Tuesday, January 05, 2016

The need to renationalise the British rail

Nasir Khan, January 6, 2016

The privatization of the British rail (BR) has been a great disaster for the ordinary people of the United Kingdom. The only beneficiaries of the scheme that was unleashed first by the Tories, and then followed up by the Labour, were the private companies and their capitalist owners.

Whenever foreign tourists, including many from affluent west European countries, visit Britain and pay sky-high rail tickets they get a shock. They just don’t understand why the British government is so indifferent to the ordinary working class people and their families who have no option but to pay such high prices to travel. This utterly unfair system should be scrapped and the BR should be taken out of the clutches of the private capital and be renationalised. But who can do it? Tories? Blairites? The answer is, No. It can be done only by a government run by people who have concern for the welfare of its citizens.

It is difficult to say how things will develop. If Jeremy Corbyn succeeds to head a Labour government, then the chances of a much-needed change seem bright. He is a worthy and reliable person who can do it. But he has much difficult tasks within the Labour party, which has a hierarchy of the Labour establishment, practically indistinguishable from what the Tories have, who will obstruct him all the way.

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