Labour WILL renationalise railways if party wins next general election. Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh told delegates at the party’s annual gathering in Liverpool that power needed to be ‘in the hands of the public’
Labour WILL renationalise railways if party wins next general election. Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh told delegates at the party’s annual gathering in Liverpool that power needed to be ‘in the hands of the public’
37 comments
Put this in writing, and I might actually vote Labour next time round. Of course, if they break that promise, that’s it: never again.
I want it in writing like the other poster said, I won’t vote for a Tory lite party. Take back control of our utilities.
Water too, would be nice if we could stop literally flooding our rivers and seas with shit.
Honestly I think energy companies would be the first priority but this is still good.
They can’t put it in writing cos the swing voters won’t like it. Instead they can do what the Tories always do – get into power and then do a load of stuff they didn’t say they would.
Labour is going to win the next election for sure. The younger generation that didn’t vote in the last election will have seen the effects of a Tory government and will come out of the woodwork in droves, or so I believe. Secondly, lots of Tory voters have died thanks to Covid (old people). Labour getting fully on board with green energy is going to win huge votes for the younger generation. If they decided to legalise drugs, declare the war on drugs a failure, and declare drug addiction a healthcare issue rather than an illegal issue, this would be a home run for Sir Keir, and I don’t even think the man is any good.
All public services should be in the hands of public enterprise. There should be no privatisation as the services are for the country and not for shareholders.
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I’ll believe it when it happens, but the first of what 1300 industries and organisations is a good start.
Power back were it belongs, in the hands of the people!
Utilities and railway sounds like the start of a monopoly game. Shame they can only afford Whitechapel after that.
I thought they already were? What was great British railways then?
I believe it when it happens. IMHO the Labour Party establishment, in their heart, are privatisers. I think they’re most comfortable with the existing neoliberal order, but just think they can manage it better than the tories.
Decent policy though. I’m just very skeptical they’ll do it.
Will I vote for them? I’ll vote for the candidate in my constituency with the best chance of beating the Tory candidate, which happens to be Labour. If I was in a southern Tory/LibDem marginal, I’d be voting LibDem. Don’t squander your vote on a candidate that cannot win, vote tactically.
Depends what happens to the ticket prices. Pointless being in public hands if we still can’t afford to use the railways that we own.
As somebody who likes trains yeh!! Other countries have nationalised railways like Germany and their trains s are amazing
If there’s any money left that’s worth anything, maybe this is Truss’ tactic?
Finally a wiff of policy from the opposition!
I hope Starmer pulls his finger out and hammers home we’re being stripped of our assets and ripped off at every stage of life and it doesn’t have to be that way
Next you’ll be capturing those record profits from British Petroleum for the Brits.
Public or private so long as this vicious ticket system is gone.
I think that’s the first Labour thing I’ve heard Labour leadership say in years.
Yes. But there are an awful lot of shareholders that need to be paid first. It’ll be very expensive.
Okay I’ve been conservative my entire life (only 20 not that long) if they properly promise to do this I will vote Labour
Why is BBC News not showing the Labour conference like it usually does?
silly bidders if they’re lying what use will it do them putting it in print…
It’s a cert that labour will get in next election . It’s like the tory are doing a trolley dash before they get replaced
And reinstate PR and take us back into the single market and customs union….EU.
It’s the railways that make money its the power companies then the railways
Good idea, i would go 1 further and push all utilities into that bracket too. Would happily pay a bit more tax to cover those costs.
Would we actually see rail costs decrease at the passenger level if this happened?
It would make sense, but I already know we wouldn’t see a big decrease. They’ll just take the money for themselves instead.
Aren’t the railways already renationalised? They already are. It’s just the rail operators that are private until their franchises run out.
[Has the government just renationalised Britain’s railways? (March 23, 2020)](https://citymonitor.ai/transport/has-government-just-renationalised-britain-s-railways-4969)
[Have the railways been renationalised? Not exactly](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/have-the-railways-been-renationalised-not-exactly-z32kvw0k7)
I thought with Covid, we had nationalised the railways again? I thought most of the TOCs handed back their franchise, and as a result, GB Railways was going to be introduced, along with a concession based model?
Doesn’t anyone remember the shambles of British Rail?
You should also learn never to trust politicians promises before an election.
What will stop the Conservatives from selling them again?
About time! Though shame many of the competent Network Rail teams that work on infrastructure projects have already been forced out in the last year and moved to contracting organisations… ya know because getting contractors in to do a job is cheaper than in-house (well done CEO of NR). They’re not exactly going to get those people back now after being treated like dirt…
They’re already nationalised. How does the reporter not know this? They never gave control back after the covid emergency takeover.
Truss n kwasi put the nails in the coffin but far too many dumb people in the UK who’ll vote Conservative even when they diminish n bankrupt the country.