THE GREEN NEW DEAL

Global Net Zero and Technological Innovation

Climate change is constantly taking place. It has done so for thousands of years. We follow the science when it is clear but we understand just how much science can be socially constructed in a society dominated by the interests of Profit and not People. We keep an open mind but place the really existing conditions of the working class now and in the future top of mind. That is why we exist as a political party. The next industrial revolution is going to be far more than just the Green Agenda. It involves the increased use of artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum computing, possibly nanotechnology and many other emergent new technologies. It is a total process. In every preceding industrial revolution, the wealthy capitalist has seized opportunities by forced savings on the general population and then justified terrible effects on working people as ultimate progress. We cannot let this happen again.
We too are for progress and technological innovation but not in ways left to the market alone. We need to manage the next industrial revolution so that we can predict bad effects, put measures in to correct them and still go forward in a planned and rational way. For example, we support campaigning to preserve the right to cash not least for vulnerable populations. We are not Luddites when it comes to digital currency and fintech – our demand, however, is that this and other technologies, including blockchain and artificial intelligence, are under sufficient community control to ensure positive social and economic outcomes for the working class and the vulnerable. In this context, we do not oppose the process of creating a greener national economy, we see no necessity to be rushed into it by business-directed media propaganda and unstable and wasteful ‘market solutions’. This will result in unplanned policies and unnecessary social disruption as well as increases in capital accumulation for the few. We should move towards the next stage of our social evolution as one inclusive society based on fairness and equality in both the sharing of the costs and the benefits of change.
Above all, it is for the people to decide, after informed debate, whether they want the costs of Net Zero, essentially a redistribution of wealth from themselves to investors and businesses as things currently stand. We support the call for a Net Zero Referendum as soon as possible to create a national debate on who profits and on what terms. We will also continue to oppose ULEZ initiatives because of the costs they impose on working households and small businesses. The transition to a Green economy should be at a pace that matches the ability of our population to afford it. We will not be seduced by the more apocalyptic Green hysteria that floods our media but we will seek rational debate centred on democratically aligned outcomes beneficial to workers.