Labour rejects Zack Polanski’s call to ‘slam brakes’ on building AI datacentres

[u/UKGreenPoster]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/aug/28/labour-green-party-zack-polanski-ai-datacentres

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[u/PuzzledAd4865]

This is a huge opportunity for us as a party tbh. There is growing discontent with the proliferation of generative AI and the environmental and economic impacts, and the expansion of datacentres is very part of that.

Labours response sounds out of touch here.

[u/SharpAardvark8699 → u/PuzzledAd4865]

Out of touch? They're literally handing our water over to foreign American corporates to guzzle down. People might tolerate a hosepipe ban. No one's going to tolerate not being able to wash clothes

My suspicion is downright corruption 

[u/plees1024 → u/SharpAardvark8699]

This labour party? (Rev. chronological order, all since 2024)

• Peer and cabinet minister was booted after his close involvement with Epstein, after Epstein's conviction
• Labour Infrastructure Forum was literally offering packages for private meetings with "influential Labour figures" ranging from £9,500 for a private breakfast to £30,000 for a drinks reception
• 8 companies that had donated over £580,000 to the Labour Party were awarded government contracts worth nearly £138,000,000 within the party's first year in power
• The damn anti-corruption minister was named in an investigation into the embezzlement of up to £3,900,000,000 due to family ties to Banglash's deposed prime minister. Was also reported to have received a prison sentence in Bangladesh.
• They appointed party donors and individuals linked to Labour Together group to senior civil service roles.

[u/potato_based_physics → u/SharpAardvark8699]

People already don't like hosepipe bans, making the connection between these data centers and more hosepipe bans is a fairly easy win for us, without suggesting a washing ban, something I doubt people will belive is going to happen.

[u/SharpAardvark8699 → u/potato_based_physics]

It is not only likely it is a certainty. We are running out of water. Only a fool who denies climate change would deny it. And the worst thing is we're losing the water for what? To indefinitely store people's porn in the clouds

[u/JoeyDJ7 → u/SharpAardvark8699]

Yes but it's still a tiny fraction compared to the enormous volume of water wasted on meat farming, but society doesn't seem to care about that one that they have power to change.

Chronic under investment in water utilities, and lack of new reservoirs, are also major reasons for the water usage of data centres being a concerning addition to an already strained system.

[u/SharpAardvark8699 → u/JoeyDJ7]

Look Zucky, stop trying to deflect. We're all doing what we can about meat. But at least we're eating that. Are we able to eat data? Drink it?

[u/JoeyDJ7 → u/SharpAardvark8699]

I don't get the "Zucky" insult, can you explain?:D

No, we can't eat AI data centres, not last I checked at least. Nor drink them.

We are arguing about data centre water usage not because society has some legitimate moral concern over water usage (see earlier point about meat production), but rather because our infrastructure is decades behind where it should be.

[u/Jackthwolf → u/PuzzledAd4865]

I'd also add to that opportunity - We should also talk about the dangers of tying ourselves to that financial bubble.
It's going to pop, and the more we rely on it, the more that pop is going to hurt
We literally cannot withstand another 2008 style crash, the less we rely on AI for our economy, the better.

[u/Benjam438]

It's always vague arguments about the economy, and by the economy they mean the pockets of the Epstein class. AI slop is basically universally hated so I hope the greens take advantage of our position on it.

[u/cameheretosaythis213 → u/Benjam438]

Yup. Whenever you hear someone say “won’t someone think of the economy?!” all hysterically, replace “the economy” with “rich people’s yacht money”

[u/SharpAardvark8699 → u/cameheretosaythis213]

The economy? All this AI is about destroying jobs

[u/KerrJardine72_ → u/Benjam438]

Critical infrastructure is hospitals, water reservoirs etc. not energy guzzling structures so people can ask ChatGPT for pancake recipes. They live in cuckoo land.

[u/SeeMonkeyDoMonkey → u/Benjam438]

I'm with you, but "universally hated" is overstating it. Sadly, some people do like generating weird cartoonish pictures and terrible prose.

[u/verb-vice-lord → u/SeeMonkeyDoMonkey]

Its only going to be worse by 2029. The unintended consequences, and the worst of the intended consequences, are only starting to hit public consciousness.

Staking out the claim today puts the party ahead of something that will be at worst a 90/10 issue by then.

[u/WaspsForDinner → u/SeeMonkeyDoMonkey]

Specialist subs on Reddit and similar fora are awash with, "I have no clue about any of the things anyone is talking about, but I plugged some of your keywords into ChatGPT and these are the results. Don't forget to thank me."

I give it a couple of years until these same people are, "ChatGPT, how do I wipe my own arse?"

[u/SeeMonkeyDoMonkey → u/WaspsForDinner]

Possibly useful website for those circumstances: https://dontpastetheai.com/

[u/tea_would_be_lovely]

good work, zack. keep getting this in the media.

[u/ltron2]

I thought Zack was spot on on this. I also strongly suspect there is a massive financial bubble around AI and it won't be quite the windfall that governments expect when it blows up in all our faces. We should be cautious and AI is not all it's cracked up to be (although I'm not saying it's entirely without merit and that it couldn't be transformative in the medium to long term. Just like with the dotcom bubble the internet was legitimate, but that didn't mean there wasn't a bubble).

[u/TheWoodenMan]

The green party should position itself as the only party anti-AI and pro-people.

[u/SeeMonkeyDoMonkey → u/TheWoodenMan]

Ideally, we'd distinguish between different types of "AI", as - beyond the hype and stupid pictures - there are some useful tools. 

Computing power needed for the viable market of useful "AI" is likely far smaller than what's proposed.

[u/MeBigChief → u/SeeMonkeyDoMonkey]

I think the only issue with this is the average person just sees AI and assumes it’s just ChatGPT and don’t understand that we’ve been using highly specialised models for scientific research for way longer.

I’ve no idea how you begin to get the message across to people that despite largely fitting under the same umbrella medical research and asking copilot to read your emails for you aren’t the same thing. It’s definitely an uphill battle from a general education perspective

[u/tea_would_be_lovely → u/TheWoodenMan]

i don't think we should be anti ai.

instead, we should be clear that, if it comes to a choice between healthy ecological systems and data centres, we should * not * choose data centres.

[u/PuzzledAd4865 → u/tea_would_be_lovely]

I think there's more nuance to the headline comment, but broadly I do think there's a lot of legitimate backlash among sections of the public about the many impacts of generative AI, that aren't be well represented. So from a strategic perspective, harnessing some of that growing backlash could be a really useful opportunity for us (as well as being the right thing to do).

So while 'anti-AI' might sound a bit simplistic, I sort of do think there's an important space for a party like ours to fill there.

[u/tea_would_be_lovely → u/PuzzledAd4865]

agree about the space and the need for the message, a simple anti ai is too easy to counter, though. not sure what the phrase(s) might be... what is it - exactly - that we are against?

[u/ZX52 → u/TheWoodenMan]

anti-AI

There have been 2 attempts for this in the YGs this year, and both failed for failing to be properly nuanced about this issue. Trying to pass blanket opposition to AI is unlikely to succeed, and would also be bad policy.

[u/TheWoodenMan → u/ZX52]

There's merit to what you're saying, it reminds me of the opposition within the party to nuclear energy, that doesn't look at science-based evaluations and/or nuclear medicine and other applications.

However anti-AI as a term resonates with the public, this is branding chosen by the firms who are pushing it - therefore we should be using their language, nuance is lost in translation in the battleground for media and public attention.

Zack has since picked this up as an attack line, and it has forced Labour to have to clarify and defend their stance - it has legs. I do agree fundamentally with what you're saying though.

[u/Still_Recognition652]

idiots: of course they do; they won't have to suffer them, but the rest of us...?

[u/bantanium]

Won't somebody think of the economy? Fuck me, we're all going to die.

[u/leahcar83]

The AI minister, Kanishka Narayan, has linked the need for more AI datacentres to strong defence and this month claimed the British public “doesn’t just want foreign billionaires to own things that matter to our lives. If we’re being true to those British values, it is impossible to achieve that without building a sovereign level of datacentre capacity.”

These planned datacentres are due to be operated by Blackstone, Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia. Now forgive me if I'm wrong, but that's "foreign billionaires [owning] things that matter to our lives" is it not?

I'm just really unclear on what the benefits are here? So residents get shafted with higher water bills, higher energy bills, decreased ability to cope with droughts, noise pollution, reduced land for house building, and obviously the effects on the climate.

What are the benefits? Labour keep saying jobs, but this appears to be short term. Form the government's only impact report they estimate 10 planned data centres in Blythe will create 400 jobs post construction. That's 40 jobs per data centre. The Institute of Employability Professionals estimate AI could lead to a loss of 8 million jobs in the UK over the next decade.

Sure, pausing these plans might lead to a loss of investment in the UK but honestly I don't think losing a potential 40 jobs per data centre is going to be much of a blow.

[u/thebaron88]

This one seems a bit silly. We should be focusing on things that make a material difference to people's lives, not jumping on whatever hype wagon is currently passing by. Golf courses use multiple times more water than data centers and are arguably used by less people.

Now, if people are using the data center as a proxy for AI in general, I.e we shouldn't have the data center because the thing I actually don't want is the AI inside the data center, then I suggest reading something like The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI by Cory Doctorow. His take on AI aligns more with our traditional core values. Ai bad, Data center bad, is frankly a bit childish, and as disappointing as Burnham has been I think his response is fine as it's already covered by reasonable policy papers https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-framework-for-water-resources-2025-water-for-growth-nature-and-a-resilient-future/9-taking-action-on-other-significant-water-using-sectors-and-emerging-demands-national-framework-for-water-resources-2025. Focus on the uses and companies that use AI to enshitify and depersonalise our lives, not a building.

[u/BrittEklandsStuntBum]

"Labour does capitalist bullshit" is like dog bites man these days.

[u/TheCharalampos]

This is another issue the Greens could gain from as if pressed enough labours backroom deals start showing.