I’ve already put up a piece about some of the events at this year’s Arise Festival. Yesterday I had a further email about their programme, which added these events to it.
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4) NHS @ 75 – How can we repair & restore it after 13 years of austerity?
Online. Wed. June 7, 18.30. Register here // Share & Invite here // Get Festival Ticket here // Retweet here
With: Nadia Whittome MP // John Lister (Keep Our NHS Public) // John Puntis (Doctors for the NHS.) // Chloe Brooks (North West. Rep, Labour Students.) July marks 75 years of our NHS. In light of Starmer and Streeting’s recent remarks, join the discussion on how we can end the current crisis, & secure its future as a universal publicly-owned, public service for all.
Hosted by the Labour Assembly Against Austerity at Arise 2023.
5) Sylvia Pankhurst: Suffragette, Socialist & Scourge of Empire.
Friday June 9, 1pm, Online. Register here //Share & Invite here // Retweet here // Get festival ticket here
With Katherine Connelly – author of ‘Sylvia Pankhurst: Suffragette, Socialist and Scourge of Empire.’ Sylvia Pankhurst dedicated her life to fighting oppression & injustice. This event will look at how this courageous & inspiring campaigner is of huge relevance today.
Register here to get a link to join live or watch back later. Part of the ‘Socialist Ideas’ series.
6) People & Planet on the Brink – Socialist Solutions to Climate Catastrophe
Online, Sunday, June 11, 5.00pm. Register here // Get festival ticket here // Retweet here.
With: Olivia Blake MP // Tess Woolfenden, Debt Justice // Sam Knight, Green New Deal Rising // Sam Mason, Climate Justice Coalition trade union officer // Fraser McGuire, Young Labour. The world is on brink of five ‘disastrous’ climate tipping points, threatening the very future of humanity. Yet our Government – like many others globally – are more interested in protecting the profits of the fossil fuel giants than urgent action to tackle the climate emergency.
A Socialist Sunday session at Arise 2023.
7) Free Palestine – Mustafa Barghouti briefing + Q&A
Monday June 12, Online, 6.30pm. Register here //Share & Invite here // Retweet here // Get festival ticket here.
In-depth briefing + Q&A with Mustafa Barghouti, Palestinian National Initiative, on the latest developments in Palestine as Israel’s far-right government steps up its aggression. With supplementary contributions from Young Labour, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign & Labour & Palestine. Chair: Louise Regan, National Education Union & PSC.
Free event but solidarity tickets & donations essential for funding Webinar & streaming. Hosted by Labour & Palestine as part of Arise.
8) The Case for Labour Party Democracy – for Members’ Rights & the Union Link
Online, Wednesday June 14, 6.30pm. Register here // Share & invite here // Get festival ticket here // Retweet here.
With: Jon Trickett MP // Mick Whelan, ASLEF GS//Simon Fletcher // Rachel Garnham, CLPD // Nabeela Mowlana, Young Labour. Join a vital discussion to make the case for a democratic party & movement – & to map out next steps in campaigning for members’ rights & in defence of the union-link.
9) What would Marx & Engels say about today’s global capitalist crisis?
Online, Friday June 16, 1.00pm. Register here // Share & invite here // Get festival ticket here // Retweet here.
With Michael Roberts – economist & author, The Great Recession – a Marxist view.
Register here to get a link to join live or watch back later. Part of the ‘Socialist Ideas’ series.
10) The New Colonialism- resisting racism & exploitation of the global South
Online, Sunday June 18, 5.00pm. Register here // Share & invite here // Get festival ticket here // Retweet here.
With: Asad Rehman, Director, War on Want // Heidi Chow, Director, Debt Justice // Lubaba Khalid, Young Labour BAME Officer // Chair: Denis Fernando, Arise volunteer.
A Socialist Sunday session at Arise 2023.
11) No more Pinochets in Latin America – Stand with social progress, democracy & regional integration
Online, Monday June 19, 6.30pm. Register here // Share & invite here // Get festival ticket here // Retweet here.
With: Guillaume Long, former foreign Minister, Ecuador // Nathalia Urban, Brasil Wire // Claudia-Turbet Delof, Wiphalas Across the World, Bolivia, // Dave McKnight, UNISON NW // Gawain Little, GFTU.
Hosted by Labour Friends of Progressive Latin America at Arise 2023.
12) Socialist economic policies explained: the alternative to never-ending cuts
Online, Wednesday June 21, 6.30pm. Register here // Share & invite here // Get festival ticket here // Retweet here.
Richard Burgon MP // Laura Smith, Labour Councillor & co-author of the No Holding Back report // Professor Özlem Onaran, University of Greenwich // Cat Hobbs, Director of We Own It.
Ask your questions & make your contributions on socialist alternatives to ‘Austerity 2.0.’
13) The Paris Commune – “Glorious harbinger of a new society”
Online, Friday June 23, 1.00pm. Register here // Share & invite here // Get festival ticket here // Retweet here.
With Sandra Bloodworth. Australian labour historian & contributor to The Paris Commune, An Ode To Emancipation. The Paris Commune is still studied throughout the world as one of the first working-class attempts at emancipation, direct democracy & social change – why?
Register here to get a link to join live or watch back later. Part of the ‘Socialist Ideas’ series.
14) Push for peace – No to forever wars
Online, Sunday June 25, 5.00pm. Register here // Share & invite here // Get festival ticket here // Retweet here.
With: Kate Hudson (CND) // Steve Howell (author, ‘Game Changer’ & former advisor to Jeremy Corbyn) // Shadia Edwards-Dashti (Stop the War Coalition) // Chair: Logan Williiams, Arise volunteer.
We all have an NHS story – from being born in the NHS to seeing it save our friends and family.
We are massively thankful to our wonderful NHS and its brilliant staff for being there for us through the years.
But due to outsourcing and cuts, our NHS is on its knees. And if politicians think that we are going to just clap for the NHS on July 5th, they are sorely mistaken.
We will demand they reinstate our NHS as the fully public service it was created to be and fund it properly.
On a day when the public will be paying lots of attention to the NHS, you can help make sure they are hearing this demand and adding their voices to it.
After a decade of outsourcing and massive cuts, our NHS can longer be there for us when we need it.
7.3 million of us are now on NHS waiting lists. And as a result, 272,000 people in Britain paid out-of-pocket to get healthcare from the private sector in 2022.
You shouldn’t have to wait for months, sometimes over a year, for care because you don’t have money. That is American-style two-tier healthcare happening right here in the UK.
And it’s happening in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
We have a massive opportunity on Wednesday 5th July. Everyone will be talking about the birthday of our NHS on that day and we can make it impossible for our MPs to avoid your demand – on social media and your local high street – that they reinstate our NHS.
There are three ways that you can take action on Wednesday 5th of July to demand that your MP reinstate our NHS as a fully public service:
Organise or attend a local action on your local high street and get messages from the public, which you will deliver to your MP and put pressure on them directly
Make a selfie video or picture with your personal message and share it with the hashtag #NHS75 so that people on social media can help boost your message to your MP
Join KONP’s online rally at 6:30 pm on Wednesday 5th July
You can find out more about how to take action HERE.
There is an action for everyone to take regardless of your situation – you can be part of making sure your MP gets the message. The more of us take action, the bigger the impact we can have together.
Nye Bevan, the founder of our National Health Service, said that our NHS will survive so long as there are people willing to fight for it. And thanks to you and others fighting for our NHS, it is still here 75 years later.
Thank you so much for all you do to protect our NHS.
Cat, Johnbosco, Matthew, Kate, Imogen – the We Own It team’
I got this message from the pro-nationalisation, pro-NHS organisation yesterday.
‘Dear David,
You’re incredible!
159 of you have signed up for a regular donation and hundreds more have raised £8431 towards the campaign to make reinstating our NHS as a fully public service a major issue in this election.
Now let’s do this.
FIRST we’ll launch our pledge for MPs and prospective parliamentary candidates to sign, with new polling to show that the public want our NHS BACK.
NEXT ON 5th July (the NHS’s 75th birthday) we’ll hold actions to ramp up the pressure on MPs.
THEN we’ll hold reverse town halls (where politicians listen to the people!) online with MPs in key constituencies to push them to sign the pledge.
We’ll be in touch again soon to let you know about actions happening in your local area or online.
You can play a key role in persuading your MP and election candidates to sign the pledge – and praising them if they have.
Waiting lists are in the news all the time. The challenge is to make it clear what the answer is – not more ‘choice’ but an end to cuts and privatisation.
NOW IS THE TIME to get the message out loud and clear – people don’t want a two tier system like America.
We want an NHS that is there for all of us when we need it. There for our children and our grandchildren.
We know political parties are deciding on policies right now. We won’t wait until an election is announced to make our demand.
The dedication of all the kind people like you who are on this list – whether taking action, making donations, helping in so many ways – blows us away!
THANK YOU for making this campaign possible, we couldn’t do this without you.
Cat, Johnbosco, Matthew, Kate and Imogen – the We Own It team
PS Campaigning works! The actions you’ve been taking with us – whether on the NHS, energy, water, rail, buses – it all makes a difference.
Just yesterday, West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin announced that taking buses into public control is her preferred option, bringing the region one step closer to taking back power from private companies. This follows years of campaigning by We Own It supporters like you.
And today four MPs will be joining an action in Liverpool to back public control of buses there.‘
I’ve just found this piece from the I by Chloe Chaplain reporting that Momentum have warned Starmer that he could lose votes from purging his party’s left and pointing to their own electoral successes to show that Labour can still win with left-wing policies. He’s also been warned that he cannot rely on the Tories’ implosion to secure a Labour victory.
‘Purging the left and ditching socialism could see Labour lose voters, Sir Keir Starmer warned
Sir Keir Starmer has been warned he risks alienating core Labour voters who could stay home and not vote if he turns his back on socialism ahead of the general election.
The left of his party are pointing their own local election successes as evidence that a radical agenda can be attractive to voters. And others are warning Sir Keir of the danger of losing out to apathy.
The Labour leader has made a considerable shift to the centre since taking charge, with appeals to former Tory voters who could be tempted to swing to his party. In doing so, he has pulled power away from the vocal left-wing of his party that had dominated under his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn.
As the general election draws closer, and with Labour’s final policy agenda being drawn up, left wing campaigners and MPs are pushing to stop the leadership turning its back entirely on pledges they argue are very popular among voters.
It cites the Labour administration in Worthing, West Sussex – where Momentum co-chair Hilary Schan was elected as a councillor – and successes in Broxtow, Nottinghamshire, and Preston, Lancashire as examples of a socialist policy platform winning votes. They argue that, if he continues on his current path of “purging” left-wing candidates and policies he could lose support in areas like these.
Ms Schan said the three authorities were a “a living, breathing demonstration that there is no trade-off between electability and transformative policies”.
“As a general election closes in, the Labour leadership has a chance to lay out a bold programme to fix the Tories’ broken Britain. Choosing to instead pursue yet more purges and division will only weaken our electoral coalition and damage prospects of a Labour majority,” she said.’
I’m glad this is being pointed out to Starmer and that it’s got what appears to be a neutral report in the I. As opposed to the right-wing press, which will probably report this with headlines screaming that it’s another attempt by Corbynite anti-Semitic Trots to keep their hold on Labour. But I have absolutely no doubt that Starmer won’t listen, and will carry on purging the left.
As for New Labour’s right-wing policies appealing to Tory voters, this needs to be qualified. The public ownership campaign group We Own It has cited statistics again and again showing that the British public, including a majority of Tory voters, want the utilities taken back into public ownership. What is stopping this isn’t public opinion but Thatcherite ideology and the media and political establishment, which will seek to demonise and undermine any politician that seeks to press for such policies.
Last week the government was forced to bring yet another rail company back into public ownership because of its dreadful failures and shabby service. As organisations like We Own It and Bring Back British Rail have been pointing out for years, this is just one in a long series of cases where failing rail companies have had to be renationalised. Rail privatisation, which was introduced by John Major’s Tory government and hyped as improving the rail network through private industry, has failed. As We Own It and Bring Back British Rail have long argued, it is high time the rail network as a whole was renationalised. They have therefore produced a standard letter for people to send to the responsible minister, Mark Harper, calling for this. Here’s their message about it.
‘Dear David,
The Government has JUST announced it is taking TransPennine Express (TPE) into public ownership.
A few months ago, 8000 of you emailed the Transport Department calling for both TPE and Avanti to be run in-house – for people not profit.
This is your victory. It shows that when you take action you get wins.
The next 24 hours are a huge chance to double your VICTORY. Email Mark Harper, the transport secretary, now to take the rest of our railway system into public ownership.
With allies like Bring Back British Rail, Association of British Commuters and the rail unions, you’ve forced the government to take TransPennine Express into public ownership.
Now that you’ve got this victory, you can press for more.
The first 24 hours after a government decision are crucial. Ministers and their staff will be watching anxiously to see how the public reacts.
If their inboxes fill up with your letters supporting the TransPennine decision, and demanding they go even further, they’ll know public ownership is popular.
Our latest poll shows 67% of the public support taking all of our railway into public ownership.
This groundswell of support for public ownership will influence their ongoing discussions about other railway lines.
Tell the Transport Secretary now: more privatisation won’t help our railways.
Thanks to your actions, TPE will be the seventh rail franchise to come into public operation in just 6 years!
LNER, Northern, Transport for Wales Rail, Southeastern, ScotRail, and the Caledonian Sleeper have all been brought into public operation since 2018.
By emailing Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary, today you can get even more wins for a railway run for people, not profit – and also ensure these wins are permanent.
Thank you!
Cat, Johnbosco, Matthew, Kate, and Imogen — the We Own It team
P.S. Here’s a photo from the fantastic action We Own It, Bring Back British Rail, RMT and others held outside the Department for Transport in March demanding TPE be taken into public ownership.
I’ve signed it, because it’s badly needed and I’m sick of the public sector supporting failing private companies simply for reasons of Tory free market ideology.
I noticed that GB News had a Johnbosco Nwogbo on one of their programmes to debate the issue of rail nationalisation. This looks like the same John Bosco who appears as part of the We Own It team above. He’s been a speaker on many of the online meetings and rallies against the privatisation of our vital public services. I didn’t watch the GB News item on the grounds that it would annoy me. John Bosco himself has a very deep grasp of the facts and is, like the rest of We Own It and similar organisations, well able to marshal powerful arguments in favour of nationalisation. I’m therefore sure he was more than a match for his free market opponent. And for some of the other morons mouthing off on the network.
I got this from the pro-nationalisation, pro-NHS organisation yesterday.
‘Dear David,
The government wants to use the huge NHS waiting list as an excuse to bring in more NHS privatisation.
You can make sure they know that we won’t let them normalise NHS privatisation. They need to know that there’ll be a public uproar if they push for more NHS privatisation.
We can create a big uproar if thousands of us write to our MPs now. Can you push back against Rishi Sunak’s lie about NHS privatisation?
*We have not prepared a template email for you to send to your MP. Writing a short email to your MP in your own words, straight from your heart, based on your own experiences or those of your family and friends will be incredibly powerful and make your MP sit up and listen.
Speaking to Tory press outlet, Conservative Home, Rishi Sunak said NHS privatisation has “worked in the past and we are going to do more of that going forward”.
It will come as no surprise to you that Rishi Sunak is absolutely wrong. NHS privatisation has never worked.
Not unless “working” means stuffing public money into the pockets of private healthcare shareholders.
Open Democracy reported last week that despite private hospitals being paid over half a billion pounds to help with NHS waiting lists, fewer patients are being seen overall.
We know that NHS privatisation is causing deaths. A recent Oxford study linked NHS privatisation to the preventable deaths of 557 people.
We also know that private cleaning companies contracted to clean our hospitals are leaving our hospitals full of germs, leading the NHS to spend an extra £1 billion to deal with the health fallout of privatisation.
Private companies with NHS contracts made £831 million in profits between 2011 and 2017 from just one form of NHS outsourcing. What a waste! We could have used that money to treat more people.
NHS privatisation might be working for greedy private companies like Centene and Virgin. It’s just not working for our communities.
Rishi Sunak wants to normalise NHS privatisation, using the crisis as his excuse because he knows that NHS privatisation is massively unpopular – even among those who voted for the Conservatives in the last election.
Over 68% of Conservative voters in our polling want private companies out of our NHS, with just 18% wanting more privatisation in the NHS.
Labour (77%), LibDem (75%) and other voters (73%) also massively support an NHS run for people, not profit.
Millions of us are waiting for healthcare and can’t see our GP, so it might seem like common sense to use the private sector so that people can get help immediately.
But we already know it doesn’t work. The government has already been doing that. It’s just not working.
Politicians need to face the facts. The real and popular solution is to invest directly into NHS capacity and pay our NHS staff.
Can you make sure your MPs know that you saw what Sunak said and that you are absolutely against it?
Regardless of your MP’s party, it is really important that you make your voice heard.
If your MP is Conservative, Liberal Democrat or Independent, email them and tell them to write to Rishi Sunak and let him know you oppose his plans to invest public money in private companies instead of directly into the NHS.
If your MP is Labour, email them and tell them to write to Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting asking them to confirm that Labour does not agree with Rishi Sunak that NHS privatisation has worked well.
If you live in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, email your MP and ask them to contact the Welsh, Scottish or Northern Irish government to make sure that they are NOT following Rishi Sunak’s lead.
You can have a big impact in showing that it’s a choice between investing in the NHS and investing in the private sector.
Making this choice clear is really important as we approach the next election. Your MP needs to know this is an issue people in your constituency really care about.
We can create a public outcry against Rishi Sunak’s lie about NHS privatisation. Please write to your MP now and share this action with friends and family too.
Thank you so much for all you do to protect our NHS from privatisation and for being a part of this key fight as we approach the next general election.
Cat, Johnbosco, Matthew, Kate, Imogen – the We Own It team
PS: We would usually provide you with a ready-made letter to send to your MP, but your MP hearing from you, in your own words, will really make them sit up and listen. Your letter can be very short. What matters most are your experiences with the NHS and those of your family and/or friends. Speak from the heart. Make sure they know you want Labour to commit to investing directly in our NHS and not in private companies.‘
I have indeed written to my MP about this, and requested her to write to Streeting and Starmer to confirm that they won’t support Sunak’s privatisation plans. I’ll let you know if I get a reply. If you feel as I do about this issue, please also write to your MPs as well.
I got this job advertisement this morning from the pro-nationalisation, pro-NHS campaign group We Own It. I’m too ill and very probably don’t have the skills for the role, but I’m putting it up here for anyone who is interested and may want to go for it.
‘Dear David,
We’re hiring and we need you! We’re looking for a Communications and Campaign Support to join the We Own It team.
If you can spread the word we’d be very grateful. Will you share these opportunities on social media and/or forward this email to someone you think might be interested?
The deadline for applications is Sunday 23rd April 2023 (midnight).
We know you care about public services – you want our NHS, water, energy and public transport to work for people not profit. You can help us to continue to punch above our weight, grow fast and win victories!
If you know someone who is an excellent communicator, well organised and passionate about public ownership (or if that is you!), please let them know about these opportunities. All details and how to apply are here.
Thanks so much for your help in spreading the word!
Cat, Johnbosco, Matthew, Imogen and Kate – the We Own It team’
It’s a crisis over thirty years in the making. Since privatisation in 1989, private water companies in England* have underinvested in pollution prevention to boost profits.
They’ve built a debt mountain of £53bn, while giving shareholders £72bn!
Attempts to regulate them have failed. Under privatisation, it clearly pays to pollute.
Send the Government a clear message: stop privatisation, stop the sewage.
It doesn’t have to be this way. The UK’s most trusted utility company is publicly owned Scottish Water.
They’ve spent £72 more per household per year than English water companies. That’s equivalent to an extra £28 billion being invested in England’s water network!
Yesterday’s pollution plan from Government includes just £1.6bn extra investment. That’s tiny compared to what we could reinvest by stopping private dividends!
Sign the petition now to demand the Government stop the pollution crisis by taking our water companies into public ownership.
The more signatures added just after the Government’s lacklustre announcement, the clearer it’ll be to ALL parties that any “plan for water” must end privatisation.
22,000 people just like you have already signed. Thank you for amplifying their message: water belongs in public hands!
Cat, Johnbosco, Matthew, Kate, Imogen – the We Own It team
*If you’re in Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland — where water is publicly owned or not-for-profit — please still sign this petition in solidarity! By fighting for public ownership of English water, you’ll force the press and politicians to confront the truth: privatisation fails our public services. That will make it harder for politicians to justify leaving other essential public services across Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland in private hands.‘
I’ve signed it, because these scandals have been going on for nearly 40 years, ever since Thatcher privatised the water companies in the 1980s. The Tories set up a body to protect the waterways, but gave it less power than the previous regulatory authorities. And over the past few years there’s been one scandal after another of sewage or untreated chemicals or both being poured into England’s rivers and seas, all to boost the directors’ bonuses and the companies’ share values.
It’s another Thatcherite failure. It’s time the whole charade that private industry is automatically better was ended, and we moved back to a mixed economy.
Here’s another petition against the privatisation of the NHS, this time from pro-NHS, pro-nationalisation organisation We Own It. They are naturally outraged that privatisation, according to a study by Cambridge university, has resulted in 500+ preventable deaths. They believe the Labour party is moving in the right direction, as Wes Streeting last week in an interview with New Statesman, said the party was considering moving more services back in house. But they want to press the point home, and so wish to present a petition to the party’s policy organisation demanding its complete renationalisation. They are also planning a major campaign next year against the health service’s privatisation.
I’ve signed the petition, and if you feel like me about this issue, please do so as well.
‘Dear David,
Last week Wes Streeting made his strongest case yet against NHS outsourcing.
He only did this after you took action to say NHS PRIVATISATION KILLS.
Now we want to push Labour to go even further and make reinstating the NHS AS A FULLY PUBLIC SERVICE their official policy.
We are making a submission to Labour’s policy-making body this Friday, 17th March. We want you to add your voice to it so they know thousands of us want this.
For the next 18 months, our message on the NHS is going to be really simple: NHS PRIVATISATION KILLS.
As you know, a recent Oxford University study has linked the preventable deaths of 557 people to the outsourcing of NHS services.
We want to hammer that message into every home in the country so that at the next election pro-privatisation politicians are forced to explain to voters why they are happy to put up with deaths just so private companies make a profit.
We will push all parties to reinstate our NHS as a fully public service. We are independent of all political parties and we lobby all of them.
But it is really important to focus on Labour because they currently have the best chance of winning the next election.
So we are going to ramp up the pressure on them month by month not just to make sure they sign up to this policy before the next election, but also to make sure they actually implement it if they win.
The public is on your side on this. Two-thirds of them, according to our latest polling, are concerned about NHS outsourcing and want our NHS reinstated as a fully public service.
Going by Wes Streeting’s tune last week, Labour has come a long way on this issue. And they look like they are now going in the right direction.
But they still have a long way to go to pledging to reinstate our NHS AS A FULLY PUBLIC SERVICE.
That is why we are making a submission to their policy-making body – the National Policy Forum – to outline the evidence and demand they make kicking greedy private companies out of our NHS their policy.
If thousands of people add their voices to our submission, they will know that this is not just one organisation’s demand – reinstating our NHS AS A FULLY PUBLIC SERVICE is backed by so many people.
The NHS is a devolved matter, which means that our submission is only about the NHS in England. But we all know that Labour in England has a strong influence on Labour in all the other nations.
If Labour in England pledges to reinstate our NHS as a fully public service, Labour in the other nations will likely follow.
So your voice is really important whether you live in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.
We know that England is not alone in seeing the effects of private companies making profits from our healthcare.
Just today, we’ve seen a report by the Scotland Herald showing that private healthcare companies with links to UK politicians are charging Scots £250 to see a doctor for 15 minutes.
We know the situations in Wales and Northern Ireland are very similar.
The Labour Party taking a strong stance and pledging to reinstate our NHS AS A FULLY PUBLIC SERVICE would send a strong message to all the nations.
I’ve also had this email from the pro-NHS, pro-nationalisation organisation, We Own It about a planned demonstration they’re holding against the privatisation of the NHS in February. They’re appealing for people to go to it. I can’t, due to expense and illness, but I’m putting it up here in case there are people interested in it, who may be able to attend.
‘Dear David,
BREAKING: private health companies donated £800,000 to the Conservative Party over the last decade. Now we know why the government is doing nothing about NHS privatisation!
A recent Oxford study linked NHS privatisation to the preventable deaths of 557 people.
It is time to make the government feel the power of organised people over organised money.
Can you sign up to become one of 557 people in Parliament Square from 2 – 4pm on Saturday, 25th February demanding an end to NHS privatisation?
So far, 541 people have signed up. We need 89 people to reach our final goal of 630 (that is, 557 people representing the victims of NHS privatisation, 43 people to help carry signs and banners and 30 stewards to help manage the event).
You are involved in our NHS campaign because you believe that our NHS should work for people, not the greedy private companies that donate to the government.
Unite the Union, Just Treatment, Doctors for the NHS and Socialist Health Association fully agree with you. That is why they are now supporting our action.
It is time we make the government feel the power of organised people over organised money.
We want to bring together 557 people representing the 557 people whose deaths are linked to NHS privatisation to put on a powerful display that can get into the papers.
More press coverage means more pressure on the government. The more of us there are at the action, the more likely the action is to get press coverage.
We need 89 more people to reach our goal. Can you sign up now to join us?
Because of the incredible efforts of our NHS nurses and ambulance workers who are fighting to save our NHS, the government is already feeling pressure.
With the recent study that links NHS privatisation to 557 preventable deaths, there is no better time than now to pile onto that pressure they are feeling.
The government already knows that over 75% of the public, according to our last poll, want to end NHS privatisation. But they don’t feel that people will fight to see that happen.
You can show them from 2 – 4pm on Saturday 25th February in Parliament Square that you will.
The more people join this action, the more powerful it will be. The more powerful it is, the more likely it is to receive coverage from the press.
This coverage will pile on the pressure on the government and start forcing them to take action.
We need 557 people to represent the 557 people whose deaths are linked to NHS privatisation, according to a recent Oxford study.
But we need even more people to make sure the action is big and effective. So after signing up, please send the link to your friends and family, especially those who live in London and ask them to sign up too.
Thank you so much for always standing up against NHS privatisation.
Cat, Johnbosco, Matthew, Kate – the We Own It team
PS: 30 years ago today the British Coal and British Rail (Transfer Proposals) Act 1993 was passed, paving the way for privatisation of our railway. We’ve put together a list of 30 top failures of rail privatisation from the last 30 years. Take a read and share with friends and family.’
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