The government’s rush to invest in infrastructure for AI is trampling over democratic rights and endangering our environment, all in the name of putative profit, argues Judy Seymour

I’ve just realised I have no democratic rights when it comes to economic policy. I don’t know what’s taken me so long. Suffice it to say I was struggling to understand why governments refuse to do even the obvious about the ecological and social crises. For example: ‘Without adequate new infrastructure and reduced demand, the country risks running out of water’ 

The Environment Agency predicts England will face a five billion-litre a day shortfall for public water by 2045. It describes this as a ‘jaws of death’ scenario caused primarily by the climate crisis, population growth and water mismanagement. 

I’ve been ‘looking into the jaws of death’ ever since I first read that and I’m not feeling good.

It’s 17 September 2025 and the $350 billion Tech Prosperity Deal is being signed on our behalf by Trump and Starmer. ‘Artificial intelligence will be unleashed across the UK … (we will) mainline AI into the veins of this enterprising nation – revolutionising our public services and putting more money in people’s back pockets!’

Data centres are thirsty

You may know this but bear with me. Larger data centres can each “drink” up to five million gallons per day, or about 1.8 billion annually, usage equivalent to a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people. A characteristic of the data-centre industry is that it ‘can’t’ provide data on its water usage. Microsoft may for example say it has reduced its use of water by 80% compared to ‘older models’ but cannot, or will not, disclose its actual usage. In fact, it seems few data centres monitor their water use at all.

The Environment Agency hasn’t included even existing datacentre demand for water in its predictions, because it can’t. It doesn’t have the means to gather the data, so the figure of five billion litres a day shortfall for public water by 2045 is useless, except as a way of putting down a marker for ‘it will likely be worse than this’.

It’s not that the agency isn’t looking for information and solutions. TechUK, the technology sector’s representative body, has been commissioned to supply both. I’m not reassured. Indeed, there are criticisms of techUK’s work so far. People argue that their report ‘relies on a small, unrepresentative sample of voluntary, anonymous and self-reported data, lacking crucial information on data-centre size and power and raising concerns it was self-selection bias. The study’s conclusion – that data centres are not inherently water-intensive – may be misleading’. 

I don’t know about you, but if I’m facing the ‘jaws of death’, I’d rather not be ‘mislead’ about reasons and solutions.

Things don’t bode well. For example, Amazon’s three proposed data centres in Aragon, northern Spain are licensed to use an estimated 755,720 cubic metres of water a year, enough to irrigate more than 200 hectares (500 acres) of corn, one of the region’s main crops. In December, they asked the regional government for permission to increase water consumption at its three existing data centres by 48%. With 75% of the country already at risk of desertification, the combination of climate change and data-centre expansion is ‘bringing Spain to the verge of ecological collapse’, Jaume-Palasí, founder of The Ethical Tech Society says.

A data centre near you

A proposed planning development falls foul of the habitat regulations that protect rare animals. The Chancellor ‘fixes it’, she says to an audience of tech-company executives, by ‘having a good relationship with the developer’. The victim is ‘the little whirlpool ramshorn snail, which is 5mm in diameter, and one of the rarest creatures in Britain. It is an indicator of clean rivers and ponds and is very sensitive to sewage pollution’. Well, who cares? – and by the way, who would want to draw attention to sewage in the water? They’re just ‘microscopic snails that you cannot even see’ she says. Alexa Culver, a planning lawyer added: ‘There are lots of elements of nature that are essential to social and economic prosperity, and are microscopic, that we can’t see. Air for example’ (the Guardian).

Talking of microscopic things, PM2.5s are tiny particles that are yes, 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter which can travel deep into your lungs. They’re not good for you. Predictions for US data centres have their PM2.5s rivalling thirty-million vehicles. We need public-health informed metrics built into planning regs Rachel, please.

To be fair, I’m not holding my breath. It’s worth taking note of a) the hand of Tony Blair on matters of AI and regulatory powers reflecting citizen’s concerns and b) current changes to planning law to speed up the application process and make it easier to get building underway: either house building (overriding environmental protection considerations for example) or building data centres (overriding any objections including those from local councils. Three so far this year).

Additionally, the AI Opportunities Action Plan provisions include a change in all regulators’ focus, from regulating AI, to promoting AI as part of their statutory duty to promote economic growth (known as the ‘Growth Duty’).

Decisions on issues to protect citizens’ rights but that don’t ‘promote innovation at the scale of the government’s ambition’,  could now be overridden by empowering a central body instead. ‘This starkly contrasts with the EU’s legislative approach where the main objective of the EU AI Act is to protect EU citizens from the risks posed by AI to their safety and fundamental rights’ (Bird and Bird international law firm specialising in technology-related law).

Say that again? Decisions about human rights could be overridden if they interfere with the government’s mission to promote innovation.

…and so back to Tony Blair 

We are at the Tony Blair Institute.

Blair to Larry Ellison: ‘What should governments be doing about AI?’

Ellison to Blair: ‘The first thing a country needs to do is unify all of their data so that it can be consumed and used by the AI model.’

Larry Ellison is Texas-based Oracle co-founder and chairman. His mission is ‘to help people see data in new ways, discover insights, unlock endless possibilities.’ Donald Trump, who has blessed the dealings, has praised the elder Ellison as ‘an amazing man and amazing business person.’ ‘It’s well beyond technology,’ he says, describing him as ‘sort of CEO of everything.’ Ellison is also a mate of Musk and, at $400 billion this September, was briefly the richest man in the world. He has pledged a total of $375 million over the years for Blair’s think tank, the Tony Blair Institute. Oracle has a commercial interest in digitising health records.

Follow the money

‘The NHS in the UK has an incredible amount of population data,’ he declares, ‘but it’s too fragmented at present.’ Two weeks later, the Tony Blair Institute publishes a report entitled, ‘Governing in the Age of AI: Building Britain’s National Data Library.’

2024 – August: the TBI annual conference features high-profile appearances from Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Cabinet Office fixer Pat McFadden.

2025 – January: We adopt 48 of the fifty recommendations made by Matt Clifford, Chair of the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency and also of the TBI. They include cross-departmental public-sector data collection.

2025 – 15 September: Larry Ellison says a vast AI-fuelled surveillance system can ensure ‘citizens will be on their best behaviour.’ ‘We’re going to have supervision … Citizens will be on their best behaviour because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.’ ‘The company stunned Wall Street earlier this month by reaching a $300 billion deal with OpenAI, which will purchase computing power over about five years in one of the largest cloud contracts ever signed’ (widely reported in US media including MSN).

2025 – 26 September: The PM’s office announces ‘New digital ID scheme to be rolled out across UK.’ 

2025 – September/October – Two senior TBI alumni join Downing Street policy and delivery units.

2025 – 6 October: Martha Dark (Foxglove) — ‘We stand up to tech giants and governments and for a future where technology is used to benefit everyone, not just the rich and powerful’ – reflected on the Labour Party conference in Foxglove’s 6 October update: ‘The signs of Big Tech lobbying power were everywhere I looked. There were dozens of meetings and events with Big Tech sponsorship and Big Tech representatives, with titles talking up AI and Big Tech products as the solution to every problem facing the country.’

The Tony Blair Institute, which is backed by hundreds of millions of pounds in donations from Trump-backing big-tech billionaire Larry Ellison, was clearly splashing some of that cash in Liverpool. Its events took place in the biggest, most expensive rooms and attracted senior Labour politicians including the Secretary of State for Science and Technology, Liz Kendall. But whilst the big-tech lobbyists made all kinds of (totally unproven) claims of how all this will benefit the UK, in reality their priority is increasing the power and profit of the US tech giants. President Trump’s AI Action Plan, published this summer, openly sets out the goal of ensuring ‘the United States achieves and maintains unquestioned and unchallenged global technological dominance’ by ‘driving adoption of American AI systems, computing hardware and standards throughout the world.

‘So far the government has ducked any serious discussion of what that US tech dominance means for the UK – how releasing millions of tonnes of new polluting carbon emissions into our air will affect our environment, how our energy and water systems will sustain such expansion, or how it can possibly align with Labour’s manifesto commitments on net zero. 

‘The urgency of building an AI ecosystem in Britain that works for the British public – and not one dictated by the interests of American tech giants – was notably absent from the debate.’

What a journey

Undoubtedly, ‘AI offers substantial benefits across numerous fields by boosting efficiency, automating tasks, improving decision-making, and driving innovation’ (AI derived comment). But ‘without a democratically determined legislative framework, AI technology will exacerbate massive inequalities. Citizens’ assemblies with real power are needed to control the future of AI’ (AI derived comment).

It doesn’t end here. I realise not for the first time, I am truly part of nature, in the way of the path of economic growth. I share my fate with tiny snails and clean water.

Jason Hickle, economist and thinker about post-growth capitalism processes this for me in under five minutes in a speech he gave in Spain recently. He points out that the defining feature of capitalism is that it’s highly undemocratic. Not even a shadow or pretence of democracy is allowed to enter. Production is controlled by capital: the major financial firms, large corporations and the 1% richest people own the majority of investable assets. They are the ones who decide what we produce and how we use our labour and collective productive capacities. We have extraordinary labour power and assets . But we who do the production have no say in how they’re used.

He also identifies two root causes underlying the current poly crisis: ecological (overshooting planetary boundaries) and social (recent data shows 100 million people across Europe face severe financial insecurity). And so long as we accept the paradox of high levels of production co-existing alongside high levels of deprivation and financial insecurity, we shouldn’t be surprised that there are correspondingly high levels of mistrust in democracy. It just isn’t delivering. Instead of public transport, public housing, affordable clean energy and a functioning health service, we’re getting SUVs, private jets and fossil-fuelled energy. Because they generate a bigger profit. Even as the world burns.

Post-growth economics preferences coordinating and aligning democratic production to address social progress, meet human needs and ecological objectives.

Yes please, and soon. Our water is filthy and anyway, it’s running out.