However the environment is one topic that unites Labour’s fractured tribes. The party’s environmentalists rallied on Monday night to toast ten years of the Climate Change Act, which the last Labour government passed in 2008.
The full spectrum of the party’s wings came out to celebrate, ranging from Blairites such as former shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn to the former hard left MP Alan Simpson, who now advises shadow chancellor John McDonnell on energy and climate change issues.
Tuesday saw shadow business and energy secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey’s pledge to dramatically increase renewable power output as part of a wider bid to reduce UK emissions to “net zero” by 2050.
The boldness of the ambition reflects how Labour is going for broke. For utilities, a less welcome manifestation of this increased radicalism was its proposals to make water the first industry to be nationalised.
But the greater boldness on climate change is likely to win a more sympathetic hearing from the sector.
Perhaps just as importantly in the long term, McDonnell said Labour would bake environmental considerations into decision-making at the Treasury, which has for many years been seen as the biggest block to action on climate change in Whitehall.