Keir Starmer on October 2, 2024 - Number 10, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Communist Party of Britain (CPB) chair Ruth Styles has launched an all-round attack on the priorities so far of Keir Starmer's Labour government.
The CPB reports she accused it of putting the interests of the energy monopolies, arms corporations and the private healthcare giants before those of the millions of poor and vulnerable people in society.
In a report to the CP's Political Committee on Tuesday evening (October 8), Ms Styles criticised Labour plans to invest £22bn in "unproven" carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology that could be used to assist oil and gas extraction rather than curb fossil fuel production and slash carbon emissions.
She contrasted costly CCS projects in Canada to massive new Chinese investment in greener and cheaper wind and solar power alternatives.
"Chancellor Reeves tells us the Tories left a £22bn 'black hole' in Britain's public finances, yet the Labour government is prepared to splash exactly that sum on inefficient CCS technology designed to boost energy super-profits", the CP chair remarked.
She said nobody should be fooled by Tuesday's Ofwat ruling that polluting English and Welsh water companies must refund £160m to their customers.
"These crooks want to add £100bn to our bills to fund capital investment, having paid £66bn to shareholders since privatisation and loaded the companies with debts totalling £60bn", she pointed out, demanding nationalisation of the industry.
Likewise, the CPB chair condemned the £13bn pledged by British governments so far to prolong the Ukraine War.
"Instead of seeking a peaceful resolution to the conflict escalated by the Russian invasion of February 2022, the US and Britain are fighting a proxy war to capture energy markets at Russian expense while extending NATO and the EU eastwards", Ms Styles declared.
She also noted the heavy carbon footprint of arms production and use, much of which is not counted in emissions estimates.
Britain's Communists labelled the new UK-Mauritius agreement on the Chagos Islands an "anti-democratic imperialist carve-up" imposed on Chagossian families evicted from their homeland fifty years ago. Under the deal, Britain keeps control of the largest island, Diego Garcia, which hosts a major US military base within striking distance of East Africa, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region.
On the first anniversary of the brutal Hamas attack on Israeli civilians as well as military personnel, the Communist Party called for an end to Prime Minister Netanyahu's policy of "mass murder" in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and southern Lebanon.
Ruth Styles also deplored Keir Starmer's complicity in Israel's "genocidal war" on Gaza and echoed the TUC demand for a ban on all British arms exports to the extreme right-wing Tel Aviv regime.
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