LABOUR’S 136-page general election manifesto contains almost as many pictures of Keir Starmer as it does concrete policy commitments.

There are 191 mentions of the word “change,” plenty of platitudes and very few details. The document contains lots of colour but, appropriately, the section outlining “Labour’s fiscal plan” and shackling Keir Starmer to the prevailing economic orthodoxy is entirely grey.

The message is clear: Labour will be sensible managers and responsible custodians of the status quo. Adorning this otherwise bland electoral offer are an array of intentionally vague promises to which Labour MPs can point when asked the inevitable question, “what will actually change?”

Great British Energy is among the best examples of these amorphous pledges, not least because very few people seem to know what it actually is.

According to Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, GB Energy will be a Scotland-based “publicly owned energy generation company.” 

However, ask Keir Starmer and he’ll tell you it’s not an energy company at all, but an “investment vehicle in the energy of the future.” 

Labour’s manifesto offers little clarity, stating GB Energy will be a “new publicly owned company” to “drive forward investment in clean, home-grown energy production.”

Setting up GB energy may be one of six “first step” priorities for Starmer’s government, but few have bothered to explain how it will work.

Starmer’s characterisation of the policy, surprisingly given his casual relationship with the truth, appears more accurate than Sarwar’s on closer inspection. Allocated £8 billion of funding for the next parliamentary term, GB Energy will do two things. 

The first £3bn has been set aside for Labour’s local power plan, a pot of money to which local government can apply to construct local and community energy projects.

The second £5bn will make small investments alongside the private sector in less attractive onshore wind, solar and tidal energy projects to make them more palatable for shareholders. Eyeing an opportunity to obtain state subsidies, many private energy providers have lent their backing to the policy.

Reportedly, Labour hopes GB Energy can eventually develop projects independently of the private sector, but the relatively small sums of money allocated to the policy look to preclude any chance of state ownership for the foreseeable future.

Rather, the state will support private actors who stand ready to reap the profits.

The remains of Labour’s junked £28bn “green prosperity plan,” GB Energy has become the catch-all crutch for shadow ministers to lean on when quizzed about their party’s plans to address the climate emergency, accelerate the just transition and lower the cost of living.

Asked how GB Energy would bring down bills given it will be anonymous to households, Yvette Cooper let the cat out of the bag.

“GB Energy will work in partnership with the private sector to drive investment into new renewables and get the benefits for the taxpayer as well,” replied Labour’s shadow home secretary.

Today, we live amid the crumbling legacy of New Labour’s PFI agenda. In 2009, as chief secretary to the Treasury, Cooper offered £2bn of taxpayers’ money to bail out private corporations’ failing efforts to build public infrastructure.

Fifteen years later, Starmer is preparing a different initiative, but one that will initiate the same transfer of public wealth to private hands.

Where New Labour had the private sector build public assets, GB Energy will mobilise public-sector funding to build private energy projects in which the state is likely to have little stake.

Labour’s plans for GB Energy stop well short of even the standard European state-owned energy company, let alone match the urgency of the climate emergency.

In many ways, GB Energy is symbolic of the Starmer project.

Recognising the popular anger directed toward the “Big Five” during the energy price hike of 2022, Labour opportunistically dressed GB Energy in the language of public ownership.

However, even this attempt to tinker around the edges of Britain's broken energy system will bring benefits for private shareholders long before the taxpayer.

Last week, David Edgerton wrote that Labour no longer believes in social democracy and instead places its faith “in the sagacity of private capital.”

Some would point to GB Energy to undermine Edgerton’s thesis, but they would be ignoring the reality of Labour’s commitment.

Lacking the political vision to conceive of an alternative approach, rather than challenging the power of the energy companies, Starmer proposes using the state to strengthen their monopoly.
GB Energy is only the tip of the iceberg.

As one Labour official joked to Bloomberg, the party may as well have commissioned “BlackRock to rebuild Britain.”

Starmer expects billions of pounds of private investment to follow his election, stimulated by Rachel Reeves’s plans to have the state absolve any risk with public subsidy.

At last year’s Labour conference, Jim Murphy predicted that Starmer would lead “the first truly private-sector Labour government.”

The former Scottish Labour leader, who now runs a lucrative consultancy operation, remains close to the leadership in Edinburgh and London.

When Murphy made his contribution at the conference, Starmer and the leadership were careful to keep their cards close, shying away from explaining what he was talking about.

With Labour forced to add at least some meat to the bone of their governing agenda by Sunak’s snap election, Murphy’s prediction looks more accurate every day.