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George MonbiotMay 21, 2026 at 3:36 AM EDT

The government’s new assault on the right to challenge planning decisions is another example of its authoritarian reflex. We very much need a fast green transition, which means large-scale renewables. But instead of bringing people along, it goes straight for coercion.🧵1/8 gov.uk

It makes no attempt to win people over, to persuade, to build consensus. Where are the public information videos and emergency briefings on climate breakdown, like the emergency briefings on Covid-19? What happened to the Green Prosperity Plan, which was going to transform our lives? Ditched. Instead it has instinctively gone straight for the throat, further curtailing our democratic rights, further restricting public participation and centralising decision-making. More freedom for corporations and billionaires, less for the citizen. Much like its assaults on the right to protest. This agenda is justified, yet again, with violent and hate-filled language. Starmer and Reeves boast about “tearing down”, “kicking down” and “ripping up” our rights to object, and label people who care about their neighbourhoods and about nature as “blockers”, “zealots” and “time-wasting nimbys”. For whose benefit? They’ve told us. Rachel Reeves said she hatched her assault on nature protections over a “smoked salmon and scrambled eggs breakfast” with corporate executives. Starmer told us he wanted to kick down the planning rules as the result of his “conversations with leading CEOs”. When we need broad public consent for the green transition, and should be able to allay concerns that corporate power is using it as an excuse to get what it wants, Starmer’s team treats it as a holy war against the landscape-loving infidel. Beating us into submission on behalf of power. The obvious result is to generate anger, resistance and resentment: feelings that are a gift to Reform UK, which wants to destroy the green transition altogether. The government's deep illiberalism is also one of the reasons former Labour voters feel so alienated and disgusted. Authoritarian, cloth-eared, kissing up & kicking down, always self-defeating: that’s Keir Starmer and his cabinet, time after time. It’s a tragedy, both for progressive politics and for the green switch we so desperately need. More in our discussion last night. Thanks. bbc.co.uk

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