Sharkey’s coalition to tackle sewage crisis

  • Post last modified:August 21, 2024
  • Reading time:12 mins read


Undertones star-turned-water campaigner Feargal Sharkey has launched an anti-sewage coalition. In October, he will lead the ‘March for Clean Water’ to mark the first 100 days of the new Labour government’s failure to mop up the water companies’ pollution mess.

But there’s a reason a Labour-run UK has rivers and oceans roiling in shit. Sharkey himself is part of the problem.

Water companies: coalition to take on the sewage scandal

On Wednesday 21 August, anti-sewage campaigner Feargal Sharkey announced the new coalition:

As River Action detailed on its website, this will involve a ‘March for Clean Water’ on the 26 October:

which is timed to mark the end of the first 100 days of the new government, and days before the Chancellor’s first budget (October 30), when environmental campaigners will be watching closely for financial commitments to protect the environment, will involve scores of participating groups and well-known personalities, including river campaigner Feargal Sharkey.

They invite the public to join in one simple demand of Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer: to take immediate and decisive action to end the poisoning of our rivers, lakes and seas by the lethal cocktail of raw sewage, agricultural waste and other chemical pollutants, that over recent years have been allowed to leave most of our waterways so filthy that they present major risks to human health and untold damage to nature.

This must include:

  • a plan to address the continuous illegal dumping of raw sewage by the water companies;
  • a full set of solutions to end all other major sources of water pollution;
  • the reform of our failed regulatory system, including Ofwat and the Environment Agency, so the law can be effectively enforced against polluters

Multiple environmental groups plan to join the protest:

Sharkey: Starmer suck-up should have seen it coming

If only someone could have predicted a Labour Party government plagued with water company lobbyists links would fall at the first hurdle. Of course, the Canary, like plenty of others, did precisely that. Sharkey on the other hand?

Naturally, the internet has the receipts. Here he is cosying up to Starmer:

In fact, as Sharkey himself acknowledges in that post, he’s quite literally the president of Labour’s main environment campaign group. This is the Socialist Environment and Resources Association (SERA).

That might go some way to explaining his nauseatingly gushing pattern of praise for Labour’s sewage scandal plans. Exhibit number one:

Back in 2022, Sharkey was schmoozing with then shadow environment minister Tim McMahon MP at the Labour Party conference:

This is the same McMahon who in one breath, introduced a (doomed-to-fail) piece of legislation to tackle water company pollution, then toed the party whip and abstained on a Lib Dem amendment to criminalise companies in another.

The clean water campaigner has only continued to heap stinking piles of unearned praise on the party for its pre-election promises. We think if you have to spell out that “it’s not a party political broadcast”, it might well be just that:

“Now we’re talking” – are we though? See Labour abstention above:

Up shit’s creak again, with a red paddle

Unsurprisingly, Labour hasn’t lived up to any of its pledges yet. And the fact is, Labour’s plans weren’t much cop to begin with. Multiple environmental groups and political opponents have exposed the glaring holes in Labour’s sewage pollution pledges. Most notably, under Starmer, Labour has walked back plans to nationalise the industry.

And Sharkey can hardly claim people haven’t been warning him this all along:

Sharkey may have fallen hook, line, and stinker for the opportunistic Labour turds floating in the party’s election pledges, but plenty of us didn’t. We’ll leave the falling into a festering pool of privatisation’s broken promises to another slimy politician – yes, we mean Lib Dem leader Ed Davey plunging bottom-first into a sewage-spoiled Lake Windermere. Maybe now Labour is in charge, Sharkey will fancy joining him – if he does, it’ll be a cold, harsh dip in reality.

Feature image via the Canary





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