“What is more irresponsible than ditching a green industrial plan in the middle of a climate emergency?…Voters want to know that Labour will change the country for the better rather than just muddling on.”
Guardian Editorial 3/2/24
By Paul Atkin, Greener Jobs Alliance
Just muddling on it is, then?
Although the climate crisis is not, as XR have argued, “above politics”, it does have to be foundational for any politics that is adequate or relevant for the times we are actually in. At a time when even the CBI is calling for £50 billion to be invested in transition by 2030, the Labour leadership’s plan to cut its proposed level to £4.7 billion a year (from £28 billion) and the insulation programme to £1.3 billion (from £6 billion) – falls suicidally short in more ways than one.
Politically, this pledge was Labour’s second most popular policy, partly because it actually offered hope. Something the leadership seems frightened of. Environmentally it will make sure that the UK continues to slip back from meeting its targets; with catastrophic consequences, here and elsewhere.
Economically, maintaining a level of investment barely higher than that of the Tories (£1.2 billion a year on insulation budgeted from 2022-26 for example), will ensure a stagnant (and increasingly unsustainable) economy in which conditions of life continue to erode.
Without the investment needed to kick start growth, there won’t be any. Abandoning this investment in the hope that there will be a miraculous recovery, produced presumably by liberating the same animal spirits of the Financial Sector that led to the 2008 crash and has kept us in the doldrums ever since, isn’t so much putting the cart before the horse, as hoping the cart will move without one.
Our letter to Rachel Reeves, sent in October and still awaiting a response, puts this to her in more detail. We’d suggest that local Labour Parties, and affiliated unions might like to ask these questions of their MPs and PPCs too.
Keir Starmer says that Labour’s “ambition” remains intact, and sent round a ludicrous email to Party members claiming that this shrunken commitment would achieve all the things that the £28 billion would have. But, we can add up, and we know that “ambition” without the means to realise it is simply not credible.
We need better and will have to mobilise for it. A straw Poll on Labour List showing 75% of respondents opposing this retreat shows that a resistance is there to be mobilised. Let’s get on it!
- Paul Atkin is the Editor of Greener Jobs Alliance (GJA). You can follow the GJA on Facebook and Twitter/X.
- This article was originally published by the Greener Jobs Alliance (GJA) February 2024 Newsletter – you can read the newsletter in full here.
Starmer needs to understand a) what qualities a LABOUR Party Leader should have, and b) the damage done on every level of his constant dithering.
It is more important than ever with a General Election coming up, and also with the feeling of hopelessness many of us have facing this GE.
Of course the Tories must go, but there is also the sense that many people will be voting for “the least worst” option rather than actively championing a Labour Government… because there is a terrible lack of promoting precious Labour Values. And in practical terms it could easily mean a very short spell of Labour governance.
That photo of Starmer looks as though he’s doing his Karaoke version of “My Way”. Personally I’d prefer him to be singing to a totally different song book.