The Green New Wheels have fallen off the Labour Bus
JVL Introduction
The Labour Party has faced up to the contradiction between its policies promoting GDP growth and those pursuing policies to meet its legal targets to curb carbon emissions to net-zero by 2050. It has decided to come down on the side of growth. In the unfortunate words of Rachel Reeves, “growth trumps other things.” While we can envisage green forms of growth in terms of equality, relationships, recreation and education, the government vision will super-charge the growth in emissions. It has done this at a time when the so-called safe-ish limit of 1.5 C temperature rise since pre-industrial levels has gone and there are credible claims that in accelerating environmental decline, a continuously life threatening rise of 2 degrees is also history. So, it seems that we have a climate change denying government which ridicules local concerns about growth as promoted by nimbys hiding behind a concern for bats and newts. Starmer ordered his troops to sink the Climate and Nature Bill because it required specification of challenging emissions reduction targets.
George Monbiot, in the first article, lists Labour’s acts of environmental vandalism. He compares Labour’s trashing of environmental protection to the brief attempted bonfire of regulation during Liz Truss’s premiership. Rachel Reeves has called for expansion of airports in London, Gatwick, Luton, Doncaster and Sheffield, with the single biggest contributor to UK emissions serviced by sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). In fact, SAF provides 0.05% of the fuel used and involves considerable energy and agricultural land in its production. It is a pipedream. This has followed the £22 billion promised investment in Carbon Capture, Use Storage (CCUS) financed by increased energy bills. It is a technology beloved by fossil fuel corporations but never made to work at scale as reported by the government’s own Public Accounts Committee. Starmer’s insistence that it is fundamental to the Uk’s emissions targets seems delusional.
There has even been a call for the permission for new chicken factories to be speeded, which are major contributor to the pollution of our rivers. We are a long way from the brief recognition, when it was first in power, of the national horror at UK’s excrement filled rivers and seas in the government’s Water Bill, promising hefty penalties for the polluters. Nationalising the failing water companies is nowhere on the agenda and the regulators are being disparaged and defunded, in a continuation of Tory dogma.
The article in Labour Hub highlights the economic shortcomings of the government’s form of growth zealotry. It repeats Starmer’s determination to clear away a “thicket of red tape” (“which has spread through the economy like Japanese knotweed”) in which he appears to be channelling his inner Jacob Rees Mogg.
Both Monbiot and Labour Hub, recognise the need for new building and infrastructure; a permanent social rent sector, new hospitals and a revitalised and expanded social care. They describe only some of the ways in which Labour is pulling away from its environment commitments. A good test for the influence of those in Labour desperately wanting to cut UK emissions will be the government reaction to the Edinborough court’s ruling to prevent drilling in the Rosebank (Equinor – Norway National Oil) and Jackdaw (Shell) oilfields. Have meetings already taken place that encouraged both companies when they said they are pressing ahead with preparing to drill even though they “accept the ruling” of the courts? And will Ed Milliband find a voice to speak up for the environment after appearing, embarrassingly muted as he faced questions on the BBC today programme about the government’s dash to expand air travel?
TB
Look at Labour’s acts of environmental vandalism and ask: did I vote for this?
by George Monbiot
This article appeared in the Guardian on 30th January 2025
Our rivers, our wildlife, the air we breathe: the government is sacrificing all to the insatiable god of GDP – and mocking our objections
can scarcely believe I’m writing this, but it’s hard to dodge the conclusion. After 14 years of environmental vandalism, it might have seemed impossible for Labour to offer anything but improvement. But on green issues, this government is worse than the Tories.
The last prime minister to insist that growth should override every other consideration, and to fling insults at anyone who disagreed, was Liz Truss. She called those of us seeking to defend the living world an “anti-growth coalition”, “voices of decline” and “enemies of enterprise” who “don’t understand aspiration”.
Now Keir Starmer has picked up her theme and run with it. Those who challenge government policies that might promote GDP growth, however destructive and irrational, such as the planned expansion of Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Doncaster Sheffield airports, are “time-wasting nimbys”, “zealots” and “blockers”, engaged in “self-righteous virtue-signalling”.
Now his chancellor, Rachel Reeves, insists that growth “trumps other things”, including the government’s environmental commitments. The verb is unfortunate. The government’s new rhetoric is horribly reminiscent of the convicted felon: monomania, slogans and insults take the place of nuanced and complex policy.
It makes sense to improve east-west rail links and construct more reservoirs and offshore windfarms, as Reeves promised in her speech , and we urgently need new, genuinely affordable housing (alongside systemic change in the housing market). But there’s no justification in a climate emergency for airport expansion or new trunk roads, such as her Lower Thames Crossing. The “sustainable aviation fuels” the government plans to rely on don’t exist, and won’t materialise at scale.
Reeves mocks environmental concern in true Trumpian fashion, claiming that people object to schemes like the third runway she has just announced at Heathrow because they “might add something to carbon emissions in 20 years’ time”. There’s no “might” about it. They will. But who cares what happens in 20 years? It won’t be her problem.
Of course, this also means that such projects won’t deliver growth for 20 years, either. In fact, some evidence suggests that airport expansion doesn’t deliver growth at all. But even if it did, and the growth were used to fund new hospitals (a big if), we’d have to wait 20 or more years for that dividend. Is this really the policy?
An alternative would be to build hospitals now. As they are huge employers and help people return to work, they would appear more likely than airports to generate growth, as well as meeting our urgent needs. But a full hospital building plan is now a less urgent priority for the government than airport expansion. This contributes to the impression that, like Truss, when Reeves and Starmer say “growth”, what they really mean is meeting the demands of predatory lobbyists.
But let’s for a moment take them at their word. Let’s imagine that economic growth should be treated as the overriding national purpose. Let’s ignore the economist who standardised GDP, Simon Kuznets, who advised that “the welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income”. If this is the agenda, Starmer and Reeves should read a report published earlier this month, not by Extinction Rebellion, but by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. It warns that without immediate and decisive action, climate breakdown could reduce the size of the global economy by 50% between 2070 and 2090.
In other words, if Heathrow’s third runway is built, by 2040 it might or might not contribute a tiny increment to GDP. But it would, if the warning is correct, contribute to a comprehensive economic collapse shortly afterwards. Starmer accuses objectors to such schemes of having “slowed down our progress as a nation”. But when that “progress” is a demented rush towards the precipice, perhaps a slowing down – and a change in priorities – would serve us well.
But no – everything must be sacrificed to the god of GDP. For example, though chicken factories (huge steel sheds containing tens of thousands of birds) are killing the Wye and many other rivers, Steve Reed, the environment secretary, insists that planning permission for them should become easier to obtain. Planning is the only effective point of intervention: once the factories are built, the nitrates and phosphates they produce inevitably wreck nearby rivers. They are also likely to kill far more economic value than they create, as they ravage local economies built on tourism and block more benign developments as a result of nutrient overload. In this and other respects, the government is pre-empting its own water commission, which some of us see as one of the few signs of environmental progress since the Conservatives.
Last week, in a spectacular act of despoliation, Starmer sank the climate and nature bill, whose purpose was to bring government policy into line with its international commitments. Labour ordered its MPs to talk the bill out of time, and threatened to withdraw the whip from those who supported it.
The government’s attack on regulators goes even further than Truss’s. As bodies such as the Environment Agency, Natural England, the Health and Safety Executive and the chemicals agency UK Reach crumple through a lethal combination of underbudgeting and political hostility, Reeves insists that the job of regulators is to “drive growth”. But that is not their role. They exist to protect us, regardless of the demands of capital. After 15 years of deregulation through budget cuts and ministerial nudges, the results include the death of our rivers, the degradation of our soil, a catastrophic loss of wildlife, air pollution and noise exceeding safe levels, and a toxic load whose impacts on human health we can only begin to guess at. How does any of this improve our lives?
But never mind, let’s melt human life and the natural world down into money. GDP, a number which incorporates great harms as well as benefits, must trump all else. Then the government will have some numbers to boast about, even if they represent a decline in our wellbeing – our genuine prosperity.
These people may be more competent than Truss, but after just six months in power they have become as terrifying in their cold fanaticism and intolerance of dissent. Did you vote for this?
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George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
“Economically bad, environmentally bad and socially bad”
This second article appeared in Labour Hub on January 29th
Reactions are pouring in to Rachel Reeves’ ‘growth’ speech – and her commitment to a third Heathrow runway in particular.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has backed a third runway at London’s Heathrow Airport as part of a new effort to get the UK’s economy growing. “In a wide-ranging speech to business leaders, she also backed expansions at Luton and Gatwick airports, as well as a ‘growth corridor’ between Oxford and Cambridge,” the BBC reports.
New powers in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill would cut the length of time it takes to get infrastructure projects off the ground, according to Reeves, who announced a range of new infrastructural projects.
Keir Starmer has vowed to get rid of a “thicket of red tape” that he claimed was deterring foreign investment, and the Government also plans to relax restrictions on big pension funds to encourage them to invest more in UK businesses.
Labour opposition
The third runway at Heathrow has yet to receive planning permission, but puts the Party leadership on collision course with many senior Labour figures who oppose it. London Mayor Sadiq Khan responded: “I’m simply not convinced that you can have hundreds of thousands of additional flights at Heathrow every year without a hugely damaging impact on our environment.”
Former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP said: “This is such a huge political, economic & especially environmental mistake that sadly I fear it will inflict an irreparable scale of damage on the government.” He promised to convene a public meeting in the Heathrow Villages to discuss the situation.
Labour’s former Director of Policy under Jeremy Corbyn, Andrew Fisher, said a third Heathrow runway was “economically bad, environmentally bad and socially bad.” There were better things we could be building, he suggested, including a mass programme of council house building and home insulation.
Nadia Whittome MP suggested a forest twice the size of London would be required just to offset the Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton expansions. Zarah Sultana MP called the decision a “complete U-turn at the expense of local communities and the planet – reckless, short-sighted and indefensible.” Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn MP also voiced his opposition.
Labour’s former Parliamentary candidate in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Ali Milani, said: “It will act as a signal to all those watching around the world that we are not serious in meeting our climate obligations and critically, for those of us in the surrounding areas and in London, it means further deterioration of our health and environment. Heathrow is already the single biggest source of carbon emissions in the entire United Kingdom.”
Northern MPs were critical of the Chancellor’s focus on the South east. Former Shadow Business Secretary Jon Trickett MP said: “Money has been sucked out of the Regions and into the South East for decades. Long term cuts to transport spending in the North are effectively being used to increase investment in the South East and London…
“In order to reconnect with working class communities and rebuild trust in politics, the Labour government must avoid buying into the economic orthodoxy of the Treasury, whose restricted vision never seems to extend far beyond the M25. We need massive investment in the regions. The new Labour Government cannot simply be managers of an unjust and unfair economic system which has left so many people behind.”
A Momentum spokesperson criticised the Chancellor’s entire approach: “By relaxing planning constraints, pursuing Heathrow expansion at all cost, and enacting policies favouring private developers, asset managers and industry lobbyists, Reeves’s speech was deservedly praised by right-wing think tanks. Starmer became Prime Minister promising ‘change’ but in fact is continuing the same climate-trashing, pro-developer policies as the Tories.”
Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham was blunt: “The fact is that bending the knee to global billionaires, ‘unleashing’ corporate greed, has not delivered investment. We have historically low investment rates, the lowest in the G7. A different direction is needed.”
Pressure groups sceptical
Think tanks and pressure groups were also sceptical. Shaun Spiers, executive director at Green Alliance, said: “The economic case for bigger airports and new roads is highly questionable, and it’s crystal clear that pushing ahead with these will fly in the face of the UK’s climate targets.”
Beccy Speight, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds chief executive, agreed: “Some of today’s announcements put our climate targets at risk.”
Green New Deal Rising picketed the event and held up placards showing social media posts of Cabinet members explaining why they had opposed Heathrow expansion just a few years ago – including the Prime Minister himself. In 2020 he opposed a third runway at Heathrow because “there is no more important challenge than the climate emergency.”
The group said: “Even in the short-term, expanding airports will do nothing to boost our sluggish economy. Business passenger numbers have been falling for 20 years as business has moved online. All this decision will do is ensure a small number of frequent leisure flyers leave and spend their money outside the UK economy more regularly. That’s why previous expansions in airport capacity haven’t led to increased productivity or GDP.”
It added: “We just can’t have economic prosperity if we don’t get control of the climate emergency.”
“Rash, short-sighted” – Friends of the Earth
Rosie Downes, head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth, savaged the Chancellor’s vision, describing it as “the kind of dangerously short-sighted thinking that has helped cause the climate crisis and left the UK one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. Giving the go-ahead to airport expansion by depending on new, unreliable technologies, like ‘sustainable aviation fuels’ would be a reckless gamble with our future and risks the UK missing critical climate reduction targets even if we rapidly expand renewable energy.
“Similarly, allowing developers to bulldoze their way through crucial nature protections and safeguards will further diminish our seriously under-threat wildlife and natural environment.
“The net zero economy is the UK’s fastest growing sector. The government should seize the huge benefits that building a greener future will bring through cheap homegrown renewable energy and warm well-insulated homes, not back damaging projects like airports and the Lower Thames Crossing.
“Sacrificing nature and our climate isn’t leadership: it’s rash, short-sighted and a sure-fire way to lose the trust of those who believed Labour’s election promises on the environment. Instead the Chancellor must embrace green growth.”
“Tax the super-rich” – Women’s Budget Group
Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson, director at the Women’s Budget Group, said that prioritising physical infrastructure alone missed a critical barrier to a thriving economy.
“Our economy is being held back because people can’t access social care, get the right medical treatment when they need it, or because they cannot afford or secure a nursery place for their child. These services – our social infrastructure – are on their knees. Waiting for the economy to grow before investing in these services overlooks a critical point: public services are the backbone of a strong economy, not a consequence of it.
“What’s more, the care sector is an inherently green sector: our analysis has shown that investment in the care sector could create 2.7 times as many jobs as the same investment in construction and produce 30% less greenhouse gas emissions.
“We need to invest and grow our social infrastructure, and decarbonise our physical infrastructure. Expanding Heathrow airport is a worrying move from the Government, and flies in the face of our climate commitments. New research from the New Economics Foundation reveals such expansions would erase the climate benefits of the Government’s Clean Power Plan by 2050, with limited financial returns. We have long argued against the expansion of air travel.”
She concluded: “We urge the Government to honour their commitment to net zero, and their promise to call on those with the broadest shoulders. Easing the regulations around the non-dom tax regime – as recently announced by the Chancellor in Davos – is a step backwards. Last week, Oxfam’s latest inequality report showed that the total wealth of UK billionaires increased by £35m per day in 2024. Patriotic Millionaires’ recent G20 survey found 72% of millionaires support higher taxes on the super-rich to reduce inequality and strengthen public services. Taxing the super-rich would not only help fund the services and social security that women disproportionately rely on, it would also help close the gender wealth gap.”
Growth won’t fix poverty
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation agreed that the Government’s dash for growth would not fix the UK’s underlying problems, tweeting that there would not be “progress on child poverty by 2029 even with high economic growth.”
Only in Scotland, it argued, were child poverty rates expected to fall by 2029, largely thanks to the Scottish Child Payment and efforts to mitigate the two-child benefit limit. It concluded: “Any respectable child poverty strategy must include action on social security including to abolish the two-child limit and introduce a protected minimum amount of support to Universal Credit.”
Its new report UK Poverty 2025 is published today. It finds that more than one in five people in the UK (21%) were in poverty in 2022/23 – 14.3 million people. Of these, 8.1 million were working-age adults, 4.3 million were children and 1.9 million were pensioners. Poverty is deepening, the report finds.
Sign the petition against Heathrow expansion here.
On nuclear disarmament, Labour is just as appalling. So please ask your MP to sign Jeremy Corbyn’s EDM which deals with this matter:
https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/62446
Yep, all of the above, I’m not surprised at all. This is what you get by not curtailing all the Lobby Groups starting with the Israeli Lobby Groups that destroyed the Labour Party including Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters. How long will it take before the public as a whole realises that this ‘Labour Party’ apart from a few MPs that still have socialist views, are just as bad as the Tories.