2 Oct 2026
This week, we took the fight for public ownership of our water right to the Labour Party Conference.
Thames Water is on the brink of financial collapse. It is in £20 billion of debt, and the only option to keep it privatised is to hand it over to a group of US hedge funds.
So we asked conference delegates to vote: hedge funds or households?
Because it really is that simple. Either we take Thames Water into public ownership, where it can be run for the benefit of households, environmental groups and workers - or, we hand it over to US hedge funds.
And the results were (almost) unanimous. While just one person voted for hedge funds, 99% of voters were in favour of putting Thames Water into public hands.
Labour MPs who voted for public ownership included:
-
Peter Prinsley
-
Feryal Clark
-
Bambos Charalambous
-
Neil Duncan-Jordan
-
Rachael Maskell
-
Ian Byrne
-
Navendu Mishra
During the action, we were joined by a number of wonderful We Own It supporters and campaigners who held up placards and handed out our new Thames Water briefing.
You can watch some short clips of the action here and here.
As delegates walked into the conference, it was made undeniably clear: the public expects to see Thames Water placed into public hands.
The very next day, this government took a promising step in the right direction when - in his speech - Prime Minister Andy Burnham committed to ending Thatcher’s ban on public ownership of water companies.
This is good news, and a sign of just how intensely this government is feeling the pressure from the public.
But we still have a big fight ahead.
Burnham failed to mention Thames Water - the poster child for the failure of privatisation. And alongside using the language of public ownership, he also made several nods to increased ‘control’ and strengthened regulation, measures which - without a change of ownership - will simply be a reshuffling of the deckchairs on the Titanic.
This Labour Conference, a window opened up in the campaign for public ownership of water.
Now we’ve got a golden opportunity to push for a concrete plan to transfer the ownership of the whole sector: starting with Thames Water.
