Labour conference votes to nationalise energy
3 years ago by mannycalavera to c/uk_politics
The shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds told the BBC: "We're not going to nationalise the energy system."
Asked if they would follow the vote, he said: "No."
Just so they can get something for their membership fee.
I've never understood why anyone would pay to be a member of a political party tbh.
Unite set up the vote to embarrass the party leaders. It succeed in this.
The actual point left out is that this not needed and would involve buying out companies, and needlessly paying them money.
Instead Labour's plan is to set up their own energy company. This will either succeed and force existing companies to set prices fairly or to go out of business, or it will fail without damaging the market. Either way it's cheaper and safer than forcefully nationalising existing firms.
I've always thought this would be the best option for essential services. Then it's there as a service provider of last resort in case a private provider fails. And if the private sector can indeed provide the service more efficiently even after paying it's shareholders, great, have at it in competition with the state offering. We even have this in places (see NS&I).
Democracy in name only.
Crazy how when it was about leaving the EU the decision of the voters couldn't be infringed, but when nationalizing property rental and energy all the sudden it doesn't even matter.
One was a national vote, the other is a vote by party members.
I'm sure you can see the difference.
Are you insinuating that the Labour party membership is in fact not the entire population of the UK? Eh?!
Incredible as it may seem, I have evidence to suggest that that is not the case.
Well blow me down! The internet has lied to me.
It depends on if you want them to win the next election or not I guess?
It's not that I'm unsympathetic to the idea of some sort of public provision of energy supply but if you have the cash to borrow to buy up the entire energy generation sector I can find capital projects that will get you much more bang for your buck.
The point of nationalised services isn't to make a profit. Considering that everyone is paying huge amounts more than they used to for power as they're struggling to get by whilst the companies make record profits, I'd be surprised if it wasn't a popular policy.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Delegates voted for a motion, proposed by Labour's largest backer, the union Unite, to "reaffirm" the party's commitment to public ownership of railways and the energy industry.
Momentum, the left-wing pressure group set up to support former leader Jeremy Corbyn, called the vote "a huge victory - and a clear message to the leadership".
Before the vote, Unite published a survey which found voters in seats known as the Red Wall - traditionally Labour areas where the Conservatives won in 2019 - were overwhelmingly in favour of putting energy utilities back into public ownership.
More than two-thirds of the 2,000 potential voters surveyed in those constituencies across the North, Midlands and Wales agreed that the UK's domestic energy industry should be in public ownership.
The motion also reaffirmed Labour's commitment to build HS2 in full and to retain or reopen fully staffed rail ticket officers.
On Thursday, Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer said he could not commit to building HS2's northern leg after the government "took a wrecking ball" to the project's finances.
The original article contains 457 words, the summary contains 173 words. Saved 62%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
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What's the point of asking the party members then?
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