The Labour leader will ignore the movement's calls for public ownership of energy to his detriment, writes activist Ben Davies.

Ben Davies is an activist with Labour for a Green New Deal.

At Labour for a Green New Deal we came into the conference needing to pass our Green New Deal motion – with people, particularly in the global south, already dying as a result of climate change, the time to start taking serious action was years ago, and public ownership must be a part of the solution to the climate crisis.

We cannot expect to tackle climate change if the key resources in relation to doing so are left in private hands. There, they are not – ultimately – used for the common good, including in relation to the fight against climate change, but for the ends of private individuals. Even ‘good’ private individuals will never deliver the same use of their resources in relation to fighting climate change that public ownership would, because profit is always present as a factor in private ownership and profit is a selfish endeavour.

So it was vital we passed our Green New Deal motion, which contains clear public ownership commitments for energy, water and transport – as well as universal services including a National Care Service. In alliance with trade unions and CLPs from across the country, we did so with such an overwhelming majority amongst delegates that it was passed just on a show of hands alone.

That wasn’t the only development for us, though, with a slew of headlines on Labour’s climate policy, particularly relating to energy nationalisation. Whilst the party’s leader decided to rule it out on Andrew Marr’s show – suggesting he was lying when he committed to it multiple times in his leadership campaign – Ed Miliband followed up his recent Newsnight commitment to it by stating that public ownership should play “its proper role” in the fight against climate change, in his conference speech.

His belief in it is not unique, though. On the first day of conference new polling revealed that public ownership of key utilities is now a matter of common sense both in the party as well as more broadly, with 53% of the general public supporting it as well as 74% of Labour voters.

In other words, we increasingly find wide support for the idea that if we want to fight climate change we have to take control of the key resources for doing that. In the party very few people are hanging on to their opposition to this obvious solution to saving our planet.

Those isolated few are largely the members of a Blairite tribute act that have formed a testudo around Starmer. With his obvious lack of genuine political belief beyond a desire to become prime minister and that the clever people around him know what they’re doing, he cannot really be said to be responsible for his archaic opposition to public ownership to save the planet. It’s Labour policy that feels like a relic from the 90s, when climate change wasn’t such a concern, and the era of Peter Mandelson and anti-democratic party bureaucracy, rather than 2021, the era of… Peter Mandelson and anti-democratic party bureaucracy.

Which brings us onto arguably the greatest challenge facing everyone in Labour who believes in our Green New Deal – fighting the anti-democratic backlash on this issue that we are sure to see from Starmer and those around him as we go forward. Labour is the party of working people, and we, the members, deserve to have control of it. On paper, we do: the party’s rulebook clearly states that the party’s work is “under the control” of its conference.

But in practice we face more of a struggle. There are two clear routes for those in the leadership who wish to ignore party democracy and the policy we need on climate change: day to day statements from the leader, like his Marr appearance, and the party’s manifesto, the writing of which can easily be manipulated by the leadership.

The leadership does not have to ignore conference and plough on. The option to respect party democracy is there. Labour Party conference is, after all, a huge democratic exercise, with CLPs representing hundreds of thousands of people voting to send motions and delegates, and unions performing similar exercises. Ignoring it would send out a clear message: we’ve seen the democratic option, we’re choosing the other one, and this party isn’t for you.

No matter which option Starmer and the people around him choose, we can stay and fight to show him that he’s wrong – that this party is for people who want to properly address climate change. As much as anything else, a consensus of party members, not to mention the Shadow Business Secretary, agree with us on this issue. The option is absolutely open to Starmer to join us – the rest of his party.

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