Yesterday morning, Rachel Reeves was drawn into stating on the Today programme that a Labour government would not bring rail, energy and water into public ownership. Then followed a number of tweets from Labour’s shadow transport ministers, reaffirming the party’s commitment to nationalising the railway. By the afternoon, Keir Starmer had confirmed that rail would indeed be brought into public ownership because this was “pragmatic”, but water and energy would not.
While Starmer claims the pragmatism of the policy rests on the fact that some of the rail network is already in public hands, the more relevant issue is that Labour is terrified of buying back assets. Bringing contracts (like rail franchises) into public ownership when they come to an end is generally cost-free whereas buying back water and energy companies involves compensating shareholders – and Jeremy Corbyn was hammered for this in the 2019 election.
