Scott Jones, East London Socialist Party
‘Renationalise energy!’ Does Blairite former prime minister Gordon Brown now agree with the Socialist Party?
The energy price cap could be as high as £4,200 a year by January, and the profits of the energy companies in the billions – doubling and even quintupling in some cases. Even the representatives of capitalism recognise that something needs to be done.
People are on the bones of their arses already from inflation and little to no real-terms pay increases for years. The ever-increasing energy bills will leave many destitute, living without electricity and heating.
But behind the headlines, Gordon Brown is saying that only energy companies that cannot offer lower bills should be brought into public ownership, and only temporarily. Like what his government did with the banks after the 2007-08 financial crash, his proposal would leave their profits alone in a bid to temporarily act as a sticking plaster during the crisis. And Starmer’s Labour won’t even go that far, ruling out renationalisation full stop!
Meanwhile, the Tories are fighting each other on another planet – a million miles from the real world of struggling working and poor people.
The energy bosses don’t want to cut into their massive profits, and none of the big parties or their leaders want to force them to. And you can’t control what you don’t own. The energy industry should be renationalised, but all of it, permanently, and under democratic workers’ control and management, with compensation paid only on the basis of proven need.
That way the energy industry can be properly planned to meet our needs, lower bills and stop fuel poverty, as well as rapidly switching to green energy to combat climate change and carry out a massive programme of home insulation.
We need a political voice, a new workers’ party that will fight for this on a mass scale, and use the money in society that is currently lining the pockets of the super-rich, to beat the cost-of-living crisis and fight for socialist policies.
