Join our campaign and demand Labour commits to public ownership of energy

With the Labour Party entering the new year having led opinion polls for the whole of 2022, Keir Starmer finds himself faced with a choice; either use this momentum to present a transformative vision for society that tackles our era-defining crises or falter and offer more of the same but managed more competently. The position of Starmerism isn’t without its contradictions. When campaigning to be leader of the party, Starmer stood on a platform of ten radical pledges, only to slowly renege on them – including, recently, his commitment to end outsourcing in the NHS.

Those of us on the left need to see these promises – of public ownership of mail, rail, energy and water, to end outsourcing in the NHS, to “put the green new deal at the heart of everything we do” – as enduring and democratically decided positions of the Labour Party. MPs, local politicians and the Labour membership should define what these policies mean and refuse to compromise on them. A tendency towards defeatism ignores that the current conditions create scope to publicly argue for these positions, well within the frame of debate initially set out by Starmer.

However, debate around the specifics of these pledges and the political forces needed to realise them in power has been stifled by the party leadership. A recent piece in The Guardian argues that Starmerism is quietly radical, citing commitments on capital expenditure, devolution and the environment. However, this fails to understand the pressures that Labour are under from the super rich, who are both aware of Labour’s poll lead and recognise the contradiction between their private interests and socialist policies. Relying on these commitments as though they’re handouts, instead of publicly building power in and around them, will almost certainly see them watered down or abandoned entirely as entrenched interests strive to campaign against them.

This is why at Labour for a Green New Deal, we’re launching the ‘Public Power Now‘ campaign. We aim to widen the debate around public ownership of energy and build the political forces necessary to take the entire energy system beyond profit. We need a vision that extends beyond the ‘big six’ suppliers, to include the ludicrously profitable distribution companies and the environmentally catastrophic fossil fuel extraction companies. Additionally, full public ownership of energy would help insulate the UK from the volatility of globalised energy markets and allow us to minimise the cost-of-living crisis.

Economically, the privatisation of energy has been a disaster. Despite energy production costs remaining relatively stable over the last year, bills have skyrocketed, and BP and Shell have reported their most profitable quarters ever. The ‘big six’ suppliers – an industry conjured up by Margaret Thatcher to create the illusion of competition in energy distribution – are lining their pockets too. Over the past decade, they have spent more than £40bn on shareholder buybacks and dividends, equivalent to more than twice what they paid in income tax – a direct transfer of wealth from households to the rich.

Environmentally, the situation is even more dire. The UK has more proven barrels of oil and gas in already operating oil and gas fields than we can extract to keep within our Paris agreement obligations and continues to add more fossil fuel infrastructure. Globally, the United Nations Environmental Programme reports an expected temperature rise of 2.6 degrees by the end of the century under current existing pledges for action by 2030, an existential threat far beyond anything we are prepared for.

The UK must recognise its historic and moral responsibility and aggressively decarbonise our energy sector. By 2040, it’s estimated that 3.9 billion people will be exposed to major heat waves. This impact alone – ignoring rising sea levels, pollution, flooding and droughts – will domino into food, water and displacement crises. The majority of historic emissions have come from the Global North, with the UK accounting for 5% of all-time emissions, despite being less than 1% of the global population.

After years of lies and distraction tactics, we know we can’t trust privatised fossil fuel companies to deliver the transformations necessary to decarbonise our energy system and bring bills down. They simply won’t do it while it’s profitable to continue extracting oil and gas. This is why we are calling on the Labour Party to reaffirm the commitment to public ownership of the entire energy system, creating a system rooted in democratised worker and citizen control.

Contact your MP today and ask them to back our demands for Public Power Now!