If you happened to be watching TV on Thursday 20 June, it was a difficult toss up between which was more listless and uninspiring: the England team playing Denmark or the BBC Question Time (BBCQT) general election leaders debate. For the Canary’s money, it was the latter – except for one moment where Labour Party leader Keir Starmer lied through his teeth about renationalisation.
BBCQT: Starmer doing what he does best
Starmer said on BBCQT:
When we had the energy crisis two years ago… I asked my team to mock up what the options were.
What were those options, Keir? Energy bosses in stocks in every major town and city?
One option was nationalising energy, that would have cost tens of billions of pounds, that money would have been spent on shareholders to buy them off, and not a penny could have been used to lower the bills…
We’re going to stop Starmer there on his BBCQT sermon. The other option he gave was the Windfall Tax on energy, which the Tories put in, and which has a massive loophole in it which saved energy companies billions.
What Starmer said about nationalisation meaning ‘buying off shareholders’ and ‘not having any money left to use to lower bills’ is a whopping great lie.
You can renationalise energy and save the public money
As campaign group We Own It wrote about renationalising BOTH energy and water companies, in mid-2019 they were all worth around £79bn at market prices. However, it noted that:
UK law does not say that shareholders should be compensated by being given the ‘market value’ of their shares. It says that parliament can and must decide in each case, and include the compensation in the relevant act.
And the courts will not override this, because parliament is a better judge of the public interest than the courts, and the most recent judgments against shareholders claims stated that, in the public interest, parliament could decide that rectifying social or economic injustice requires compensation of much less than market value.
In other words, the government can pay shareholders under a renationalisation programme whatever the hell it wants. It’s the law.
Being gracious, We Own It quoted research which showed that paying shareholders of water and energy companies what they originally invested – not what their shares were worth – would cost the government just under £50bn.
On We Own It’s assessment, this would pay for itself in seven years.
If you want a more up-to-date assessment, Unite the Union did one in 2022. It found that renationalising the WHOLE energy supply – including the grid and North Sea oil and gas – would cost £90bn. But what Unite also said was that, in the year of the crisis Starmer mentioned, this would have immediately SAVED the public £1,800 per household – or £45bn overall.
Renationalisation would have also had the knock-on effect of lowering inflation during the cost of living crisis by around 4% – yes, four percent. Therefore, the Bank of England may not have had to raise interest rates as much, therefore people’s mortgages and credit payments may not have gone up as much, and so on.
Oh, and remember – £90bn is only two-and-a-half times higher than the £37bn the government paid for useless test and trace programme during the coronavirus (Covid 19) pandemic.
Starmer’s lies all over BBCQT
Starmer said on BBCQT:
I took the second choice [Windfall Tax]… I don’t think I could have stood here today and said ‘I didn’t do anything about your bills, I’m sorry about that… but I did pay off the shareholders and nationalise energy’… I’m a common-sense politician.
You’re a liar and fraud is what you are, Starmer. You pledged to renationalise energy. That was a lie. Now you’re saying you couldn’t do it anyway because of ‘paying off shareholders’, which is another lie.
The truth is, you are a right-wing capitalist who wouldn’t WANT to renationalise energy companies for fear of upsetting business owners who are now donating and supporting your party in their droves.
Judging by much of the audiences’ reactions to the Labour leader on BBCQT, they knew all this, too.
Feature image via BBC iPlayer
