What’s important about Labour’s energy announcement today is that it has drawn a dividing line with the Tory party. It places the government under more pressure over living standards. Now the Tories have to respond.
Labour’s position has its limitations. At all costs, Labour is determined to hold onto the line that the energy sector will remain in private hands. Gordon Brown’s proposals last week contained an opening for forms of public ownership, albeit temporary and as a last resort. But Labour will not go even that far. Holding this ground leaves Labour dancing round the subject, relying on contortions when questioned.
Unite’s General Secretary, Sharon Graham responded to the announcement saying it is a “step forward from what’s been proposed until now” but that it does not address more structural problems.
She argued: “Only days ago BP announced that in April to June this year it had made almost £7 billion profits. On the same day it was being openly contemplated that household energy bills in the UK could rise to £3,600 a year. Labour’s new plans - although a step forward from what’s been proposed until now - only address the second part of this dichotomy. Not the first.”
It is an interesting aspect of Labour’s announcement that the media coverage today has aired the very issue - public ownership – that Labour’s front bench won’t countenance. By saying prices can be frozen, Labour was widening the scope of the debate amongst a larger audience. It was placing the problems of the energy sector into the centre of a debate about what to do about it. In doing so it gave new platforms for arguments the party leadership does not actually support. That’s because the force of those arguments is extremely strong. For this reason, they will keep coming back.
Whatever the individual features of Labour’s proposal, it is now most important as a campaigning dividing line. Indeed, it may well increase the likelihood that the Tories will be forced into some form of ameliorative measure, however inadequate. There is now a range of measures proposed from the Labour and trade union movement to stop the autumn energy price crisis, including those of the Labour leadership and those to its left. Keeping the living standards issue completely central is the best way both to force concessions from the government and simultaneously define politics in terms most favourable to the labour movement.
If Labour had held back from a big offer of this type the party would not have been able to dominate the debate today. There is a more general lesson there for the party. Whoever sets the terms of the debate is most likely to win it.
At the moment, the Tories do not even seem to be present at the debate at all.