REBECCA LONG BAILEY has spoken out against Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s broken promise on energy nationalisation, declaring that public ownership is essential for tackling the climate crisis. 

Sir Keir sparked anger at the party’s conference in Brighton this week when he ditched his own pledge to bring the “big six” energy companies into public hands. 

Speaking at The World Transformed fringe festival, the former shadow business secretary, one of the key architects of the party’s green new deal under the previous leadership, made it clear she was against the move. 

“There’s been a bit of confusion about what the Labour Party’s position is on public ownership — that it’s an ideological flight of fancy and we really need to be focusing on more important things,” she said. 

“I would say that public ownership is essential if we’re going to be able to tackle climate change. 

“We can’t make the changes and investments at the pace that we need to make them without taking control of critical energy networks and some of the big energy suppliers so that we can roll out those changes as quickly as possible.”

Attendees heard from Labour activists that they can no longer rely on the party leadership to support a green jobs revolution and must now look to grassroots movements and trade unions. 

Sir Keir told the BBC on Sunday that he would not nationalise the big energy firms if he became prime minister.  

Shown one of his 10 campaign pledges stating that “public services should be in public hands,” he said: “I don’t see nationalisation there. When it comes to common ownership I’m pragmatic about this. I do not agree with the argument that says we must be ideological.”