New Green Party leader Zack Polanski has insisted on the importance of “nationalising energy, nationalising the water companies”, and doing the same with anything that’s essential for people’s lives.

Zack Polanski: it’s political choices

Slamming private companies for profiteering at ordinary people’s expense, he stressed to the Canary:

None of that needs to be that way. None of that is natural. It’s political choices. And we can make different political choices.

Zack Polanski insisted:

it’s not about taking private companies and nationalising them. It’s about recognising that, if people need essentials, then this shouldn’t be driven by profit. It should be driven by people’s needs.

And he added:

I don’t think there’s anything contentious about that. I think it’s been made contentious because of decades of neoliberal agendas of corporate companies who have bought politicians and bought the media (so support independent media!) and pushing this narrative constantly that, in some way, profit or competition is the best way to run a country. And it clearly isn’t!

As the Canary has reported, neoliberalism is very much the modern machine for class warfare, and it has been for decades (particularly since Margaret Thatcher’s time in power, in Britain). It’s all about austerity (cutting public spending), privatising public resources, freeing companies from regulations, and turning citizens into competitors rather than communities. Even many mainstream economists have condemned it as a failed economic model that deepens inequality, undermines democracy, slashes living standards (especially for the poorest people and younger generations) while only serving the interests of the richest.

As Polanski stressed:

the neoliberal agenda over the last couple of decades has actually failed in this country. The status quo is devastating. We have more food banks in this country than McDonald’s… just that one stat alone, I think, should cut through to how much we need to turn this country around.

Nationalisation isn’t ‘too difficult’ or ‘too expensive’. It’s necessary, and it’s popular!

Zack Polanski was speaking about punishing big corporate polluters not just with fines but by actually “disincentivising bad behaviour” with bans or taxes, and said:

It’s outrageous right now that water companies are pumping sewage into our rivers, and charging us extra for that privilege.

On the worthless Thames Water in particular, he stressed:

the government sold it with £0 debt. It’s now in £17bn of debt.

That’s just one example, he asserted, of how:

Privatisation is a failed experiment. And rather than pointing out nationalisation as kind of a new thing or the thing that we’re gonna go to, we’re returning to it.

He added:

we absolutely can do it. And the really, really good thing about this is nationalisation is a really popular policy among the public.

As We Own It has pointed out:

Most of us want to see public ownership across a range of public services, from water to energy, from the NHS to the Royal Mail.

Polling clearly shows that public ownership is very popular. According to YouGov, support for public ownership has increased substantially between 2017 and 2024.

Polanski added:

So the only reason it’s not happening, and I literally mean the only reason, is politicians in the pockets of media – that’s kind of a two-way feedback loop – pretending it’s too difficult, pretending it’s too hard, pretending it’s too expensive. They’re lies. It’s misinformation. And we fully intend to cut through with the truth.

We Own It has just released a scorecard on support for nationalisation. The Greens placed the highest among existing parties.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

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