Youth climate activists have claimed a checklist of environmental policies proposed this week by Keir Starmer and his shadow cabinet is proof organising and movement pressure can still sway Labour. At a Labour conference under the banner of “a fairer, greener Britain”, Starmer on Tuesday announced a “green prosperity plan”, aimed at “tackling the climate head on, and using it to create the jobs, the industries and the opportunities of the future”. Labour would set up a publicly owned Great British Energy company focused on renewables; establish a £60bn scheme to insulate 19m homes; make billions of pounds of investment in sustainable industries; and embark on a world-leading plan to reach net zero in energy by 2030. Hannah Martin, co-director of Green New Deal Rising, a youth campaign group, said the proposals were lifted “straight out of the green new deal playbook”. She said they had come after campaigning and pressure on Labour for over a year. “Green new deal policies were the talk of Labour conference, and thanks to the pressure and ideas from young activists, Labour have started to announce bold commitments that would make it a reality in government,” she said. “Pledges to achieve clean power by 2030, create a publicly owned energy company and a public stake in renewables investment are wins for the climate movement who have been organising across the country for years. And these policies make sense for the UK and make sense for the party if they want to win in 2024.” Launched in August last year, Green New Deal Rising organises young people in the UK to challenge politicians and spread awareness of a just transition to a more sustainable future. The group calls for a fast decarbonisation of the economy, public ownership of key sectors, the creation of unionised jobs in sustainable industries, conservation of nature and promotion of global justice. More than 1,000 people were involved in organising channels and hundreds of volunteers had taken part in actions, while tens of thousands more were on the movement’s mailing list, Martin said. At the Labour conference last year, Starmer ignored Green New Deal Rising activists who tried to speak to him. But since then, they had challenged dozens of Labour MPs in person, including most of the party’s frontbench team, and thousands of young supporters had written letters to MPs encouraging them to back green left policies. It was after a big Green New Deal Rising organising push that a cross-party group of MPs, including many from Labour, introduced a green new deal bill last October. “We have challenged over 75 Labour MPs since last summer, making the case for transformative Green New Deal policies,” Martin said. “Now it seems that this leadership is finally realising that you can win over the public and fight the climate crisis through big ticket policies that tackle inequality whilst growing communities.”
The Starmer Labour party’s green policies have come despite a comprehensive purge of the party’s left, traditionally the guardian of environmental concerns. Since he took over as leader, more than 200,000 members have left. But there is also a sense that Green New Deal Rising could be said to be pushing at an open door. After nearly five years of repeated and increasingly dire warnings from scientists, and campaigns by activist groups such as Extinction Rebellion that have raised awareness, concern over the climate crisis is now mainstream in the UK. Last year a poll by Ipsos found four in five people were concerned about climate change, with a similar proportions thinking it was a global emergency and caused by human activity. Martin conceded that significant gaps remained in Labour’s offer, not least silence over plans for decarbonising transport and other parts of the economy, and no suggestion of plans to nationalise key industries such as electricity and other utilities. “But we, together with the rest of the climate and social justice movements, will keep the pressure up until Labour commits to a transformative Green New Deal, which would include full public ownership of energy, investment in public services like social care and the NHS and taxes on the rich and big corporations to pay for it,” she said.