
Ban low welfare imports—Very hard/impossible. As James points out, this may be practically speaking impossible if we sign the EU CVA in its current form or close to current form (which seems very likely)
I would +1 to all of the above (and probably in stronger terms!).
Additionally, from yet unpublished research we’ve done in the UK and also talking to people who work on food policy in the UK government, the number one thing people care about for food right now is cost. So the odds of getting any kind of significant progress to block loads of factory farm expansions and/or close existing ones, which will both increase the cost of food, will be extremely small. For example, Labour’s current plan is the weaken planning regulations to allow more chicken sheds to be built (to reduce the cost of food) so for them to do a full U-turn would be a miracle, in my opinion.
I also think these battles will be in a relatively small number of rural constituencies, with relatively small populations, so I don’t expect there to be any major impacts on national public opinion. And as Thom says, most people already say they agree with us, despite paying for lots of factory-farmed meat. So I’m unsure if trying to change the number of people who say they don’t want factory-farmed products in the UK is even a useful goal (but I also don’t know what a better metric might be).
If blocking factory farms at the planning stage stopped working, for example, and activists spent a year trying hard to restart it but failing, then I would change my mind
Slightly tangential, but the current UK government (and also a bloc in the opposition) want to make it harder to block or stall developments at the planning stage. If the campaign stops working, I think the most likely explanation would be YIMBY-ist reforms, not anything directly related to animal rights. Not sure if that undercuts your point or not.
I feel a lot more optimistic about this direction than you. It’s a theory of change that you seem to think is unrealistic, when I think it is highly realistic, and thus you’re focused on the downside risks when I think the upside is potentially huge and worthwhile.
My theory goes something like: we block all factory farm expansions → people realize that we don’t want factory farmed products in the UK at all → public opinion shifts quickly → multiple policy changes are now simultaneously possible: we ban new factory farms, start working on closing/improving existing ones, and ban low welfare imports.
We know political winds can shift and change can happen quickly, like same-sex marriage. We know activism is critical to such change. We know momentum is crucial for activism, and as a result we need to see consistent wins. This strategy is actively and consistently producing wins in a cause area that really struggles to produce wins.
Sure, there are many ways it can fail. Nobody is claiming this will definitely work. But the evidence you are looking for seems either downstream (like the government policy commitment) or irrelevant to the theory of change (where or how quickly do imports replace UK products). Sure, they are relevant to the downside, and I can definitely imagine ways that downside risk can make the upside not worth it, but when I look holistically I am pretty optimistic overall even seeing the risks.
The evidence which would convince me to stop is mainly loss of momentum on the short term strategy. If blocking factory farms at the planning stage stopped working, for example, and activists spent a year trying hard to restart it but failing, then I would change my mind. I don’t think I would want to stop in most cases if it were creating backlash (because backlash triggers discussion and can be useful) but I would want to study the form of backlash carefully.
I also think that if there were other activist strategies that were working better, I would want to stop this one and move onto higher priority strategies. But to me this is one of the ones that’s working best.
“we block all factory farm expansions → people realize that we don’t want factory farmed products in the UK at all → public opinion shifts quickly → multiple policy changes are now simultaneously possible”
I think this ToC is much less clean than it sounds.
We block all factory farm expansions—somewhat unlikely. I don’t think you can’t block them on welfare grounds, you have to find some other reason to block an expansion like environmental grounds so each fight is unique and the chance of winning every time is consequently lower.
Note: there was a case, Animal Equality v North East Lincolnshire Council recently which Animal Equality claim sets president for animal welfare as a material consideration. They are wrong to claim this. The dispute wasn’t about whether or not animal welfare is capable of being a material consideration and so remarks regarding this point are obiter. The Council did not dispute the point (they won on other grounds). This is good, but it might be that the council chose not to dispute this for tactical reasons (I don’t know enough about planning law to say either way.)
People realize that we don’t want factory farmed products in the UK at all—seems like the strongest link to me. Generally people are already pretty anti-factory farming. However, they don’t realise so much of their food comes from factory farms. I think it is unclear how support for factory farming changes if people had to face the real consequences of not being able to access factory farmed products
We ban new factory farms, start working on closing/improving existing ones—Less likely than it sounds. In this world the public don’t like factory farming but they also probably don’t like higher food prices (no one does), less access to meat and dairy etc. Unlike gay marriage, the voter is faced with a tradeoff whereby they have to want a ban on factory farming more than they want low prices. This is a high bar but you then also have to convince politicians that this is the case (for example, despite lots of polling saying people are prepared to pay for higher welfare products, politicians are still reluctant to implement any measure than has a meaningful impact on food prices).
Ban low welfare imports—Very hard/impossible. As James points out, this may be practically speaking impossible if we sign the EU CVA in its current form or close to current form (which seems very likely)
I would +1 to all of the above (and probably in stronger terms!).
Additionally, from yet unpublished research we’ve done in the UK and also talking to people who work on food policy in the UK government, the number one thing people care about for food right now is cost. So the odds of getting any kind of significant progress to block loads of factory farm expansions and/or close existing ones, which will both increase the cost of food, will be extremely small. For example, Labour’s current plan is the weaken planning regulations to allow more chicken sheds to be built (to reduce the cost of food) so for them to do a full U-turn would be a miracle, in my opinion.
I also think these battles will be in a relatively small number of rural constituencies, with relatively small populations, so I don’t expect there to be any major impacts on national public opinion. And as Thom says, most people already say they agree with us, despite paying for lots of factory-farmed meat. So I’m unsure if trying to change the number of people who say they don’t want factory-farmed products in the UK is even a useful goal (but I also don’t know what a better metric might be).
Slightly tangential, but the current UK government (and also a bloc in the opposition) want to make it harder to block or stall developments at the planning stage. If the campaign stops working, I think the most likely explanation would be YIMBY-ist reforms, not anything directly related to animal rights. Not sure if that undercuts your point or not.