Renationalisation

What happens now is still uncertain, but if the investors decide to walk away from the company it will face a crisis, as its current financial reserves will only enable it to continue functioning until May next year. The idea of renationalisation – for the government to step in and take ownership of the company to ensure a continued service, is being increasingly raised as a possibility by the capitalist press. The Tories are ideologically opposed to this; it would be a tacit admission that the claim Thatcher’s neoliberal privatisations would encourage more investment is false. Pressure would grow to nationalise other polluting water companies, the crumbling railways, the postal service or the profiteering energy companies as well.