Traffic at the Dartford crossing of the Thames River (Picture: National Geographic/Creative Commons)

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is set to bring back one of New Labour’s most hated and wasteful policies—the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). A huge, six-lane 2.6-mile tunnel could soon be snaking under the River Thames in Essex.

In October this year, the ­government is set to decide whether to order the building of the Lower Thames Crossing.

Developers say a new tunnel will reduce traffic through the Dartford Crossing, a few miles to the east. But many environmental ­campaigners and transport analysts now agree that building new roads only attracts more traffic.

It’s cash, not traffic reduction, that motivates the vulture capitalists now circling the scheme. The firms hoping to build and run the tunnel will raise the money needed on private markets.

Then for decades to come, and perhaps indefinitely, their consortium will reap the hefty tunnel tolls collected. And Reeves benefits because she doesn’t want the government to pay for such projects in the ­short-term. PFI means she can keep her ­commitments to minimising public spending and state debt.

Under Tony Blair’s government in the 1990s and 2000s, Labour outsourced the building of roads, schools, hospitals and more to the private sector. It was part of its “business knows best” ideology.

Multinational firms built ­expensive, “capital intensive” projects, and then for decades leased them back to the state at exorbitant rates. They then charged outrageous prices for maintenance and ­servicing. In one famous case they billed the NHS hundreds of pounds for ­changing a lightbulb.

The Tory government axed PFI in 2018 after a shocking report from the National Audit Office revealed that private firms were making a ­killing out of the contracts.

But now the Starmer government is intent on bringing the policy back. And the Lower Thames Crossing is one of many projects to be financed in this way. A new £5 billion “super sewer”, also on the Thames, is a good example of the so-called “partnership” between private and public. A consortium of firms called Tideway are building the sewer, and the firm will then maintain it.

The state has decided that London residents will pay for the whole thing with a massive increase in water bills. But this model of private ­investment adds in an extra layer of bosses who are able to trouser wads of cash. Tideway boss Andy Mitchell pocketed some £2.7 million in 2022-23.

Labour loved PFI schemes because they demonstrated the party’s ­commitment to the free market. It was prepared to shower ­private firms with public money, knowing all the while that this was the most expensive way to build anything.

Decades after Blair left office, we are still paying for many of the hospitals and schools he boasted of providing. Now Reeves wants to repeat the fiasco for a new generation.

People furious with the tunnel—and they’re right to be

It’s the largest planning application ever submitted—weighing in at a mighty 359,000 pages. So, with all that work put in, why doesn’t the case for the Lower Thames Crossing make sense?

Big business is pitching it as a relief road to the Dartford Crossing, which spans the Thames a few miles to the east. Planners say about 50 percent of its projected traffic will be lorries from Kent’s ports.

The bosses are all for it—Kent, Essex and East Sussex chambers of commerce all want the project to go ahead. Delays at the Dover ferry port mean that the nearby M20 often grinds to a halt, with miles of lorries in a queue snaking down the motorway.

But local residents say the new roads can make matters worse. Christina Spackman lives in the nearby village of Shorne. “I’m already finding life very difficult with the levels of traffic we have at the moment,” she said. “What I want to know is, why should we believe them when they say how much it will cost?

“Look at what’s happened to High Speed 2 (the new north-south railway). And why can’t we switch the commercial traffic to rail? Another tunnel just means more traffic and more pollution.”

The Thames Crossing Action Group argues that the plan “is simply not fit for purpose” and insists the crossing won’t address congestion.

“It would destroy homes, lives, health, greenbelt, woodlands, agricultural land, solar farms, wildlife and habitats, countryside, the environment, communities and so much more,” it said.

It’s not just a disaster for the local environment. Any infrastructure that locks in more petrol, more fossil fuels and more carbon is another contribution to climate catastrophe.

Workers will fight again

Projects such as the Lower Thames Crossing are emblematic of the system that created them—bloated, environmentally destructive and designed for private profit.

Under capitalism, a tiny minority of rich people make decisions in their own narrow and short-term interests. That means a preference for roads over rail, and further damage to our environment.

But climate catastrophe is real, it’s happening now and claiming lives every day. From the record-breaking temperatures across the Global South to the wildfires rampaging through Greece, the impact of ecological breakdown is undeniable.

So why invest in road building, why try to build a new coal mine in Cumbria and why ramp up oil and gas extraction?

It’s because production is based on what’s profitable for bosses—and it’s transported there in the method cheapest for them. That’s also the reason why the state won’t let ordinary people decide if they want £8 billion spent on a new tunnel—with the choice instead given to a select group of “experts” and investors.

It is possible to develop manufacturing, transport, infrastructure and everything else in a different kind of way. But it would mean breaking with the logic of profit that rules everything under capitalism.

Thames Water set to collapse as UK’s rivers and seas flooded with sewage by private operators Thames Water scandal – is the party drawing to a close? Why are Thames Water bosses drowning in multibillion debt? At the End of this Hated War, We Need Truth Hated for Loving Freedom Hated Tories react to poll blow with lurch to the hard right 600,000 workers strike in Quebec: We can defeat the hated CAQ government! 600,000 Workers Strike in Quebec: We Can Defeat the Hated CAQ Government! U.S. Smear Campaign Against AMLO Backfires: Hated by Media, Loved in Polls The US and Russia may bluff their way into a war neither is prepared for How western imperialism prepared the ground for the conflict in Ukraine UAW Chief Says Union Prepared To Strike Against Big Three Automakers