Reverse the theft of public goods and take back control: a Green way to challenge austerity and Reform UK

 

Written by Les Levidow 

Millions of people have been suffering the effects of UK neoliberal policies, especially post-2010 austerity, which aggravated the damage from the 1980s-1990s austerity programme.   They have endured greater hardship and  social fragmentation, alongside weaker collective agency to gain improvements, especially as a practical basis for hope.  People’s deprivation and anxiety have led many to search for simple culprits, especially migrants, as demonized by Reform UK and more recently by the Labour government.   More people have become disillusioned with the main political parties,  as the Green Party notes, https://greenparty.org.uk/2025/04/08/green-party-to-appeal-to-disillusioned-voters-as-they-head-for-record-breaking-local-election-results/    Such negative feelings apply to the entire political system, leaving many with a weak incentive to vote at all. 

What is a Green way to challenge austerity and Reform UK?  This question was addressed at a Green Left webinar (03.04.2025).  An adequate answer must begin by targeting the main culprits, namely:  neoliberal policies have shifted political control and economic wealth to a super-rich elite, while intensifying scarcity and economic competition among everyone else.   Those policies have legalized the theft of public goods and wealth extraction from them.  The Labour Party overtly perpetuates those inequalities, and Reform UK in power would do likewise. 

Many potential remedies have been promoted in Green Party of England and Wales policies, such as ‘Public Services in Public Hands,’ as in its 2024 election manifesto, https://greenparty.org.uk/about/our-manifesto/   Likewise the stronger proposals in the Socialist Green New Deal of the Green Left, http://londongreenleft.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-socialist-green-new-deal.html 

However, effective remedies would depend on a strong collective agency to implement them, especially by shifting class power against neoliberal state institutions.  When commending policies of Green Party,  Owen Jones urged it to ‘pick some fights’. 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/28/green-party-left-social-media-presence

Indeed, an effective opposition would escalate such fights against the Labour Party and Reform UK alike.  More fundamentally, it must propose imaginative means to reverse capitalist theft and to take back collective control.   

Neoliberal austerity: legalized theft of public goods 

The term ‘austerity’ has served a long-time deceptive narrative.  As a domestic analogy with national budgets, ‘austerity’ has implied moral frugal habits which save money to benefit the common good. This hegemonic narrative has disguised neoliberal austerity, which has worsened socio-economic inequalities, almost regardless of state expenditure.  

According to its hegemonic narrative, this agenda has aimed to liberate ‘the free market’, as if it were a state of Nature.  Such market liberation would supposedly bring prosperity, whose benefits would eventually trickle down to everyone.   In the 1980s the Chancellor Nigel Lawson justified austerity policies as follows: “If it's not hurting, then it's not working.”    Let us ask: hurting whom? working for whom? 

In practice, the putatively ‘self-adjusting free market’ has depended on coercion, as Karl Polanyi documented over several centuries in his 1944 book, The Great Transformation. Coercion has two levels: Firstly, the state has been forcibly enclosing commons, turning public goods (including natural resources) into financial assets; they become capital seeking to maximise value for shareholders. Secondly, policy and investment changes have intensified workers’ competition for income, thus helping enterprises to super-exploit labour.  Karl Marx called this ‘the dull compulsion of economic relations’.  

Since the 1980s all UK governments have promoted neoliberal globalization as if it were an inevitable future.  For example, ‘People say that we should stop and debate globalisation; you might as well debate whether autumn should follow summer’, declared Tony Blair at the 2005 Labour Party conference. His language conflated closer economic relations with a neoliberal form as if it were rooted in nature.  

Neoliberal globalisation has subordinated government policy to international investment and currency markets; it has marginalised, off-shored or sold off (at bargain rates) traditional high-skilled industry. As the official narrative, austerity has promoted means to minimise the national debt, to minimise debt repayments and so to strengthen the national currency against foreign rivals.   This has been a pretext for policies that strengthen capital over labour and limit democratic decision-making.  

The dominant agenda has been privatizing or deregulating state enterprises and their labour protections. The boundary between public/private sectors has been blurred; the profit motive has pervaded public sector agencies as well as outsourced arrangements. Meanwhile the greater exploitation of labour extracts more unpaid labour, a hidden form of theft. 

Such changes have been driving people into more unhealthy working conditions and causing systematic health damage, likewise greater stress in both paid work and unpaid care work, worsening mental health problems. All this damage has generated greater legitimate claims for disability allowances and Personal Independence Payments (PIPs), even more so given the inadequate or delayed NHS treatment for such problems.  The damage has likewise generated greater need for social care, which has been increasingly outsourced or privatised since the Thatcher period.  

Meanwhile the state has continued funding or facilitating corporate welfare. In particular, privatization has attracted global investment funds, especially to real estate and utilities (gas and water), resulting in foreign corporate control.   Fossil fuels  still receive subsidies of around £10 billion per year, including tax-free status for aviation fuel, https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/oil-and-gas-industry-outside-interests   

Thus, state finance drives even worse climate change. 

This neoliberal agenda has generated financial gain for an ultra-wealthy elite, in turn helping them to finance political parties for favourable policies, as well as intensifying the state’s dependence on the private sector.  This pattern has had continuity across UK governments since the 1980s: from Margaret Thatcher, to Tony Blair (‘my greatest achievement’, she said), the 2010 ConDem government, its Tory successors and now the Starmer regime.  

The 2010 the ConDem government’s austerity regime imposed extra damage, in particular: Cuts in public amenities or their privatisation made access more dependent on individual income, thus worsening poverty.   

Cuts in social welfare and social protection increased the burden of unpaid caring, especially for women.  Neoliberal austerity has generated scarcity and thus envy towards others who supposedly get favourable treatment (like migrants and claimants), despite their vulnerability. 

Neoliberal austerity has been promoted by many beneficiaries, e.g. private equity firms, hedge funds, billionaires and politicians who gain funds from the main beneficiaries.  Moreover, many pension funds have sought to maximise profits and so help undermine the public good.  For example, the higher-education trade union, UCU, has a pension fund (USS) which is a major shareholder in Thames Water, thus sharing indirect culpability for its theft and degradation of public assets.   Improvements would need to come partly from trade union members demanding accountability for such investments. 

Starmer’s regime worsens the problem 

The Starmer regime has worsened these structural oppressions which it inherited.  In  The Manchester Manifesto, Greens Organize (GO) has said:   “As people yearn for more, this Government promises less; it fails to address the underlying decay of the UK’s economy and public sphere”,  https://greensorganise.uk/taking-the-fight-to-reform-launch

The Starmer regime is worse than a failure. It has been further degrading the UK’s public sphere. while making the economy even more predatory.   Its greater state expenditure may seem to contradict austerity but complements its predatory role.  Here are four examples: 

1) Fake decarbonisation:  Last year the government falsely promised decarbonisation by expanding renewable energy and investing £22bn in Carbon Capture Use and Storage (CCUS). This techno-fantasy will do little to decarbonise natural gas but instead will justify its perpetuation (or even expansion) for the foreseeable future, including fossil fuel subsidies.  See our critique, https://greenerjobsalliance.co.uk/the-labour-governments-dirty-energy-technofix-must-be-contested-and-replaced/  The fake decarbonisation agenda increases  corporate welfare and environmental damage, while pre-empting alternatives that could replace fossil fuels, especially if developed by energy workers in alliance with community groups. 

2) Militarisation: In early 2025 the government announced a massive increase in military expenditure supposedly for self-defence from a Russian invasion into Eastern Europe.  This pretext grossly exaggerates Russia’s capacity, in order to justify imperial war-mongering.  This spectre justifies the carrot of new arms plants, as a plausible option for decent livelihoods in economically depressed areas.  This economic blackmail aims to recruit entire communities into psychological and economic dependence on a permanent arms economy.  Likewise, it channels a social malaise into fear of a foreign threat, promoting  a cross-class nationalist political identity.  Thus, a key agent of people’s oppression, the British state, is sanitised as our protector. 

3) Predatory growth:   As measured by GDP, capitalist growth has generally caused many harms including greater exploitation, inequalities and environmental degradation.  The growth obsession perpetuates such harms.  Inviting more foreign investment further offers public goods for sale and undermines public accountability. 

As a local example:  The 2017 London Plan emphasised ‘good growth’ and ‘levelling  up’, thus acknowledging that some growth may be harmful or perpetuate inequalities.  Now the Mayor has deleted such phrases in favour of simply ‘growth’.   This reinforces long-time socially inequitable policies.  In particular, ‘estates regeneration’ has meant demolishing buildings that could have been refurbished, rebuilding them and socially cleansing lower-income residents; this continues. 

4) Greater repression:  More resources are being mobilised for the state’s repressive roles, alongside stronger laws constraining protest, even verbal dissent. Together these measures further criminalize the inevitable resistance, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/03/protest-britain-activists-quaker-meeting-house 

In those ways, the Starmer regime has shifted the Labour Party from Tory-light to ultra-Tory.  Its corporate-welfare policy worsens socio-economic deprivation and inequalities.  It marginalises public-good alternatives, such as the renewable energy infrastructure necessary to replace fossil fuels, house retrofitting with better heat insulation, and better-quality social care.  Such alternatives could be funded by several means, such as a wealth tax and/or public bonds paying a fair interest.    They could be administered by participatory vehicles, such as a Public-Commons Partnership (PCP), by contrast with Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) or the private sector.  Such alternatives are crucial to build a realistic durable hope in a better future. Otherwise, widespread desperation will be exploited more by the Far Right. 

Countering the Far Right

Greens Organize (GO) has rightly said: “The only answer is a movement from the ground up. One that can mobilise millions of frustrated voters who have entirely lost faith in the political system, that can take on the far right – not pander to it.”  

The Far Right is a broad category, including fascists such as the EDL.  Our focus should be Reform UK, for several reasons.  Its leadership represents the wealthy elite benefiting from the policies of the major parties and so has a vested interest in continuing those polices.   Its racist agenda has recently set the national agenda, as the mass media have given it disproportionate attention.  

Worse, the main parties imitate its racist policies.  Why?  All main parties support the neoliberal policies causing people’s deprivation and anxiety.  So, they need scapegoats, especially through racist scare-mongering about immigration and resentment against benefits recipients.   Such a Labour Party cannot effectively counter Reform UK. 

Reform UK attracts people with diverse or confused ideas, many warranting political engagement. How to engage them?  It is necessary to acknowledge people’s deprivation and anxiety about the future, at the same time as to assign blame, namely:  For several decades a wealthy elite has robbed public goods, turning them into private financial assets.  Companies have super-exploited their workers, variously disguised (through outsourcing, self-employment, zero hours contracts, etc.), as means to extract more profits, i.e. unpaid labour.  

All this has been facilitated by the two major parties.  Reform UK will do likewise if it gains the opportunity at local or national levels.  Its main slogan has been, “Broken Britain Needs Reform” with a narrative obscuring what broke Britain’s public goods.  For example, it advocates NHS privatisation, euphemistically called ‘independent health provision’, along with tax relief for private health insurance; all this would benefit its billionaire sponsors.  It promises, “Once and for all, we will take back control over our borders, our money and our laws” – but of course not the economy, which will continue serving a wealthy elite,  https://assets.nationbuilder.com/reformuk/pages/253/attachments/original/1718625371/Reform_UK_Our_Contract_with_You.pdf?1718625371 

As a Greens Organize video says, our problems have been caused by a wealthy elite flying over us in private jets, not by migrants coming in small boats across the Channel,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgu5HpwDYDs 

Our problems have been caused by an exploitative system, whose political supporters include Reform UK. 

Taking back control: example of water companies 

To counter austerity and the Far Right, a slogan could be: ‘Reverse the theft of public assets and take back control’.   A crucial means is bottom-up collective action of many kinds, alongside a community support base for workers’ rights.  

Such a community is not ready-made.  It requires creating communities of resistance.   Such action needs to combine grassroots activists from many groups:  trade unions, community groups, water action, fuel poverty, disability, etc.  New community organization will be necessary to defend and create commons, beyond the state and capitalist markets.  Such initiatives are essential to push or bypass the state, which otherwise will continue its collusion with predatory neoliberal practices.   

Although campaign slogans are necessary, they gain political force only through an action-learning process.  Activists need to try out new mobilisation strategies, discuss their strengths and weaknesses, evaluate results, and then draw lessons for more effective action. 

Water companies provide an example: For decades, profit extraction for shareholders has blocked or delayed necessary improvements. How to reverse this plunder of public goods?  In March 2025, Clive Lewis MP proposed a Water Bill authorizing large penalties that could help bankrupt and so nationalize water companies if necessary.  https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/government-clive-lewis-bill-water-meg-hillier-b2723458.html 

In response, Meg Hillier MP warned that this outcome would create difficulties for public-sector pension funds as significant shareholders.   Hillier’s riposte highlights a systemic problem beyond a wealthy elite, implicating millions of people. 

Over the past couple years, anti-pollution protests (such as River Action) have been demanding that the government reject the companies’ request for higher water rates and instead nationalize them.   The Citizens’ Arrest Network meanwhile used whistleblowers’ information to prepare legal documents for prosecuting the Thames Water CEO.   When they visited the HQ with police officers to arrest him (18^th March), he quickly resigned https://x.com/CitizensArrestN 

Of course, the company can recuperate this minor setback through a new CEO.  A major advance needs a political diagnosis of corporate theft, as a basis to demand and force a reversal. Staff have been trying to solve the problems, despite structural obstacles from decades of plunder and degradation,  as depicted in the BBC documentary, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00284vn    A solution needs workers’ collective power, mobilising their knowledge and skills to lead improvements, even to take over the management.   In other words, effective politics must go beyond simply making demands on a neoliberal regime. 

Electoral strategy: build unity to replace the Labour Party 

The above agenda can gain public credibility for solutions by contesting corporate theft, while promoting collective control through a workers’ and community mobilization.  Likewise, by defending benefits payments and migrants’ rights as crucial for everyone’s welfare. 

This applies to both the Green Party and independent Left-wing parties. They ideally would cooperate through joint demands – as they already do in some places.  Given the rising popular distrust (even hatred) towards the Labour Party, we should avowedly seek to replace it, especially in working-class communities.  Otherwise. Reform UK may do so. 

Green Party branch websites should display the publicity from their issue campaigns and electoral campaigns. This has several reasons:  so that potential supporters will be attracted, and so that everyone can compare strategies, especially for explaining local successes. 

For an electoral strategy:  Don’t compete with independent Left-wing candidates for the same Council seats. Instead agree to allocate them according to the best prospects in each place.   Even better, campaign for each others’ candidates, or agree a joint ‘Independent’ candidate, as has been done in some Council wards.  These steps can help to build the necessary unity.  We need to learn from these experiences in order to strengthen future efforts.  

Biographical note:

The author joined the Green Party of England and Wales and likewise the Green Left in 2014. 
He is author of the book, Beyond Climate Fixes: From Public Controversy to System Change

The publicity webpage has blogs linking class struggle with climate justice,

https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/beyond-climate-fixes 

Save Money – And the World! For the Earth to Live – The Case for Ecosocialism, written by Allan Todd

 

With Trump already implementing his threat of “Drill, baby, drill!” to massively increase the burning of evermore fossil fuels, and taking the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement – and Musk and Farage supercharging the growth of far-right populism and creeping fascism – there are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic. But as Gramsci warned back in the 1920s: 

“The thick dark cloud of pessimism…may in fact be the greatest danger we face at present.” 

However,…cometh the hour, cometh the book! 

Coming out next month (February), is a new book that gives realistic grounds for hoping that a better world can be won for the 99%. As Nelson Mandela said: 

“It always seems impossible…until it is done.” 

And the good news is that For the Earth to Live can be pre-ordered at the special reduced rate of £13 – a saving on the RRP of £17! – via this link: 

https://resistancebooks.org/product/for-the-earth-to-live/ 

To whet your appetite (just in case the saving of £4 isn’t enough temptation!), below are some of the things that have been said about the book: 

Extracts from the Foreword by Julia Steinberger

[Professor of Ecological Economics, University of Lausanne (Switzerland)] 

“The book in your hands is not like other books about the climate or the environment. For the Earth to Live: The Case for Ecosocialism is a wholly original creation, from a wholly original author. In this Foreword, I will try to explain why I think this book is so important, and I will try to do so quickly, so you can get to the book itself as quickly as possible (which you could do immediately by turning a couple of pages!). 

This book, much like its scholar-activist author Allan Todd, stands out by doing several revolutionary things at once. 

First, this book is unapologetic. 

This book is quite simply about, and for, ecosocialism. In a time when people are often afraid to express themselves directly, this book openly and proudly proclaims its analysis and position, making the case for a political direction that is unapologetically, uncompromisingly for ecology AND for socialism, for people and for the living Earth. 

Reading For the Earth to Life is a bracing change from the vacuous distractions, stuffy compromising and timid understatements that characterize so much of our media, political, and, yes, even scientific landscapes. Quoting the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci from start to finish, it seeks to combine ‘Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.’ As such, it’s a continuous wake-up call (Gramsci’s pessimism of the intellect) and a call to action (his optimism of the will).” 

--------------------------------------------------------------- 

"Extinction Rebellion somewhat succeeded in its goal to break the wall of climate denial which was hampering necessary progress. Critics have rightly argued though, that to move forwards, we need a shared ‘overstanding' of the colonialist, capitalist, political economy that has the destruction of people and planet as its core operating system, as well as a visionary alternative to cohere around. In this compelling, thoughtfully explained book, Allan Todd offers us both, with a radical and feasible proposal for our Ecosocialist future. Let's dream and build together, For the Earth to Live!” 

Dr. Gail Bradbrook

Co-Founder Extinction Rebellion 

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“Allan Todd isn’t just a writer, he’s a climate activist with an impressive record; and this book is the culmination of years of political struggle. Rich in arguments and ideas, For The Earth To Live is an essential handbook for those who want to take action for a better world, for both people and planet.” 

Simon Hannah, author of A Party with Socialists in it & Reclaiming the Future.

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And there’s more: if you’re in Cumbria on Sunday 16 March, you can attend a talk about the book: https://www.wordsbythewaterkeswick.com/ 

It’s part this year’s Words By The Water, an annual literary festival, held in Keswick, which draws people from around the country: https://www.wordsbythewaterkeswick.com/

Also speaking at this year’s festival are George Monbiot (on neoliberalism) and Mike Berners-Lee (on the climate crisis). 

Allan Todd is a member of Anti-Capitalist Resistence’s Council, of Left Unity’s National Council, and of Transform; and is an ecosocialist/ environmental and anti-fascist activist. He is the author of Revolutions 1789-1917, Trotsky: The Passionate Revolutionary, and Che Guevara: The Romantic Revolutionary

On New Municipalism

 

Written by Dr Paul Overend 

Across the world there has been a growing interest in the possibilities of New Municipalism in the 21st century, with a growing network of progressive ‘Fearless Cities’ (founded in Barcelona En Comú in 2017). 

This interest in New Municipalism emerges from reflections on how the city can evolve from being a place of protest and resistance against neoliberal capitalism, as was seen in the ‘Occupy’ movement that followed the 2007-8 economic crash, to develop greater self-organization and resilience to market vulnerabilities. (See David Harvey, Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution (2012); Steve Rushton (Ed), Rebel Cities: Radical Municipalism (2018).) Informed and influenced by the work of a range of political and social theorists from Peter Kropotkin (Mutual Aid, 1902) to Murray Bookchin (Libertarian Municipalism, 1991), New Municipalism explores feminising politics, participatory democracy and participatory budgeting, while incorporating other progressive concerns, such as employment practices and environmentalism. 

In the UK there has been a desire to shift power from an overly-centralised state. In 1997, the UK government signed the, European Charter of Local Self Government (adopted by the Council of Europe in 1985, and in force from 1988) and the Local Government Act 2000   gave powers to local authorities to promote economic, social and environmental well-being within their boundaries, while extending the possibility of locally elected mayors. 

In Scotland, Green MSP Andy Wightman's 2014 report ‘Renewing Local Democracy’ explored revitalising local government in Scotland. And in 2022, a Labour Commission on the UK Future, chaired by Gordon Brown, produced a report A‘ New Britain: Renewing our Democracy and Rebuilding our Economy’ which commends further devolution in the UK (among other reforms, such as the House of Lords) incorporating a democratic principal of subsidiarity. If adopted by the next government, this will offer further opportunities for local politics. 

Municipal socialism is not new in the UK: It was variously seen in the Sheffield City Council led by David Blunkett in the 1980s, and the Greater London Council (GLC). (The treasurer of the GLC at one time was John McDonnell, later the Labour shadow chancellor of Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour). New Municipalism differs, in seeking greater democratic participation, for example, but with a wider range of community ownership explored, though not excluding in-house Council ownership. 

A good example of what can be achieved can be seen from the so called ‘Preston Model’ of Community Wealth Building. (See Matthew Brown and Rhian E. Jones, Paint Your Town Red’ (2021) and https://www.preston.gov.uk/communitywealthbuilding) Preston council draws on work on Community Wealth Building by The Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES). Community Wealth Building involves ideas of local and progressive procurement policies, including fair employment, support of co-operatives and social enterprises, and insourcing (with council ownership), for example, initially led by existing local Anchor Institutions’ procurement policies. 

The success in reinvesting into the local economy and improving employment opportunities and pay, and bringing about social benefits, shows what can be done by refiguring the local economy, rather than being dependent on inward investment, by economically ‘extractive’ companies. Wales and Scotland have incorporated some ideas of community wealth building in national politics. And Jamie Driscoll, for example, seeks to incorporate such a model for his mayoral candidacy manifesto. 

The renewal of local government and increasing subsidiarity give cause for hope for a Green Left municipalist movement renewing politics and local economics from the grass roots. It is likely that the current Parliamentary Labour Party will still seek to retain centralised party control (so Jamie Driscoll has been blocked from being the Labour mayoral candidate, for example). The Green Party has been more successful in local politics, with the election of councillors more likely than the election of MPs, given the given current FPTP electoral system. 

But New Municipalism works by building consensual politics across the political parties, and with local institutions and social enterprises, and the local public and community interest groups. The Green Party might be well placed to leaverage political opinion in municipal councils and communities, working with other seeking to advance a green left approach.

Dr Paul Overend has been a priest and educator, most recently working in Lincoln. He is a member of the Green Party of England and Wales, and a new supporter of Green Left, as well as being a member of the Faithworkers Branch of Unite. Having moved to Norwich, he is currently seeking secular work.

The Labour Party’s clean energy mission: greenwashing a high-carbon future

 

Written by Les Levidow

Hopes for decarbonising Britain have recently focused on the Labour Party’s plan for its next government.  In May it promised to issue no new licences for oil or gas exploration in the North Sea.  In June the Labour Party set out its ‘clean energy mission’ for the UK to expand renewable energy,  with ‘a clear road map to decarbonisation’, so that the entire economy can ‘accelerate to net zero’.  Is it really such a plan?

Its claims have several grounds for doubt, in particular: that the plan perpetuates fossil sources for the foreseeable future, depends on dubious techno-fixes, perpetuates obstacles to renewable energy substitution, greenwashes a high-carbon future, subordinates the labour movement to high-carbon capital, and so pre-empts a socially just, low-carbon transition.  These roles are played in several ways, as outlined here.

Perpetuating fossil fuels alongside renewable energy

After the Labour Party announcement, relevant trade unions criticised its plan for ‘betraying workers’, especially for lacking a credible plan to provide substitute jobs.  Although this criticism is valid, it made the Labour Party promise look greener than in reality.

Campaigners protesting against the new oilfield in Dundee. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian, 29.06.2023

As eventually became clear, ‘no new gas or oil’ means no extra licences after the general election; this plan would allow the Rosebank and Cambo oil fields to go ahead.   As academics have written, large reserves of oil and gas are already covered by existing licenses; companies are deciding which ones to develop.  Once a company starts using a licence, it takes three decades to produce new fossil fuels, which may continue for several decades more.  Fossil fuel producers already have enough licences to generate enormous GHG emissions for the next half-century and beyond.

The big energy producers may extend a high-carbon future for several reasons.  The current regime has a basic objective to maximise the economic recovery of oil and gas.  Fossil fuels continue to enjoy state subsidy, and gas prices set the overall energy price.  So cheaper renewable sources accrue super-profits rather than undermine fossil fuels, especially within a profit-driven system. 

Moreover, total energy usage will predictably continue to rise.  This trend will be reinforced by the Labour Party’s promise for measures to increase ‘economic growth’, which generally entails more energy usage.  By default, renewable energy may largely continue to supplement fossil fuels rather than replace them, thus doing little to reduce GHG emissions.  

Alternatively, for a true decarbonisation plan, a government could limit some fossil fuel source which are already licensed, alongside new policies to reduce overall energy usage.  Likewise it could direct any economic growth at low-energy forms which incur lighter environmental burdens and bring greater societal benefit (probably with lower corporate profits).  Such alternatives have been promoted under various concepts such as a ‘well-being economy’ or ‘post-growth economy’.  This potential future is pre-empted by the Labour Party’s plan.

Accepting profit-driven energy distribution

Last year Keir Starmer undertook that the next Labour government would create Great British Energy (GBE), a publicly owned energy company. According to the Party’s energy mission, GBE would be ‘a new, publicly-owned clean generation company, that will harness the power of Britain’s sun, wind, and waves to cut energy bills and deliver energy security for our country’.  In early 2023 Ed Miliband floated a proposal for the government to establish its own assets for generating renewable energy and so supplying local energy distributors. 

Yet simply producing more renewable energy would be inadequate, for several reasons.  The national grid has lacked adequate investment to promptly incorporate new sources of renewable energy, so connections face delays of 15 years or more (according to a BBC report).  Even as such sources are connected, profit-maximising firms keep the super-profits from renewable energy rather than pass on the lower cost to consumers.

To realize all the societal benefits, it would be necessary to impose  an energy price cap geared to renewable energy, as well as to establish public-interest distribution companies, as advocated by a CommonWealth report.  Likewise Labour for a Green New Deal  promotes a conference motion which advocates ‘Democratic public ownership of the whole energy system, including: Nationalisation of energy transmission and distribution; energy supply; the UK operations and infrastructure of fossil fuel companies…’

Such a policy would depend on mobilising mass support against capitalist interests in the energy sector.  Otherwise a profit-driven high-carbon system will continue, as in the current Labour Party policy.

Relying on dubious technofixes

When the Labour Party undertook to issue no more licences for gas or oil, there was a reassurance:  “But Labour would continue to use existing oil and gas wells over the coming decades and manage them sustainably as we transform the UK into a clean energy superpower.”

Credit: Cathy Wilcox

How could such a role be compatible with long-term fossil fuels?  It could not be, unless clean energy merely supplements fossil fuels (as explained above).  Or unless we indulge techno-optimistic fantasies for greenwashing fossil fuels (see CACCTU briefing).  Along those lines, the Labour Party mission would “Invest in carbon capture and storage (CCS), hydrogen, and long-term energy storage to ensure that there is sufficient zero-emission back-up power and storage for extended periods without wind or sun, while maintaining a strategic reserve of backup gas power stations to guarantee security of supply.”

This grandiose mission implies that CCS eventually would decarbonise natural gas into hydrogen and so provide a ‘zero-emission’ fuel.   The hydrogen per se might be so at the point of use.  But the promotional language conceals routine methane leakages at the extraction stage, alongside energy inputs and other difficulties in capturing the carbon, in order to produce so-called ‘zero-carbon hydrogen’.    

Most CCS projects have failed, removing no carbon from the atmosphere. They have been most viable as CO₂-Enhanced Oil Recovery, i.e. injecting CO₂ into partially depleted oilfields to force out more oil, thus undermining the climate objective.  Relative to CCS, biological methods are a more effective means to sequester carbon but are commercially less attractive, offering no pretext for perpetuating fossil fuels.

The Labour Party mission also promises ambitious targets for ‘green hydrogen’, i.e. electrolysing water into its hydrogen and oxygen components.  As an energy medium, this lacks credibility for at least two reasons: The conversion would be much more expensive and energy-intensive than directly using the renewable electricity necessary to produce it.  And the available renewable electricity will have competing priorities within an overall electrification of energy usage.   

All those technologies remain unproven at scale.  They provide a deceptive basis to reconcile fossil fuels with decarbonisation and thus to justify delay in real climate action.  Nevertheless such technofixes have been promoted by a long-time cross-class alliance between the ‘Energy Unions’ and the fossil fuel industry. 

Credit: ‘Trade unions bosses back UK hydrogen jobs boom’, 2020,

The Hydrogen Strategy Now campaign flies the Union Jack, patriotically allying the ‘Energy Unions’ with energy bosses 

Many workers in the industry remain unconvinced that such fixes can address their employment needs, according to a 2023 report by Platform and FoE Scotland. This scepticism indicates the potential for political alliances to organize around truly low-carbon alternative futures.

Reinforcing energy bosses’ leadership

The Labour Party mission invokes an imperative for the UK to compete more effectively in a global race towards decarbonisation.   Keir Starmer has warned that some nation…”is going to lead the world”, that “competition is fierce”, that it’s “a race we have to win”.  Trade union leaders have reinforced this narrative in fossil fuel sectors. 

As the Greener Jobs Alliance has cautioned us, this nationalistic narrative sets up an ‘us vs them’ rivalry with other countries.  It obscures the need for international cooperation to share, improve and supply renewable energy, especially to replace fossil fuels.  Likewise the narrative pre-empts workers’ solidarity across countries.

The nationalistic narrative is worse than simply a mistake.  Fossil energy companies and trade union leaders have been jointly promoting dubious decarbonisation technologies, subordinating workers to their bosses.  The Labour Party reinforces this cross-class political alliance. The Party’s mission undertakes to stimulate private investment, perhaps through public-private partnerships, thus extending the neoliberal model.  In parallel the Starmer regime has silenced or eliminated Left-wing voices in the Labour Party, thus demonstrating its loyalty to capitalist interests.   

As a superficial reassurance, the Labour Party mission undertakes to facilitate ‘a green just transition’.  It aims to ‘Ensure a just transition that addresses regional imbalances and ensures that no workers or communities are left behind’.  It claims to draw on the “vast experience from across the labour movement and beyond”. 

Yet the Labour Party mission pre-empts means for the labour movement to shape its own future.  Such alternatives have been promoted globally by Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED), such as its programme for a public-interest, low-carbon energy future.  The Labour Party has promised ‘a green just transition’, yet this accommodates high-carbon capital. 

Analogous inconsistencies have arisen around the Labour Party’s London Mayor Sadiq Khan, as shown by Simon Pirani.  The Mayor describes himself as a ‘climate activist’, setting targets to reduce London’s GHG emissions, yet his actions have accommodated high-carbon business interests.  His last election manifesto promised to establish “a not-for-profit company providing a comprehensive range of energy services”, which could have displaced fossil fuels; yet this promise became reduced to a partnership with Octopus Energy. 

He has abandoned the congestion charge for evening travel.   He has accepted high-carbon developments such as the Silvertown Tunnel.  Moreover, his surveillance agents have spied on environmental activists and excluded them from public consultation events, thus demonstrating his true role as a climate anti-activist.

Conclusion

Tory politicians and Right-wing newspapers have derided the Labour Party policy as ‘a Just Stop Oil plan’, again making it look greener than the reality.  As shown here, its ‘clean energy mission’ is deceptive in several ways: it perpetuates fossil sources for the foreseeable future, depends on dubious techno-fixes, perpetuates obstacles to renewable energy substitution, greenwashes a high-carbon future, subordinates the labour movement to high-carbon capital, and so pre-empts a socially just, low-carbon transition.  Among other policies, these will generate mass opposition to the next Labour government. 

'We need a green deal right now', demand climate protesters as they disrupt a major education speech by Sir Keir Starmer, Credit: ITV News, 6 July 2023

No worries: The Labour Party leadership has denounced climate protests that might be effective and has endorsed strong criminal penalties. Its next government will retain the Tories’ legislative powers for deterring, repressing and criminalizing protest.  No surprise there: Keir Starmer has been loyally serving the UK security state since long before he became Labour Party leader.  He has been justifiably called ‘a cop in an expensive suit’, thus an elite role model for his Shadow Cabinet members and London’s Mayor.  

Alongside significant differences between the main political parties, they share a long-term commitment to perpetuate fossil fuels and to protect them through political repression.  With this realistic account of the Labour Party,  we can better discredit its ‘clean energy’ plan, prepare protest against its next government, and create alliances for an alternative future. 

Biographical note:  Les Levidow is a member of the Green Left within the Green Party of England and Wales. This article draws on general points from his new book, Beyond Climate Fixes: From Public Controversy to System Change, https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/beyond-climate-fixes

Some points from the book are summarized in this short article:
“Technofixes or solidaristic commoning? Our climate strategy must combat the 'technofixes-plus-markets' fraud”, The Ecologist, March 2023,
https://theecologist.org/2023/mar/20/techno-fixs-or-solidaristic-commoning

Nuclear Fusion: Eternal Energy = Eternal Damnation

Written by Don Fitz and Stan Cox

Like a third rate zombie movie on Netflix, delusions of nuclear fusion repeatedly rise from the dead.  The cover story in the June 2023 issue of Scientific American by Philip Ball, “Star Power: Does Fusion Have a Future After All?” recycles the corporate line which was broadcast on December 13, 2022.  The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced that the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory had reached a “breakthrough” in developing an alternative to fission.

As Joshua Frank described the hype over nuclear fusion …

“… there’s no toxic mining involved, nor do thousands of gallons of cold water have to be pumped in to cool overheated reactors, nor will there be radioactive waste byproducts lasting hundreds of thousands of years. And not a risk of a nuclear meltdown in sight! Fusion, so the cheery news went, is safe, effective, and efficient!”

After six months of the announcement’s being debunked, the Scientific American article admitted some of the inherent faults with fusion, repeated some of the original misstatements, and went on with detailed descriptions of technical tweaks necessary to make the technology viable in the second half of the century. Unfortunately,  most of those who criticized fusion missed one of its most serious dangers – that discovering a source of limitless cheap energy would doom humanity’s future rather than enhance it. 

The Terror 

In order to interpret the spin of the military-industrial-pseudo-scientific (MIPS) complex, we need to appreciate the primary obstacle to expanding nuclear power.  MIPS must overcome the intense terror of nukes.

The terror began with images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.  Photos of burnt bodies are burned into the minds of their viewers.  MIPS seeks to discount the images with the myth that Japan had to be nuked, even though it was ready to surrender.  The mythology continued with the “Atoms for Peace” false pretense that there could be a disconnect between nuclear power and nuclear bombs. 

A few decades went by and on March 28, 1979 Three-Mile Island melted down.  A good part of its infamy stemmed from repeated government lies that the event was not so serious and would have few long-lasting effects.  Americans would never be convinced that nukes would only be dangerous if the Soviets or Japanese built them.

Then there was Chernobyl on April 26, 1986.  In 2009 the New York Academy of Science published a detailed analysis estimating the total death count to be around 900,000 and the MIPS spewed forth venomous claims that it was not actually so bad, but was merely the worst human-caused catastrophe in history.

This was followed on March 11, 2011 with the Fukushima Daiichi apocalypse when 3 of 6 nuclear reactors melted down, spreading radioactivity into the neighboring Pacific Ocean and poisoning unknown quantities of aquatic life.  So, each generation from World War II through today, has memories of horrendous nuclear events which MIPS has been totally unsuccessful at erasing.

But credit should be given where it is due, and there is an area where MIPS has done quite well in its plugola efforts.  Those efforts have been to keep everyday leakage of nuclear material and “smaller” catastrophes either out of or reduced to short paragraphs in the corporate press.  Few know that “100 significant accidents happened in world’s nuclear power plants from mid-1950s to 2010.”  The world’s press has given scant attention to how people were used as guinea pigs in testing sites such as the Marshall Islands.  Souma Dutta notes such events:

“… in the Soviet nuclear test sites of Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, Novaya Zemlya and others, the French nuclear test sites of Reggane & Akker in Algeria and the Mururoa Atoll in the Pacific, the British test sites in the Australian territories of Monte Bello, Maralinga, Emu Field, and the Chinese test site of Lop Nur." 

Denial Non-Stop 

The Scientific American article lets us know which dangers of nuclear fusion that MIPS continues to deny six months after the NIF “breakthrough.”  Despite a good amount of evidence to contrary the article claims that nuclear fusion would (a) produce “near zero carbon emissions” but (b) “without creating the dangerous radioactive waste.” 

Though significant carbon emissions may not be produced during the immediate process of creating energy either through fission or fusion, considerable emissions are associated with producing and transporting the very large amount of equipment used in the life cycle of nukes.  Additionally, Stan carefully documents that, despite the myth that increases in solar, wind and nuclear power results in a decrease of fossil fuel use, “History and research tell us that a buildup of new energy capacity won’t flush oil and fossil gas out of the system.” 

That is hardly likely to change because solar power is nowhere close to “reproducing itself.”  According to T. Vijayendra …

“… the first ton of coal was extracted using human and animal muscle power. But soon, machines driven by coal energy were producing the capital equipment necessary to extract coal. This is not the case with solar energy. All the necessary equipment, including solar collectors, are produced through processes based on sources of energy other than the sun (coal, oil, uranium etc.).” 

Please remember that the goal of corporations is profit.  That requires expanding production by increasing the amount of energy used to the maximum.  If fusion were added to the energy mix, there would continue be little to no decrease in fossil fuel use. 

Equally fallacious is the claim that nuclear fusion would not result in deadly waste.  Essential for the fusion process is tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen.  Its isotopes can permeate metals and pass through the tiniest spaces in enclosures.  Since tritium can enter virtually any part of the human body, it can lead to a variety of cancers. 

Nuclear fusion would be even more inefficient at water use than would fission reactors.  Though not exactly a “waste product,” this wastage would seriously drain water supplies at a time when they are increasingly being exhausted. 

Dirty Little Secrets Creep into the Open 

Philip Ball’s article slyly admits the accuracy of several of the most frequent criticisms of the December 2022 “breakthrough” announcement.  They appear as a hint to the MIPS complex that, in order to manufacture consent on the grandeur of nuclear fusion, its acolytes should modify some of their more outlandish claims if they are to be taken seriously.

First, nuclear fusion is far, far too expensive to provide energy “too cheap to meter” during upcoming decades.  Not only is tritium (costing $30,000 per gram) necessary to start the initial reaction, reactors must be lined with expensive lithium.  Equipment to make the tiny event happen is enormous, requiring space equal to three football fields.  The complexity of the system requires twice as many employees – 1000 for fusion vs. 500 for a fission reactor.  This helps explain why original cost projections of $6.3 billion mushroomed to DOE’s current estimate of $65 billion.

Second, closely linked to cost is the contrast between the minuscule amount of electricity squeezed out with the use of 192 lasers in December 2022 and the gargantuan amount that would be needed to feed the grid. According to Brian Tokar, the Livermore blast lasted for one ten-billionth of a second.  Nowhere close to powering a major city for a year, or a month or even an hour.

Third, the cost for such a frivolous amount of energy means that no one seriously suggests that fusion reactors will power homes in the foreseeable future.  Many proponents now openly admit that claiming that the technology will be used to improve people’s lives is a hoax.  Ball quotes an industry spokesperson bluntly stating that “There is not today a single project underway to build a fusion power plant that will produce energy.”

Fourth, the real reason for the race to fusion is actually to allow the stockpiling of nuclear weapons that are even more dreadful than present ones.  Currently, a major difficulty in manufacturing nuclear bombs is “the need for highly enriched uranium or plutonium” to initiate the reaction.  Research with nuclear fusion could provide an alternative path to accomplish the ignition. 

Dr. M.V Ramana explains the search for “neutrons with the very short pulse widths characteristic of low-yield nuclear intercepts that can be used to establish lethal criteria for chemical/biological agents and nuclear warhead targets.”  Thus, if experimentation with nuclear fusion were to be successful, it could further shorten the Doomsday Clock, increasing the probability of human annihilation. 

To Dream the Impossible Dream  

Critiquing fusion on the basis that “It won’t work” has the subtle but ominous implication that, it might be okay if it did work.  This logic comes perilously close to Ball’s view that “The world is increasingly desperate for an abundant source of clean energy that can mitigate the climate crisis.”  The view that we must replace “bad” energy with “good” energy is omnipresent.  Placing limits on energy growth does not even fit into the corporate equation.

Let’s strip away the “bads” from nuclear fusion for a moment and ask “What would it be like to have alternative energy that was not excessively costly, did not damage the health of humans or other species, had zero carbon emissions throughout its production life cycle, could produce as much energy as we would ever want, and was not a con game for nuclear war?”

Such a quest for limitless energy is a journey into oblivion.  To dream the impossible energy dream is to hallucinate the most hideous nightmare.  Richard Heinberg warns of the dangers of ignoring limits, noting that if nuke fusion were to remove limits on energy production, corporations would expand production to endlessly deplete soil and destroy species habitat.

Searching for infinite energy other than fossil fuels would present dangers as ominous as nuclear war.  Christopher Ketcham summarizes:

“mainstream environmentalists have siloed climate change as a phenomenon apart from the broad human ecological footprint, separate from deforestation, overgrazing of livestock, megafauna kill-off, collapsing fisheries, desertification, depleted freshwater, soil degradation, oceanic garbage gyres, toxification of rainfall with microplastics, and on and on — the myriad biospheric effects of breakneck growth.” 

The attitude that “nothing is as threatening as climate change” has lured many into the abyss of ignoring (or minimizing) the humongous dangers of “alternative” energy (AltE).  Stan explains how AltE contributes to ongoing threats, writing that the total quantity of “human-made mass” – which is everything made by people – has now exceeded the “the total weight of all living plant, animal, and microbial biomass on Earth.”  This material mass is doubling every 20 years, it contributing to the “breakdown of of entire ecosystems” as well as climate change.

Just a few examples.  Each wind turbine requires more than 60 pounds of metal – and their numbers are growing exponentially.  Electric vehicles swallow “hundreds of millions of tons of lithium-ion batteries for power storage.”  If the world economy is to continue growing, while it converts to run fully on electricity from AltE sources later this century, the quantity of metals that will have to be extracted and processed during the next 15 years will exceed the amount produced for the last 5,000 years.  This will ignite an explosion in the number of mines and devastate entire ecosystems.  It is an open question of whether uncontrolled economic growth, climate change or nuclear war will trigger the demise of human civilization.  The quest for eternal energy is the basis of eternal growth which becomes the alter of eternal damnation.

The good news is that it does not have to be like this.  We now have the knowledge and ability to provide good lives for people throughout the world if we have the sense to distinguish what humanity needs vs. what corporations are greedy for.

Do we really need to build rocket ships to Mars?  Is the quality of our lives improved by having products that fall apart sooner and sooner?  Must there be a car for every adult on Earth instead of having communities where people get 80% of what they use by walking or cycling? 

Are Americans really safer by having over 700 military bases and the ability to exterminate every human many times over.  Don’s book on Cuban Health Care documents how that country’s medical system produces less infant mortality and a longer life expectancy than the US while spending less than 10% of what the US spends per person annually. 

Contrary to widespread propaganda, humanity does not desperately need more energy.  We desperately need to live better with less energy. 

Don Fitz (fitzdon@aol.com) is on the Editorial Board of Green Social Thought, where a version of this article originally appeared. He was the 2016 candidate of the Missouri Green Party for Governor.  His book, Cuban Health Care: The Ongoing Revolution, has been available since June 2020.  

Stan Cox (@CoxStan) is the author of The Path to a Livable Future and The Green New Deal & Beyond, both published by City Lights Books. He is starting the second year of writing the ‘In Real Time’ series for City Lights.