Britain faces blackouts after Jeremy Corbyn reveals his £65bn nationalisation plan
Labour plan for parish councils to deal with energy infrastructure
BRITAIN faces a wave of blackouts after Jeremy Corbyn laid out plans to put critical energy infrastructure into the hands of parish councils as part of a £65billion nationalisation.
In radical proposals Labour proposed bringing National Grid and every regional distribution network in the country back into the public sector.
All senior executives and directors will be taken out and sacked – with their jobs re-advertised. Shareholders including 800,000 ordinary Brits may not get full compensation.
Experts immediately compared the move to late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez’s ruinous takeover of the country’s oil sector.
They warned it would slash investment in the UK and plunge Britain into darkness because of mis-management and a shortfall in generating capacity.
Energy expert Peter Atherton told The Sun: “I do find it ironic that at the moment trust in politicians is so low people wouldn’t trust their MP to buy a pint of milk, Labour insists it can run the energy industry better. Really?”
Under its plans, Labour vowed to set up a public authority to oversee the entire gas and electricity network – staffed by political appointments, workers reps and environmentalists.
And it wants “pro-active” town halls and parish councils to step forward and manage energy at a municipal level.
In leaked documents, Labour states that Hackney Council could take over supply from the London regional energy agency.
Or it suggests a parish council in Cornwall could run the local distribution grid and integrate “solar and storage solutions”.
The Sun Says: Dark thoughts
FOR a glimpse of the madness Corbyn would inflict on Britain, consider the leaked plans to nationalise our energy supply and hand it to local politicians.
Labour would seize the privately-run National Grid and electricity network, paying negligible compensation: Simple theft, from 800,000 Brits with shares.
Businesses and investors would flee as the Marxists snatch private property. Jobs would be lost in colossal numbers.
This shambolic new energy industry would dance to the tune of hard-Left unions given massive power.
Blackouts in the 1970s turned off the lights and TV. Imagine them now, in a country utterly reliant on computers and smartphones.
So why do it? Would it improve efficiency, or cut our bills? Of course not.
It’s not about improving lives. It is about blinkered ideology.
It’s a giant, economy-destroying experiment, establishing the pure socialist society Corbyn has fantasised about since his teens.
It would be a dark place in every sense.
TURN THE LIGHTS OFF?
Rebecca Long Bailey, Shadow Business Secretary, said the radical revolution would make electricity and heat a “human right”. And she insisted it was the only way to go green while protecting Brits from rip-offs.
But alarmed business chiefs at the CBI said it would put a ‘Closed Sign’ above the UK and threaten the very climate change targets Labour wants to meet as investors turn away from Britain.
Matt Kilcoyne of the Adam Smith Institute: “Putting cronies and apparatchiks in charge of the energy market would have disastrous consequences. This is an idea that brought Venezuela to its knees and would do exactly the same to Britain.
“Labour would turn off the lights right across the country.”
CBI policy chief Matthew Fell stormed: “As drafted, these proposals amount of hanging a closed sign above the UK with renationalisation delivering a triple whammy neither citizens nor the country can afford.
“The country needs policies focused on powering economic growth in the future, not revisiting mistakes of the past.”
Labour first mooted plans to nationalise National Grid and the host of regional distribution networks that transport power to peoples’ homes in 2017.
Last week Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell confirmed plans to also renationalise the water industry.
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But he said a future Labour government would pay less than £15billion when taking water companies into the public sector – compared with a £44billion market value.
Labour separately last night committed to fit nearly two million homes with solar panels – to save low income Brits an average £117 a year.
The plan would be paid for by money from Labour’s whopping £250billion National Transformation Fund and interest free loans.
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