System crisis! All out on 12 February!

Protest the ‘Cost of Living Crisis’

Allan Todd writes: Recently, the media has been full of headlines about crises: cost of living, inflation, energy prices, health and social care, pandemics – and even, though less frequently, climate collapse. Even The Guardian is now asking why no one is “up in arms”, given that the latest massive hike in energy prices – at a time when we are already experiencing the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades – will plunge one in three families into ‘fuel stress.’ While mainstream politicians claim these are separate crises, ecosocialists recognise these are interrelated crises of the entire capitalist system.

Recently, several activists of Insulate Britain were jailed for trying to get this government to begin a massive programme to insulate the UK’s houses. Such a programme would take millions of people out of fuel poverty. It would also greatly reduce the number of people dying each year because they cannot afford to heat their homes. In fact, Britain has the worst record in Europe for this: in 2020, fuel poverty charities estimated such deaths at approx 10,000 a year.

Insulate Britain activists – more attuned than the Tories to the suffering caused by fuel poverty

A national insulation programme, combined with putting taxpayers’ money into renewable energy, would greatly reduce our carbon emissions. In addition, our reliance on the profiteering and polluting fossil-fuel giants – now posting record profits, while continuing to drive the Climate and Ecological Crises – would be massively reduced. This pointed out by both the Greener Jobs Alliance and Friends of the Earth, to name but two.

Lies, lies and more damned lies!

The Tories’ record on this is as appalling as on the number of working families currently living below the poverty line. This present hike in energy prices will see 25% of UK households – 15m people! – ending up in fuel poverty. The government’s £200 ‘rebate’ for domestic customers will have to be paid back and even Sunak has admitted that energy prices will be going up again this autumn. And the Bank of England expects inflation to have risen by 7% by then!

Of course, we’re all used to Tory politicians lying to the public, as well as to parliament, especially right now! One of their biggest lies was first touted by Thatcher and her hard-right neoliberal governments: ‘There Is No Alternative’ – or TINA as it became known. In the 1980s, the Tories lied when they said there was no alternative to letting free-market capitalism do exactly what it wanted.

The latest Tory TINA lie is being spread by Johnson and his government when they claim there is no alternative to the £700 rise in domestic fuel bills, an increase of 50% on most people’s annual bills! Across Europe, governments are taking steps to protect their citizens from huge increases in their energy bills. France is forcing EDF to take a cut in profits of €8.5bn (£7bn), in order to keep increases in household energy bills to no more than 4%. Other governments are also taking action to protect households already being squeezed by the cost-of-living crisis. In Spain, the government is imposing a windfall tax on the energy companies – which are making huge profits – in order to help keep home energy bills low. In Portugal, the government is capping energy prices for domestic consumers, and has guaranteed no price increases for the rest of the year. In Norway, the government will pay 80% of people’s bills above a capped price.

Protect the rich, hit the poor!

Given Rishi Sunak’s pathetic ‘response’ to soaring energy bills in the UK, it’s small wonder that he’s been described as being “missing in action” in this crisis! His ‘rebate’ won’t stop the latest increase in energy bills driving millions into poverty. But his inaction will ensure that dirty energy companies like Shell, BP and British Gas are able to keep all the record profits they’ve just posted, no doubt helped by the fact that they’ve paid no corporation tax at all on their North Sea operations!

“Gosh! What a dilemma! Do I help the poorest people with their energy bills? Or…do I let the dirty energy companies carry on making massive profits without paying their fair share of taxes?”

Two years ago, Owen Jones pointed out how the UK’s ‘excess’ winter deaths is TWICE that of Finland’s, despite London’s average January temperature bring 10C higher than that of Helsinki. Most of these ‘excess’ deaths are amongst the poorest members of society – and, as Jones rightly commented, if thousands of people were needlessly dying, each year, in affluent neighbourhoods, UK governments would have taken action before now.

With the current hike in domestic energy prices coming at a time of rising inflation and with the ending of the triple-lock on pensions, older people will be amongst the hardest hit. Two years ago, almost 2m UK pensioners were living below the poverty line: a figure that compared very harshly with other wealthy nations. No wonder the UK has been called the “cold man of Europe”!

Can’t pay? Won’t pay!

As if in answer to The Guardian’s question as to why people aren’t “up in arms” about all this, the People’s Assembly – backed by trade unions, community groups and political organisations, including Left Unity – has called for a massive turn-out, across the country, on Saturday 12 February, to protest the Tories’ multiple attacks on people’s living standards.

These ‘Cost of Living Crisis’ protests will take place in many different towns and cities, at times varying between 12.00pm and 1.00pm. Up-to-date details can be found here.

If you think you’ve heard all this before – you have!! These, and other policies for a fairer and greener UK, were in Labour’s 2019 election Manifesto, when Jeremy Corbyn was still Labour Party Leader.

When Labour’s Green New Deal still seemed a possibility!

Under Corbyn, Labour had ambitious plans for a Green New Deal and a Green Industrial Revolution, which FoE thought was better than what was on offer from the Green Party! Amongst other things, its ‘Warm Homes for All’ planned to properly insulate every home by 2030, reducing home emissions by 10% and thus cutting families’ energy bills by £416 a year, AND thus the number of families living in fuel poverty. Its pledge to take the energy companies into public ownership would have provided free energy for many working-class households. Finally, it proposed a windfall tax on the oil and gas companies, so that the costs of tackling the Climate Crisis would fall on the polluters, not on UK citizens.

Sadly, within a short while of taking over as Labour Leader, Starmer had already begun watering down these commitments. However, Left Unity, with the Ecosocialist Alliance and the People’s Alliance of the Left (#PAL), both of which we are involved with, will continue calling for such policies. In particular, for an immediate windfall-tax on the dirty energy companies; an end to all taxpayers’ subsidies to them; and for a massive programme of insulating people’s homes. Ultimately, of course, all energy companies will need to be taken into public ownership.

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Allan Todd is a member of Left Unity, an ecosocialist/environmental and anti-fascist activist, and author of Revolutions 1789-1917 and the forthcoming (Spring 2022) Trotsky: The Passionate Revolutionary