But what about Communism? If we take care of people we end up on the precipice of Communism. /s
Good article, great points, well made.
We should have everything nationalised that provides basic services otherwise you’re literally betraying “free market” principles;
It’s not a free market if one guy owns the water and we all need water to live – his profit margin, therefore wealth, therefore political influence is guaranteed (because we die without water) and he can lobby the government with his excess profits to ensure no one else can own the water, or nationalise his industry, or windfall tax his profits, or anything else.
Same is true for energy and food – anything you *need to live* is not a free market commodity – because without you there is no free market, and without those things there is no you.
The issue is is that public ownership is a dirty word for a heck of a lot of the voting population.
Thatcher is still very popular, and she freed the UK from the terrible shackles of the publicly owned companies (she didn’t, it’s actually where the rot set in), so you’re dealing with the rose tinted nostalgia of the 80’s combined with the spectre of 70’s when many companies were publicly owned.
You also have a huge portion of the population who automatically think that government owned companies = communism, so there’s that.
In principle, I support the idea of public ownership of vital infrastructure. I think Labour are right to be pragmatic at this time though.
Renationalisation is not cheap – the CBI [estimated the cost at £196bn](https://www.cbi.org.uk/articles/the-cost-of-renationalisation/) in 2019, even if they’re out by a factor of two you’re looking at an incredible sum of money, which would mean higher taxes, lower spending elsewhere, more national debt or a combination of the three. I don’t think that now is the time to do it, there are other priorities that are much more pressing.
While I might agree with nationalisation in some instances (water being the one commodity where it might become a nightmare with how it’s supplied), it doesn’t matter what Labour pledges if they can’t get the votes.
They need to balance appealing to existing Labour voters with winning back those who were swayed by Alex de Pfiffel, while also making it clear that they aren’t Corbyn 2.0 to those who were put off Labour by him as a person. An perceived extreme swing from the Tory mess to full nationalisation is going to be far too scary for most voters who sit in the middle.
It’s a political decision. Its obvious to anyone with a brain the if labour stand on a platform of bringing companies back into public ownership you basically hand the Tories another GE victory.
We all know the line they would use “Kier Starmer is Jeremy Corbyn in a better suit”
Labour strategy right now should be singular “get rid of the Tories” everything else comes 2nd. And every Labour voter should get behind this, regardless of your view.
And can be immediately dismissed by opposition during qn election trough the phrases fantasy economics or magic money tree. Labour needs to learn from its mistakes of offering too much which could be dismissed as pie in the sky in the past, especially now during a cost of living crisis.
Yes it should be the end goal but it really isn’t feasible right now
IMHO, Corbyn had a Tory-Brexit type view on renationalising stuff ‘Don’t worry… it’ll be fine’… That’s not a way to do anything, specially post-brexit…
so if Starmer is being cautious about renationalising the right way, then it should be seen as a good thing. Show how you’d do it, how it would affect costs and pricing and whatnot for the general public. Give us a reason to believe you know what you’re doing… rather than the Tory method of ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be fine, trust us’ that’s gotten us into such a shit hole
Blairites..
That was a terrible article filled with glaring errors and omissions of intent which make it barely understandable.
For the people who are gung ho for renationalization can I ask: What companies or industries do you think shouldn’t be publicly run?
I think it might be important to keep in mind that Labour has to take away votes from the Tories. It might not be best in their optics to openly support nationalisation (even though I highly doubt they do at this point) they still need to present themselves in a way that will pull votes away from the Tories who are literally planning to take away the right and ability to carry out industrial action.
Labour should have a nationalisation policy which will give shareholders the original sale price of the utility when it were privatized. This should be a mark in the sand saying any future participation in buying assets of what should be publicly owned utilities will mean the same outcome. We should NEVER have private water companies, private electric companies, etc. It is criminal that fat profits are rinsed from water to make the shareholders of water companies get big dividends.
Doing it bit by bit might be the best way to win people over. Corbyn going in hard and fast seemed to scare people off as time went on, if Starmer wants to win people over to the idea then he will need to renationalise one sector, show it works and move on from there. It’s not the most exciting approach but it is probably the most realistic approach to changing people’s minds on the issue.
Genuinely don’t understand why unions are sticking with the Tory light labour.
They can genuinely fund a proper alternative option with the ability to convert some disenfranchised labour mps with solid leadership.
Don’t worry about splitting the left vote because trust me these neo liberals are not on the same side.
Shares thw same donor class with the Tories, that’s why
16 comments
[removed]
But what about Communism? If we take care of people we end up on the precipice of Communism. /s
Good article, great points, well made.
We should have everything nationalised that provides basic services otherwise you’re literally betraying “free market” principles;
It’s not a free market if one guy owns the water and we all need water to live – his profit margin, therefore wealth, therefore political influence is guaranteed (because we die without water) and he can lobby the government with his excess profits to ensure no one else can own the water, or nationalise his industry, or windfall tax his profits, or anything else.
Same is true for energy and food – anything you *need to live* is not a free market commodity – because without you there is no free market, and without those things there is no you.
The issue is is that public ownership is a dirty word for a heck of a lot of the voting population.
Thatcher is still very popular, and she freed the UK from the terrible shackles of the publicly owned companies (she didn’t, it’s actually where the rot set in), so you’re dealing with the rose tinted nostalgia of the 80’s combined with the spectre of 70’s when many companies were publicly owned.
You also have a huge portion of the population who automatically think that government owned companies = communism, so there’s that.
In principle, I support the idea of public ownership of vital infrastructure. I think Labour are right to be pragmatic at this time though.
Renationalisation is not cheap – the CBI [estimated the cost at £196bn](https://www.cbi.org.uk/articles/the-cost-of-renationalisation/) in 2019, even if they’re out by a factor of two you’re looking at an incredible sum of money, which would mean higher taxes, lower spending elsewhere, more national debt or a combination of the three. I don’t think that now is the time to do it, there are other priorities that are much more pressing.
While I might agree with nationalisation in some instances (water being the one commodity where it might become a nightmare with how it’s supplied), it doesn’t matter what Labour pledges if they can’t get the votes.
They need to balance appealing to existing Labour voters with winning back those who were swayed by Alex de Pfiffel, while also making it clear that they aren’t Corbyn 2.0 to those who were put off Labour by him as a person. An perceived extreme swing from the Tory mess to full nationalisation is going to be far too scary for most voters who sit in the middle.
It’s a political decision. Its obvious to anyone with a brain the if labour stand on a platform of bringing companies back into public ownership you basically hand the Tories another GE victory.
We all know the line they would use “Kier Starmer is Jeremy Corbyn in a better suit”
Labour strategy right now should be singular “get rid of the Tories” everything else comes 2nd. And every Labour voter should get behind this, regardless of your view.
And can be immediately dismissed by opposition during qn election trough the phrases fantasy economics or magic money tree. Labour needs to learn from its mistakes of offering too much which could be dismissed as pie in the sky in the past, especially now during a cost of living crisis.
Yes it should be the end goal but it really isn’t feasible right now
IMHO, Corbyn had a Tory-Brexit type view on renationalising stuff ‘Don’t worry… it’ll be fine’… That’s not a way to do anything, specially post-brexit…
so if Starmer is being cautious about renationalising the right way, then it should be seen as a good thing. Show how you’d do it, how it would affect costs and pricing and whatnot for the general public. Give us a reason to believe you know what you’re doing… rather than the Tory method of ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be fine, trust us’ that’s gotten us into such a shit hole
Blairites..
That was a terrible article filled with glaring errors and omissions of intent which make it barely understandable.
For the people who are gung ho for renationalization can I ask: What companies or industries do you think shouldn’t be publicly run?
I think it might be important to keep in mind that Labour has to take away votes from the Tories. It might not be best in their optics to openly support nationalisation (even though I highly doubt they do at this point) they still need to present themselves in a way that will pull votes away from the Tories who are literally planning to take away the right and ability to carry out industrial action.
Labour should have a nationalisation policy which will give shareholders the original sale price of the utility when it were privatized. This should be a mark in the sand saying any future participation in buying assets of what should be publicly owned utilities will mean the same outcome. We should NEVER have private water companies, private electric companies, etc. It is criminal that fat profits are rinsed from water to make the shareholders of water companies get big dividends.
Doing it bit by bit might be the best way to win people over. Corbyn going in hard and fast seemed to scare people off as time went on, if Starmer wants to win people over to the idea then he will need to renationalise one sector, show it works and move on from there. It’s not the most exciting approach but it is probably the most realistic approach to changing people’s minds on the issue.
Genuinely don’t understand why unions are sticking with the Tory light labour.
They can genuinely fund a proper alternative option with the ability to convert some disenfranchised labour mps with solid leadership.
Don’t worry about splitting the left vote because trust me these neo liberals are not on the same side.
Shares thw same donor class with the Tories, that’s why