Useless Burnham has sacked off renationalisation

When Andy Burnham unveiled his plan to run in the Makerfield by-election, the establishment media claimed he would renationalise utilities. Because we actually listened to what he was saying, we knew this wasn’t the case, and we pointed it out. Burnham himself disagreed with our assessment that he had no plan to end the privatisation nightmare. Now, Burnham has made it clear; his Labour government will not offer anything besides half measures:

Andy Burnham confirming he won't take our key infrastructure back into public ownership. pic.twitter.com/LjibtBuEdL

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) June 29, 2026

Burnham sets out victory for the fat cats

The above clip is from a speech Burnham gave in which he laid out his plan for government. In it, Burnham said (emphasis added):

On utilities, we will ensure all parts of the UK are able to take greater public control of essential services like water, housing, energy and transport, learning from the model that has transformed our bus networks here in Greater Manchester.

We will set out 10-year plans to bring down the cost of these essentials to individuals, families and businesses.

So there we have it.

We put this out on 24 May, and Burnham responded:

I’m not doing anything of the kind. Just got to be realistic about how quickly it can be done.

— Andy Burnham (@andyburnham) May 24, 2026

In that piece, we noted that despite media reports to the contrary:

Burnham did not talk about ‘renationalising’ anything in the above; instead he talked about putting utilities under “stronger public control”. Now, Burnham is setting the record straight, with the Times reporting:

He has also spoken of stronger public control over utility companies. “I use that phrase advisedly. People then shorthand it as nationalisation; it’s not the same thing,” he said, pointing to Greater Manchester’s bus services, which are run by private operators.

Burnham’s response to us suggested he had a long-term renationalisation strategy. Now, he’s made it clear these vital utilities will remain in the hands of the UK’s greediest incompetents for the next 10 years at least.

This is honestly a tragedy.

And it has not gone unnoticed.

Backlash

Catt Hobbs of We Own It noted the following in response to Burnham’s announcement:

Andy Burnham needs to deliver public OWNERSHIP of the essentials 💧💡🚌🚄📮🏥

"Public control" won't do – it essentially just means more regulation

With natural monopolies, we don’t have choice as consumers, so we need accountability as citizenshttps://t.co/fJ5HZ5nWy8

— Cat Hobbs (@CatHobbs) June 29, 2026

We Own It have previously provided 10 reasons why privatisation failed:

1. You don’t have a choice – public services are natural monopolies: “Privatisation was introduced because of a belief in free markets and consumer choice. But public services tend to be what economists call ‘natural monopolies’, or services where competition doesn’t really make sense. For example, when you take the train, you don’t really have a choice about which one to use. There is no real market.“
2. Waste: “Money from your bills and taxes should go into improving public services. But with privatisation, [shareholders must receive dividends]. Interest rates are higher for private companies than they are for government. (Plus, there are the extra costs of creating and regulating an artificial market.)“.
3. Cutting corners: “The drive to maximise profit comes into conflict with the need to spend time caring, or spend money to meet people’s needs“.
4. Cherry picking: “Private companies cherry pick the profitable bits of a service and leave the rest“.
5. Fragmentation: “When lots of private companies are involved in delivering a public service, this can create a complicated, fragmented system where it’s not always clear who’s doing what. For example, on our railway, different organisations are responsible for managing the track and stations, running trains and leasing trains. This is inefficient and wasteful“.
6. Wrong incentives: “When private companies run public services, they may not have an incentive to help tackle problems. For example, companies running private prisons will get paid more money if more people are locked up“.
7. Inadequate regulation: “Often there’s a revolving door between people working for the regulator and people working for the companies they are regulating. For example, Cathryn Ross who was previously the CEO at Ofwat, the water regulator, now works for privatised Thames Water“.
8. Lack of flexibility: “Councils and government departments are responsible for meeting the needs of the public – but privatisation means less flexibility for changing circumstances. If an outsourcing contract with a private company needs changing, government must pay more to make changes or improvements, add in extras or to opt out“.
9. Loss of capacity: “Handing over control to private companies weakens the public sector, reducing the skills and people available to provide high quality public services“.
10. Risk of bailouts: “Public services are vital, they’re not optional extras, and so they are often too big and too important to fail. This means the government stands ready to rescue private companies in their hour of need – we saw this for example with outsourcing firm Carillion, the East Coast railway line, energy retailer Bulb and Thames Water”.

We Own It aren’t the only ones calling Burnham out either:

"Back into public control"?

This makes it sound like 'back into public ownership', but Burnham is deliberately not using those words. Instead he's talking about 'greater public control'. He's talking about regulation not nationalisation. https://t.co/CaTP5l3GGf

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) June 29, 2026

Andy Burnham's speech made no mention of the #ClimateCrisis, included no commitment to public ownership of water and said nothing about the urgent need to properly tax the super-rich.

Will this just be a Labour rebranding exercise?

For the real deal: https://t.co/MtUTsPTrvi pic.twitter.com/cZejGgGsZD

— Bradford Green Party (@bradfordgreens) June 29, 2026

Predictable

The best case scenario under Burnham is that these companies become so heavily regulated that they become unprofitable. In such a situation, they would exit from the market of their own volition, allowing us to renationalise without buyouts.

The worst case scenario is that we pay for more toothless regulators, nothing changes, and private companies use their power and influence to slowly free themselves of the flimsy shackles Burnham placed on them.

If you think the latter is more likely, it’s because that’s the exact scenario we’ve seen play out time and time again. Private companies want to make more and more money every year, and they dedicate their resources to making that happen. They always push for more control, and they do so with the benefit of the money which should have been re-invested into the services they’re mismanaging.

To make something abundantly clear, nationalisation is incredibly popular with the public:

It’s clear why Burnham is siding with the failed privatisation experimenters over the public; it’s because he’s another establishment shill.

Feel free to disagree with us on Twitter, Andy, but we can all see what you’re up to.

Featured image via the Canary