Scott Hunter, Swindon Socialist Party and Swindon north TUSC candidate
Nationalisation is a popular policy. A recent YouGov poll found that over two-thirds of people support nationalising the energy companies. And it’s no surprise, with sky-high bills, a reliance on polluting fossil fuels and billions of pounds of profit sucked out of the system.
What’s Keir Starmer’s New Labour’s answer? Great British Energy. Although touted as a “state-owned energy company”, Labour is desperate to make clear to everyone – especially the capitalist class – that it’s not renationalisation. GB Energy will not actually supply anyone with energy. Instead, it will act as a clearing house for investment funds, allocating public money to the private energy industry with the aim of stimulating private investment into green energy.
Profit
But private companies will only make investments if they are profitable, so “stimulating investment” in practice means subsidising the profits of the energy companies from the public purse. Haven’t they made enough money already? Private energy companies have made record profits – over £420 billion since the energy crisis started – while ordinary people are having to choose between heating and eating. In some cases, people can do neither.
We all want a future for ourselves and our children, and that means taking serious measures to combat climate change. Labour has allocated just £8.3 billion to the project for the next five years, far short of the £116 billion of investment over the next 11 years needed to meet key environmental targets.
Bosses ‘green transition’
If there is a transition away from fossil fuels on a capitalist basis, what will become of the tens of thousands of workers currently employed in the oil and gas industries? They’ll be thrown out of work like the miners before them. Why should workers pay the price for the green transition when it’s the bosses making all the profits?
This is playing out right now with Tata Steel, a private steel company which has used the excuse of the green transition to decimate jobs. Unite the Union has rejected the false idea that environmental sustainability should come at the cost of jobs and has presented a plan to retain primary steelmaking while moving to greener processes. Unite is also campaigning for “no ban without a plan” for North Sea oil, arguing for additional investment to retain jobs and pay while moving away from polluting industries.
However, Unite falls short of calling for nationalisation. Just as the bosses at Tata rejected out of hand Unite’s proposals, so too will private energy companies, unless there is profit (or lavish government subsidies) in it for them. What we need is for those companies to be under public ownership as part of a democratic, socialist plan to transition away from fossil fuels, ensuring alternative employment or retraining without loss of pay for workers in those industries.
You can’t control what you don’t own, and as long as our energy infrastructure remains in private hands we will be at the mercy of profit-gouging companies for light and heat. The excuse from Labour and other capitalist parties is that we can’t afford to nationalise energy because it would cost too much money. But who says we have to pay another penny to executives and shareholders who have already picked our pockets clean? Any government with the will to do so could nationalise the energy companies, water, public transport, mail and more with compensation paid only on the basis of proven need.
We need a party that fights for us – a new mass workers’ party. Armed with a fighting socialist programme, such a party could use the wealth and resources to draw up a democratic plan of production, under workers’ control and management, to make sure we can all keep the lights on and our homes warm without destroying the environment.
