Unions defeat leadership on rail renationalisation
The Labour Party conference has voted in favour of a rebel amendment in favour of placing the railways back under public ownership.
Overall 63.71 per cent of the conference voted in favour of placing the railways back under public ownership.
The Constituency Labour Party, consisting of rank and file members, voted 72 per cent against renationalisation. However, union affiliates outweighed this by voting 99.49 per cent in favour.
The result comes after a card vote was called on the issue, with the show of hands too close to call.
Before the announcement of the result, some delegates expressed concerns about yesterday’s debate. One delegate told the floor that they were concerned by the “one-sided nature” of the debate – where the majority of those called backed the Government’s position- and called on today’s chair, Tony Robinson, to provide a more “balanced” debate today.
The result is not a great surprise as many commentators had believed the Government would be vulnerable on the issue.
Speaking yesterday, the Transport Secretary Alistair Darling, pleaded with delegates not to vote for the amended position, arguing that the total cost would be in the region of £22 billion, money he said would be better spent on the rail network.
Moving the motion, Gerry Docherty, general secretary of the Transport Salaried Staff’s Association, said that rail privatisation was “one of the most blatant barefaced robberies ever perpetrated on the nation by the Tories at the fag end of its discredited life”.
He also argued that re-nationalisation would not cost the Government’s projected figure of £22 billion. Mr Docherty went on to say that when the operating companies’ franchises came to end, they should simply not be renewed. “We take the keys back and thank them for their service and run it in the public sector”, he said.
Despite the conference’s decision to adopt the motion, the Government is likely to campaign strongly against its inclusion into the next election manifesto. The leadership is likely to argue that the motion was passed because of the unions’ block vote, not the general will of the conference.
There has been no reaction from either the Party’s or unions’ leadership on the result.
