Public Ownership unites right and left – and will help Labour defeat Reform

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Some Labour MPs want the government to move right to increase its ratings. Some want the government to move left. How to square that circle? How about looking at what the left and right agree on? How about bringing the country together?

If Labour wants to win votes from Reform voters and Green voters in one fell swoop – it can do that with public ownership, not quietly delivered behind the scenes, but driven forward deliberately, wholeheartedly and shouted from the rooftops.

READ MORE: Labour Party Conference 2025: Full LabourList events programme, revealed

We Own It is independent of any political party, we exist only to defend the interests of the clear majority who believe in public services for people not profit. Our political party scorecard, launched this week, makes it clear that challenger, anti establishment parties on all sides recognise public ownership as a vote winner and a huge opportunity to unite people.

Public ownership means real change to people’s lives as it gives the government levers to reinvest profits for better, more efficient services and to provide accountability to households – for example by putting billpayers and anti-sewage groups on the board of Thames Water.

Public ownership also gives the government a positive, patriotic story to tell right now about the UK. That we are taking back control of our key assets, locally, regionally, nationally. That it is defending the people of this country against a handful of shareholders across the world who want to profit from our natural monopolies. That it is putting an end to the 40 years of Thatcher’s failed privatisation experiment.

That the government will support hard working, entrepreneurial businesses where real markets exist but not corporations leeching from our essential public services, where there is no market. That we get to own things in this country again, and that this is a matter of national pride and unity – taking back our country and what belongs to us.

This messaging is clear, pulls no punches and is as popular with Reform voters as it is with Green voters.

Our new scorecard highlights where the different parties stand on public ownership, what they’ve said, what they’ve done in power and the direction of travel. The Liberal Democrats call for water to be owned by “public benefit companies” with environmental experts on the board. In the devolved nations, the Scottish National Party (SNP) gets a tick for water and rail. Plaid Cymru believes that “the privatised energy market has patently failed” and wants “full control over our natural resources”.

Reform UK wants an end to foreign ownership of utilities. Its manifesto argues that all “critical national infrastructure” belongs in 50% public ownership, 50% ownership by UK pensions. The Green Party has supported full public ownership for many years, and Your Party is clearly in support. The Conservatives get a ‘mixed’ score for energy because while in power they decided to compensate shareholders and take back a bit of our National Grid.

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Our event at Labour Party conference will ask how the party can use public ownership if it wants to defeat Reform UK. We will argue that the government should:

• End outsourcing and privatisation in the NHS, delivering the biggest wave of insourcing and saying no to new PFI – Rachel Reeves must stick to the manifesto promise and fund the NHS directly, not undermine its future with private finance. Nigel Farage is weak on the NHS, a big weakness, but Streeting can’t capitalise on this while he’s in the pockets of private healthcare donors.
• Bring Thames Water into permanent public ownership, immediately, as a first step, and on behalf of households and the environment, instead of making spurious excuses about the whole industry.
• Give Ed Miliband enough budget to make Great British Energy a huge success and give the company a retail wing so that public ownership can be directly linked to lower energy bills.
• Deliver on rail. Set up Great British Trains and create a plan for new publicly owned trains as the old ones are decommissioned, as well as ending all wasteful competition on the railway, reducing fares and creating a democratic passenger watchdog, effectively a union for rail passengers.
• Provide a pot of money for local authorities to make the most of the opportunities created by the lifting of the ban on new publicly owned bus companies and the introduction of bus franchising (following the decisions in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, and Liverpool).
• Buy back – relatively cheaply – the Royal Mail from Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský and run it once again as a 500 year old national institution to be proud of, put it back together with the Post Office and give households a say in how it can innovate and improve.

The government is already bringing contracts in house as they come up for renewal (rail), setting up new publicly owned organisations (energy) and even buying back assets (for example reversing the sale of 36,347 military homes carried out in 1996, at the end of last year). Why not bite the bullet to take back all our key services and then take the credit for being bold? Delineate what counts as state, what counts as market and then defend our right to public property. Other countries get to own assets, why not the British?

As recent Common Wealth research shows, we’ve handed over £200 billion to shareholders since 1991.

The government has acknowledged that buying a profitable asset means you own a profitable asset – this should be understood as a financially neutral transaction, not a net loss. The British people understand that owning is better than renting. They will understand that ending ideological privatisation is better than propping up the rip off forever more.

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The postwar Labour government invested in the future of the country, building the NHS, arguably the best thing this country has ever created, without undue concern for rising national debt. Blair’s government stepped in to defend the public interest against shareholders when Railtrack went bust. At a time of polarisation, tension and disillusionment, it’s time for a new story about our national identity. If there must be an enemy, it’s time for a new one. The Daily Mail discovered the yacht owning water bosses many years ago, and there are plenty more where they came from.

If Labour chooses corporate donors over the British public, it is digging its own grave. Instead, the government can talk about taking back what’s ours while putting money back in your pocket. That’s a story that will win over working class communities desperate for some power, wealth, control – and win over lefties and greenies at the same time.

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