Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

Name me one, ONE continental European country, where utilities and railroads are run by a committee of customers and workers.

Germany

Customers and workers may have representatives on boards and commissions but do they really run them? Explain how this works to me.

Exactly like that.
Labour aren't proposing letting anyone off the street just walk in and start directing trains you know.

And customers in utilities typically mean giant corporations that consume the majority of the electricity and water involved.

Yes.

[The Brain]

Labour will use people's assemblies to help decide how nationalised utilities are run, says McDonnell
McDonnell says Labour will make the nationalised companies publicly accountable.

In our first hundred days we will start the process of bringing water and energy into public ownership. We'll set up boards to run these utilities made up of who, the customer, and you, the worker, as well as representatives from local councils, metro mayors and others.

We'll make sure decisions are taken locally by those who understand the services – those who use them and deliver them.

Meetings will be public and streamed online, with new transparency regulations set higher than ever before, so you can see if your road is being dug up, why, and for how long. And we'll create new people's assemblies to give everyone the option of participating in how their utilities are run.

Bloody hell this country is fucked, these guys are the only "realistic" alternative to 5 years of Boris Johnson.

How will they nationalise the companies?

[Duque de Bragança]

Labour will use people's assemblies to help decide how nationalised utilities are run, says McDonnell
McDonnell says Labour will make the nationalised companies publicly accountable.

In our first hundred days we will start the process of bringing water and energy into public ownership. We'll set up boards to run these utilities made up of who, the customer, and you, the worker, as well as representatives from local councils, metro mayors and others.

We'll make sure decisions are taken locally by those who understand the services – those who use them and deliver them.

Meetings will be public and streamed online, with new transparency regulations set higher than ever before, so you can see if your road is being dug up, why, and for how long. And we'll create new people's assemblies to give everyone the option of participating in how their utilities are run.

Bloody hell this country is fucked, these guys are the only "realistic" alternative to 5 years of Boris Johnson.

How will they nationalise the companies?

Good question.
With or without compensation? Nationalisation up to 51% or more?

[celedhring]

How will they nationalise the companies?

After Brexit, everything will be possible! The only limit your imagination.

I suspect the "Brexit is left wing" crowd will be in for a surprise in the upcoming years...

[Admiral Yi]

Labour will use people's assemblies to help decide how nationalised utilities are run, says McDonnell
McDonnell says Labour will make the nationalised companies publicly accountable.

In our first hundred days we will start the process of bringing water and energy into public ownership. We'll set up boards to run these utilities made up of who, the customer, and you, the worker, as well as representatives from local councils, metro mayors and others.

We'll make sure decisions are taken locally by those who understand the services – those who use them and deliver them.

Meetings will be public and streamed online, with new transparency regulations set higher than ever before, so you can see if your road is being dug up, why, and for how long. And we'll create new people's assemblies to give everyone the option of participating in how their utilities are run.

Bloody hell this country is fucked, these guys are the only "realistic" alternative to 5 years of Boris Johnson.

The Economist has an article on this.  Under the guise of handing the country over to "the people," he wants to hand the country over to activists, much like his takeover of his party.

[Zanza]

Name me one, ONE continental European country, where utilities and railroads are run by a committee of customers and workers.

Germany

Customers and workers may have representatives on boards and commissions but do they really run them? Explain how this works to me.

I don't know enough about Labour's proposals to compare, but I don't think that Germany is a good example here.

Railroad: while the national railroad company DB is still state owned, it is organized as a private stock corporation. That means it has no direct customer representatives on its board, only politicians and some politically appointed experts. And of course the workers council like all German corporations. There are lobby groups representing the customers, but they have no formal role in corporate governance. The state still gives tax money for infrastructure investments, but for railway operations, other companies can apply for the licenses and operate trains on DB's rail network. There are dozens of private operators, mainly for local or regional trains.

Utilities: the energy market is completely liberalized and you can buy your power from many competing companies, some of which have evolved from former state monopolies with still substantive public ownership (federal states, municipalities). Gas works similar to electricity I think. Other utilities such as water are mainly city owned monopolies. Trash removal is operated privately, but typically with locally granted time limited monopolies, i.e. you get the trash removal company the city picks for you. Telephone, internet and cable TV is completely privatized, although there may be some public ownership left in some of the companies.
All utility providers will be heavily regulated.

[Valmy]

That's funny. You guys are much more free market with your utilities than the United States is.

[The Brain]

That's funny. You guys are much more free market with your utilities than the United States is.

Well the US is famously Socialist when it comes to these things.

[Valmy]

That's funny. You guys are much more free market with your utilities than the United States is.

Well the US is famously Socialist when it comes to these things.

Maybe the Labour party should copy us?

[Sheilbh]

Putting consumers on the board of publicly owned companies makes sense. The risk is they suffer producer-capture so you need either a market (which can sometimes work) or some form of consumer ownership and representation.

Polls don't seem to be herding. Labour are, depending on your pollster between 31-36% and the Tories are between 41-45%.

So we're somewhere between a reasonably strong Tory majority or a hung parliament

Well the US is famously Socialist when it comes to these things.

Plus sports.

[Valmy]

Plus sports.

Nah. There we have plutocratic cartels.

[Sheilbh]

Not so much down to socialism this time as the lack of any competition for Corbyn. Nobody decent wants to touch the brexit mess.
I increasingly suspect even Corbyn and Co have accepted some dark times and a loss and are settling for Overton shifting so when Khan or Jarvis or whoever it is runs in in a few years the centre is left of where it is at the moment.

I think the competition is lacking because of the strength of Corbyn's support within the party. It might evaporate if he loses but I don't see it.

The soft left challenged him immediately after the referendum (before 2017!) over Brexit and he won two-thirds of the vote, he did better than in 2015.

On the next leader, I think there's huge demand for a woman to lead Labour. So I don't see any man winning (cue Labour taking another 35 years to elect a female leader ). I think the main difference is between Remainer/London Labour (Thornberry especially) v "Northern" Labour (Pidcock, Long-Bailey, Raynor). I would be astonished if the leader is someone suspected of any disloyalty to Corbyn which rules out Khan and Jarvis.

[Sheilbh]

Plus sports.

Nah. There we have plutocratic cartels.

At least the robber barons built their own railways

[Admiral Yi]

Putting consumers on the board of publicly owned companies makes sense.

It makes no sense.  Consumers already possess the ultimate power, the power to take their business elsewhere.  Except in the case of natural monopolies,  which is why we closely regulate things like power transmission, and express our will through the electoral process.

Consumers coercing companies to spend their capital how the consumers want is analogous to companies coercing consumers to spend their income how the companies want.

[Sheilbh]

If it's a publicly owned company, then there's probably a monopoly. So there is probably an element of coercing consumers to spend their money with that company.

You can either develop an internal market, which might work in some sectors, rely on elected politicians or have consumer representatives on board. It certainly doesn't strike as any more absurd than worker representatives.