The Green Transition: Two by-elections and a geopolitical crisis
Weekly analysis of the shift towards a new economy.
Dear Readers,
Happy Friday – Jonny Ball here, associate editor of Spotlight, the New Statesman’s policy section. As ever, you’ll find our coverage at newstatesman.com/spotlight.
ICYMI, we’ve published a couple of supplements with the New Statesman print magazine in recent weeks, one on healthcare and one on economic growth, with input from the Labour front bench, rock-star economists, government ministers and our own excellent Spotlight team. You can now check out the print and online versions of our publications on our homepage or here if you are partial to a PDF.
Anyway, let’s get into it. Have a great weekend.
Two by-elections and a geopolitical crisis
It’s been a grim week, with the horrendous news out of Israel and Gaza dominating headlines. At the time of writing, the conflict has caused untold damage within Israel and the occupied territories but is still relatively contained. Yet energy markets have already priced in the risk of escalation and a direct confrontation with Iran, with the cost of a barrel of crude jumping in recent days following a deadly blast at a hospital in Gaza. Some have even suggested that China could use the opportunity of thinly stretched Western diplomatic focus – on Putin as well as the Middle East – to blockade or invade Taiwan, in which case all bets are off (and WWIII is potentially on).
Just as the 1973 Yom Kippur war led to sky-high prices that fed into the inflationary spiral of the 1970s, and just as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine precipitated our contemporary energy crisis, today’s volatile geopolitics demonstrate the necessity of turning those new economic buzzwords — security, resilience — into reality.
Reliance on energy imports from despotic regimes or regions riven by conflict is no longer sustainable. The green transition isn’t just about net zero imperatives, but about ensuring the country can withstand global shocks without punishing cost-of-living crises.
Coupled with all of this is the desire of many Western economies to “reshore” and “friend-shore” their high-end manufacturing jobs and supply chains, particularly for goods in strategic net zero industries like renewables, batteries, semiconductors and EVs. Great Power stand-offs aren’t good for trade. Hand-in-hand with the new vogue for active, interventionist government is a desire to insulate national economies from the fallout of challenging global events, reducing our carbon footprint and staving off global heating above 1.5 degrees in the process. Even the centre-right think tank, Onward, has a new report citing support for a strategic, muscular state, driven by these missions, as the “future of Conservatism”.
Prescient parochialism
Against this dangerous, depressing backdrop, two by-elections in separate Tory shires may seem parochial. But last night’s results do have implications for the way the UK approaches the new era of geopolitical, economic, and climate volatility.
Labour secured two massive wins in Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth, the former seats of Nadine Dorries and Chris Pincher — both now disgraced in their own unique ways. In Tamworth, Labour ate away at a gigantic Conservative majority, with 43 percentage points between the two parties at the last general election. In former true blue Mid Bedfordshire, you have to go back to the year of the Wall Street Crash before you see a non-Tory victory. Labour’s winning candidate there, Alistair Strathern, who has held a climate change role at the Bank of England, was attacked by his rivals when pictures emerged of him appearing dressed as a zombie at a Greenpeace demonstration. But it doesn’t seem to have done him any harm. One suspects he will be a key environmental advocate in parliament, and certainly one to watch.
King of the Psephologists Professor John Curtice was on hand to tell BBC News viewers that “no government has hitherto lost a seat as safe as Tamworth to the principal opposition party in a by-election”. This was yet another signal that Labour is on course to win a big majority at the next election.
Sizeable enough, even, for Keir Starmer to start dreaming of having enough leeway to push significant planning reforms through the Commons. Any route to a large Labour majority runs precisely through constituencies like Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire that will be home to strong opposition to hundreds of miles of pylons and cables connecting new renewable energy projects to the grid through leafy, green fields. The failed Conservative by-election candidate in the latter constituency even attempted to turn the issue to his advantage in the campaign, launching a petition to protect the area’s green belt.
At Labour’s conference almost a fortnight ago, we learnt in numerous fringe events and from the conference podium, that planning reforms are the sine qua non of unlocking the essential upgrades in grid and energy infrastructure that will, theoretically, power us to net zero. When it comes to “getting Britain building” Starmer said he’d “get tough” with nimby Labour MPs (and there will be plenty) who side with local opposition to housing and infrastructure developments.
But what the by-elections confirm is that it will almost certainly be the Labour Party that the British public chooses to steer the ship of state in this increasingly unpredictable era. Onward may be calling for a renewed, one nation Toryism to face the geopolitical and security challenges of the age, but they’re unlikely to get it from the achingly orthodox Rishi Sunak or Jeremy Hunt. Their adherence to a tired, outmoded policy agenda sets them dangerously against the spirit of the times, leaving Britain rudderless in an uncertain world.
In Brief
IRA leads the way: Ben Westerman has written for Spotlight about Labour’s response to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and the most interventionist presidency “since Roosevelt”. If the by-election results are anything to go by, then all eyes in the UK netzeronomics world should be on what the opposition is planning come 2024…
It’s the supply-side, stoopid: “Supply-side economics” has historically been associated with the free market right, but is enjoying a moment on the left after US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen christened her domestic policy agenda as “modern supply-side”. The Economist has this piece on the British version: “supply-side social democracy”.
Greening the grid: At Labour Party Conference earlier this month, Spotlight’s sustainability policy correspondent spent much of the time discussing the need to decarbonise the grid. Read her report on whether Labour is up the challenge.
The future of Conservatism?: The battle for the soul of the Tory Party has started early. With many MPs resigned to losing the next election, differing visions of Braverman-populism, Trussite market-mania, and new-school one nation interventionism are competing in a crowded ideological marketplace. Not exactly focusing on net zero, but instead on the need for strong, active government to ferry us through an age of geopolitical, economic and climate instability, Onward’s new report is an essential exposition of the latter faction’s policy preferences.
Thank you for reading, and please send any news or comments to: jonathan.ball@newstatesman.co.uk
See you next week.
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