Voters in Labour Red Wall target seats back taking energy into public ownership
Voters in Red Wall seats targeted by Labour support taking energy back into public ownership, a poll reveals.
Around two in three (64%) people living in constituencies in the North, Midlands and Wales seized by the Tories in 2019 think the UK’s domestic energy industry should be brought back into public ownership. The Survation poll of 2,000 voters for the Unite union also found that seven in 10 (73%) said the National Grid – gas and electric – should be publicly-owned again.
It comes as Labour conference was due to debate a motion on Monday arguing privatisation of key national infrastructure has failed and should be taken back into public hands. Unite, Labour's biggest union backer, has been putting pressure on the party to be more radical on energy, with a grassroots campaign across a string of industrial constituencies.
Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham told the Mirror: "These are their voters, this is where they want to go and to get votes from. If they don't take any notice of these voters, then apathy may well be the winner at the election."
Ms Graham, who has been publicly critical of the Labour leader, urged Mr Starmer to take inspiration from the 1945 Government led by Clement Atlee rather than being "timid". "For 13 years we've had a shameful Tory government, batting for business, batting for the city, dragging all the spoils into the very small group of people's hands," she said.
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Asked about criticism of her attacks on Labour, she said: "I will campaign for a Labour Government, I want a Labour Government and it's something that is the country absolutely 100% needs there is no doubt about that. But it needs a 'Labour' government. Why I think it's important for me to say what I'm saying... that's what everyone is saying up and down the country".
It comes as Labour set out plan to "rewire Britain" with a clean energy grid as party of its blueprint for a new publicly-owned energy company known as GB Energy. Under the plans, GB Energy would work in coordinating the transmission operators to launch a super-tender to procure the grid supply chain that Britain needs.
Research from the Common Wealth think-tank, reported in the Sunday Mirror, found Britain’s privatised energy network has handed £28 billion since it was sold off by the Tories in 1990. But it still takes an average of 13 years to connect renewable projects like wind farms to the grid.
When wind farms create more energy than the grid can handle, National Grid pay them to shut down at a cost of up to £62 million a day. The researchers argued that renationalising the grid would save billions of pounds and allow the Government to invest in infrastructure rather than paying shareholders.
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