By dropping the £28bn green pledge Labour are saying it doesn’t want the support of people like me

Part of me is surprised that it took Labour this long to walk away from their £28bn a year green investment pledge. By this point it’s clear that they are committed to running on the platform of “we cannot afford to do anything nice,” which they think is the sensible, grown-up thing to do. This is why Keir Starmer committed to keeping the two child benefit cap despite the fact that it’s driving families into poverty. If Labour won’t help starving children, then what chance does the environment have?

I guess protecting us all from the looming environmental disaster and making sure that the natural world is not irreversibly damaged, is the sort of thing that craft beer drinking metropolitan lefties like and is not a priority for the real people that Labour cares about. That is, people from Nuneaton who want to drive a 4x4 a hundred yards down the road to get milk six times a day and have a diet consisting entirely of meat, and will be damned if anyone wants to tell them this is a bad idea.

Labour would rather be on the side of the people who eat raw steak outside vegan food festivals instead of telling anyone who voted Conservative in 2019 that they might want to change their minds about a few things (apart from who they will vote for). At this point, Starmer’s plan might be to change the Labour party’s logo to a tree and see if they can confuse 2019 Tory voters into voting Labour by accident.

Investing in left behind regions

The Guardian called dropping the pledge “wrong, wrong, wrong” but swing voters don’t read the Guardian so that’s fine. Hopefully, The Daily Mail and The Sun have run stories about how this shows that Labour are sensible, grown-up politicians and now that they have dropped the £28bn a year pledge their readers should switch to voting Labour. Although, I have had a quick Google and the coverage hasn’t been great.

There is more going on here beyond the old divide between city dwelling lefties with blue hair who like nice things - like not dying - and the people who Labour really care about - who are presumably pro-hungry children and anti-clean air (if the backlash to the ULEZ is to be believed). There is a strong economic argument for investing this £28bn. It would create jobs in areas of the country that have suffered from post-Thatcher deindustrialization and have lower levels of economic growth, lower wages and lower living standards.

The industries of the future

This sensible economic policy was also about making Britain a world leader in green technology, a key industry now and in the future. This is about protecting the future from more than rising sea levels, it’s about protecting the economy from falling behind other nations and making sure we all have jobs and growth industries after we stop using oil for everything. America and the EU, not known for their radical left policies, are both investing heavily in green industries.

Even China is pumping money into solar and other green technologies (as well as burning vast amounts of fossil fuels). Surely, everyone from Workington to Walthamstow can agree this pledge was a sound economic plan?

A tactical error

Of course, all of this is to stave off Tory attack lines aimed at the policy. Now, so the thinking goes, Labour MPs won’t have to answer difficult questions, such as how will the £28bn be paid for: tax raises, borrowing or cuts elsewhere? The problem is dropping the pledge has now opened up the same Tory attack line on any number of other policies.

Now every time Labour MPs are asked about plans to make it easier for people to better insulate their homes or to set up a green energy supplier, (both good ideas) instead of being able to say the funding for this will come out of the £28bn they will now have to answer the awkward tax, borrow, or cut question on every single policy.

Strong arguments

There is tactically a case that this is the wrong decision. You can also defend the pledge on the basis that it makes economic sense to use the power of the state (who can borrow at low interest rates) to invest in the industries of the future and to try to locate these in parts of the country that suffer from the lack of jobs and lower standards of living. This is better than leaving it to the free market, which will inevitably locate more jobs where it is most efficient: in London, the South East and other large cities.

There is also the case that with the world facing dangerously high temperature rises, and other alarming environmental warnings, then we need to start acting now and drastically to protect the future of life on Earth.

Anti-saving the environment. Pro-cheap mortgages

Starmer is unmoved by all this. I’m sure it’s been pointed out to the people at the top of the party. Labour are mainly concerned about winning the support of the people who don’t care about the future of the planet or the British economy. Or at least, don’t want a government that makes it a priority. Y’know, Tory voters.

These are the people who want everything to stay pretty much as it is even after years of Tory ruin; rising homelessness and child poverty, economic stagnation and crumbling schools, the NHS on its knees, etc. etc. These people are only switching to Labour because Liz Truss pushed up the cost of their mortgages.

People like me

This is the last, of many signs, that Labour doesn’t care about people like me. I don’t mean people like me who voted for Jeremy Corbyn and support socialism - both of which I did/do - I mean people who want a Labour government that will change people’s lives for the better.

If Labour doesn’t want the support of people who want to improve society, clean up the environment and feed hungry children then Labour doesn’t want my support and I don’t want to support it.