We Own It

Public ownership campaigners urge Labour to go further and commit to renationalising rolling stock companies

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/public-ownership-campaigners-urge-labour-to-go-further-and-commit-to-renationalising-rolling-stock-companies/

Image of an East Coast train
An East Coast train at King’s Cross station

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.

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https://leftfootforward.org/2024/04/public-ownership-campaigners-urge-labour-to-go-further-and-commit-to-renationalising-rolling-stock-companies/

Continue ReadingPublic ownership campaigners urge Labour to go further and commit to renationalising rolling stock companies

We Own it protesters demand Labour commits to reinstating fully public NHS

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/we-own-it-protesters-demand-labour-commits-reinstating-fully-public-nhs

We Own It campaigners in masks outside the conference hall

ANTI-privatisation campaigners gathered outside the Labour Party conference today morning to demand that leader Sir Keir Starmer commit to reinstating the NHS as a fully public service.

Protesters from We Own It wore masks of the most recent Tory prime ministers and cut into an NHS box using knives adorned with private company logos while a masked Sir Keir watched as delegates began arriving at the conference in Liverpool.

We Own It director Cat Hobbs said: “In 2010, the NHS was rated the most efficient and best-performing health service in the world.

“The message of our action … is that after 13 years of cuts and privatisation, Keir Starmer has an opportunity to be a hero to the NHS by committing, in his speech to conference, to reinstate it as a fully public service.

“We want to say to Keir Starmer that the public wants a leader who will stand up for our NHS.”

Ms Hobbs said the public call is “too clear for Labour to ignore.”

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/we-own-it-protesters-demand-labour-commits-reinstating-fully-public-nhs

Continue ReadingWe Own it protesters demand Labour commits to reinstating fully public NHS

Water firm ‘profiteering’ slammed over news of ‘outrageous’ plans to raise bills by 40%

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https://leftfootforward.org/2023/06/water-firm-profiteering-slammed-with-news-of-outrageous-over-plans-to-raise-bills-by-40/

Image of a burst water main.
Image of a burst water main.

England’s private water firms are under fire once again today, after reports that they could be set to raise bills by as much as 40%. The touted rise comes as the water industry faces significant pressure to tackle the scandal of sewage being pumped into waterways.

Private companies currently operate thousands of sewer overflows which are used to discharge raw sewage into Britain’s rivers and seas. Last year, private water companies released raw sewage into rivers and seas in England for more than 1.75 million hours, with an average of 825 sewage spills per day.

Critics of the water companies argue that they have prioritised providing returns for shareholders, rather than investment in infrastructure that would have tackled the sewage crisis. Since privatisation in 1989, water companies have paid out more than £70 billion to shareholders.

Anti-privatisation campaign group We Own It has branded reports of major bill rises ‘outrageous’, and has called for water to be taken into public ownership. The group’s director Cat Hobbs told Left Foot Forward: “It’s outrageous. We’ve seen decades of underinvestment in our water system, and now we’re expected to foot the bill for infrastructure improvements.

“What have private companies been doing with their enormous profits for the last 34 years? They’ve paid out £72bn in dividends to shareholders. That’s money that could have been reinvested into our infrastructure to prevent the mess we’re in now. Publicly-owned Scottish water spends £72 more per household per year on tackling infrastructure problems.  

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https://leftfootforward.org/2023/06/water-firm-profiteering-slammed-with-news-of-outrageous-over-plans-to-raise-bills-by-40/

Continue ReadingWater firm ‘profiteering’ slammed over news of ‘outrageous’ plans to raise bills by 40%