Labour announced this week that it will renationalise the railways, if elected. The party referred to the move as the ‘biggest overhaul to our railways in a generation.’
Under Labour’s proposals, train companies would be brought back into public ownership and run by a new body, Great British Railways, as their privatised contracts expire.
While the announcement has been broadly welcomed, with RMT general secretary Mick Lynch saying a publicly owned rail network is in the “best interests of railway workers, passengers and the taxpayer,” public ownership campaigners We Own It warn it doesn’t go far enough.
Following Labour’s announcement, Johnbosco Nwogbo, lead campaigner at public ownership campaign group We Own It, said it was time to “decommission the gravy train.”
“With delays and cancellations rife and some of the most expensive fares in Europe, polls show that over two thirds of us want our railways to be brought into public hands. Labour have rightly identified that the ownership of our public services will be a key issue for voters at this election.
The RMT Union has announced it will be supporting former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn at the next general election.
Mr Corbyn is the independent MP for Islington North – a seat he has held since 1983.
Last year, the 74-year-old was banned from standing for Labour, having been suspended from the parliamentary party over an antisemitism row in 2020.
RMT leader Mick Lynch said the union would back Mr Corbyn should he run for his seat again as an independent.
“We will support all sorts of people in this election, because we’re not affiliated,” Mr Lynch told the War on Want conference.
He added: “We will support Labour candidates. We will support socialist candidates.
“We will be supporting Jeremy Corbyn in the next election.”
The RMT became estranged from Labour in 2004 under Tony Blair’s leadership, meaning – unlike many other trade unions – it is free to support other candidates.
Jeremy Corbyn MP, former leader of the Labour Party
Jeremy Corbyn calls on Labour to commit to nationalising the transport industry in exclusive interview
Jeremy Corbyn slammed plans to close railway ticket offices as ‘cruel and simply wrong’ whilst calling on Labour to commit to renationalising the transport system, in an interview with LFF.
“What we need is a real, public and clear determination by the Labour Party, not just to bring the train operating companies back into public ownership, but all the other aspects of the rail industry into public ownership,” said Corbyn.
“We need a publicly owned and publicly run transport system.”
Plans to close 1,000 ticket offices in Britain have led to fresh calls to renationalise the rail system, as a whistle-blower admitted the plan was in fact about cost cutting, as supposed to ‘digitalising’ the future of travel which the government claimed. Over 2,300 jobs are being put at risk by the plan.
Standing in a sunny Parliament Square surrounded by a colourful mix of trade union flags, Mick Lynch spoke to LFF about the troubling state of democracy in Britain.
The RMT general secretary was a speaker at the emergency protest organised ahead of the final Parliament vote on the anti-strike legislation, Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill.
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For Lynch, the anti-strike legislation comes under a broader attempt by the Tory government to clamp down on any kind of opposition, warning that a threat to trade union power is a threat to democracy.
“The government has got an attitude towards anything they don’t agree with, any kind of dissent. It could be politically or more broadly socially, where if they don’t agree with people, they try to ban them,” said Lynch.
“We got these police bills and these counter-demonstration bills where people will be stopped from demonstrating or protesting.
“We saw that during the coronation, one of the most passive pieces of civil disobedience if you like, was banned in effect and people were put in jail for the day.
“They’re trying to clamp down on any dissent, and I think that’s a very troubling state, and it’s time for the British people to wake up to that and see that if trade unions, which are an organic part of life and grow in every society, if they’re not allowed to function properly, democracy in this country is in a lot of trouble.
“We’ve got to make sure that people are out opposing that and we’ve got to make sure that people understand the issues.
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has organised an emergency protest on Monday 22nd May for 6.00pm outside Parliament Square, as it fights to protect the right to strike which is under attack from the Tory government.
Mick Lynch from the RMT, Matt Wrack from the FBU and Kevin Courtney will be speaking at the rally, with Unison, USDAW and the PCS union all showing their support.
The government’s strikes bill, which will empower employers to sue unions and sack staff in crucial sectors if minimum service levels aren’t maintained, has been slammed as an attack on the fundamental right to strike and as a draconian piece of legislation. The Bill essentially means that when workers lawfully vote to strike in health, education, fire, transport, border security and nuclear decommissioning, they could be forced to attend work – and sacked if they don’t comply.
The TUC said in a press statement: “We can’t afford to lose the right to strike. But multi-millionaire Tory politicians are attacking our right to strike for better pay and fair treatment at work.
Former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has once more refused to apologise for his disastrous mini-budget which caused financial turmoil and which eventually led to him being sacked and Liz Truss being forced out of office.
Kwarteng, whose mini-budget resulted in chaos on the financial markets, the pound hitting an all-time low against the dollar and mortgage rates soaring, said he was ‘not in the business of forgiveness’.
“I’m not going to apologise,” he told Channel 4 News.
Former Tory MP and now Reform UK party member Ann Widdecombe has been widely condemned for her ‘out of touch’ and appalling comments on families struggling to make ends meet during the cost of living crisis.
Widdecombe was asked on BBC 2’s Politics Live programme about the cost of living crisis and what advice she would give to viewers who could not even afford the basics.
Jo Coburn asked the former Tory MP: “What do you say to those viewers who literally can’t afford to pay even for some of the basics – if they’ve gone up the way that cheese sandwich has, with all its ingredients?”
“Well, then you don’t do the cheese sandwich,” Widdecombe replied.
Her comments were immediately condemned by fellow panellist Rachel Cunliffe who said: “We’re talking about absolute basics and staples. We’re talking about own-brand pasta, we’re talking about bread, we’re talking about families who can’t afford to feed their children.
‘The First Past the Post system hands more power to the establishment than MPs or people.’
The Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has set out the reasons for why the Labour Party should back a change to the voting system in favour of proportional representation (PR), despite party leader Keir Starmer saying that voting reform will not be a priority should Labour win power.
Although the Labour Party conference last year overwhelmingly backed a motion calling on the party to embrace a proportional electoral system, the leadership has made clear that it would not do as the motion says.
Since then, at the Progressive Britain conference last week, Starmer made clear that voting reform would not be among the priorities should Labour win power.
Burnham however has urged the party to adopt PR, saying that the current first-past-the-post voting system hands more power to the establishment than MPs or people and changing the system to proportional representation would mean “every vote would matter”.
Carla Denyer claims Greens are the strongest party on democratic reform
Carla Denyer, Cost of Living Crisis, Bristol, 2 April 2022
The Green Party has slammed the Tories for dragging democracy in the UK in a dangerous direction.
Speaking at an event last night, co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, Carla Denyer, laid out how the Tory’s have assaulted our democracy – and how the Greens would solve it.
Denyer discussed how to restore public faith in politics and argued that the Greens were the strongest party on democratic reform.
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The Greens have said they would apply proportional representation for all elections to all levels of government, along with bringing the voting age down to 16.
They would introduce devolution, mirroring systems in Europe by giving more power to local and regional government and Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Parliament. They would also introduce an elected upper house to replace hereditary power in the House of Lord and set up a Citizen’s Convention.
Introducing a fairer system of state funding for political parties, which would hope to eliminate the dependence of large private donations and strengthen transparency on political lobbying and donations. One in four people believe that party donors have the most influence on government decisions, according to Unlock Democracy.
Denyer also accused the media of preventing democratic conversations through its bias towards certain political parties.
