The figures are in. Corbyn’s nationalisation plans would save us billions.
Campaign group We Own It has looked into Jeremy Corbyn’s nationalisation plans. And it found that public ownership of industries such as water, broadband and ending the NHS internal market would save us almost £13 billion every year. The group used research from Greenwich University, Transport for Quality of Life, and the Centre for Health and the Public Interest.
‘But the corporate media says they would cost us money?’
The corporate media has flipped reality when it comes to nationalisation. Because when the people save £13bn, profiteering shareholders in the private sector lose a large chunk of that £13bn. The money we save is mainly their potential profits.
We Own It analysed Labour’s nationalisation plans for each industry and found the following savings:
- Public ownership of the railways: almost £1bn per year (or 100 miles of new railway)
- Nationalisation of energy networks: £3.7bn per year (or 222 offshore wind turbines)
- Ending privatisation of water: £2.5bn per year (or enough to reduce leakage by 1/3)
- Common ownership of buses: £506m per year (or 1,356 electric buses)
- Public ownership of broadband: £500m per year (or full fibre broadband for 6m households)
- Ending NHS privatisation: £4.5bn [per year] (or 20,000 doctors and 72,000 nurses)
Huge savings
The truth is we already pay for services like water, energy and internet. The difference is we are currently renting these utilities at a high cost from the private sector. For instance, E.on and EDF hiked energy prices by another 10.3% on average in April 2019.
When it comes to essential services, it’s cheaper to own them ourselves because that removes the cost of individual profiteering.
The right wing often attacks nationalisation through accusing the public sector of ‘bad management’. But both the private and public sector are at risk of bad management, as outsourcing companies Carillion and G4S have demonstrated. It’s up to Labour to ensure the best people are operating the services under public ownership, partly through offering competitive salaries.
The clear savings public ownership can bring don’t mean we nationalise everything. It only applies to common necessities (stuff we cannot live without). We wouldn’t nationalise fried chicken because not everybody wants or needs to eat it. Why would we split the cost?
Read on...
To own our public services, we must first own the debate
With these colossal potential savings in mind, the question isn’t ‘how will you pay for public ownership?’ The question is ‘how will the Conservatives pay for privatisation?’
Featured image via Flickr – Jeremy Corbyn
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Another thing Labour’s re-nationalisation programme can do is immediately create many thousands of jobs by putting male and female conductors back on buses and trains. I bet nationwide with 8-hour shifts on four-day weeks it would put a minimum of 100,000 people back into work; and with fair taxation and non-punitive stoppages for those on benefits or in full-time education, some of these jobs can offer work opportunities for students and single parents looking for a few part-time shifts or the odd full day. The potential is exciting.
Hilarious, where does the money come from to pay these people? Oh yeah, Jezza could borrow it and tax the rich even more. But what happens when the rich have had enough and leave the country and he can’t afford to pay the borrowing back? Well of course Labour would be voted out again and leave another shameful letter at the Exchequer forcing more years of austerity. It’s a ridiculous vicious circle that has to be broken. Fortunately Labour are unelectable under Corbyn.
I really like that last statement, it needs to be said a lot more often, where ARE the Tories going to get all that money for privatisation? Well it certainly isn’t from the money they diverted into private coffers from 30+ years of privatisation scams, where our services were sold off at rock bottom prices. No, it will come from the same source it’s always come from, selling off the remaining public services of which the NHS is a top priority for them.
How anyone can trust Treasonous Tories or Lib(elous) Dems is beyond me, the evidence of their crimes are littered all over the shop!