If you bought the Observer yesterday you might have spotted our director Cat Hobbs in the New Review section. The author of the piece, Carole Cadwalladr, interviewed Momentum organisers and key people involved in their upcoming conference this Saturday - including us!

"It’s called The World Transformed...because its main agenda is to change the world...Over four days, more than 100 speakers will take the stage in a series of talks, workshops and debates: a roll call of people who, depending on who you talk to, are the emerging stars of a newly empowered radical anti-establishment or provocateurs attempting to hijack the party from within."

Carole Cadwalladr in the Observer
 

We Own It is independent of all political parties. We're about making the case for public ownership and we're not involved in the Labour party. But we're delighted that there is now a conversation happening within Labour about public ownership of energy, rail, buses and council services - and we want to be part of that conversation. That's why we're organising a session at the World Transformed conference, from 12pm until 2pm this Saturday 24th September, in Liverpool. We'll be there along with Alex Williams, author of 'Inventing the Future' and Faiza Shaheen, director of Class thinktank.

We’ll be exploring how we talk about public ownership, what it can do for us and how we can get there. We can't wait!

There is a huge public appetite for public ownership of services from the NHS to the railways, from water and energy to council services. Polling shows most of us want public services to be owned by and run for everyone. In a divided country post-Brexit, public ownership is one potential way to unite people. It can do this not only by bringing people together in a radically participative way, but also by helping to reduce inequality and reduce the north-south divide. For instance, publicly owned banks like the ones McDonnell just proposed would help do this by facilitating better investment. Energy democracy can help meet social and environmental objectives

Public ownership is a vital part of the world we want to see, not a throwback to the 70s. We want publicly owned services to be better in the future than they were in the past - more efficient and innovative, more democratic and accountable, more caring. Public ownership can be local and regional, national and international - so we don't talk about 'nationalisation' because it's much broader than that.

This debate needs to go way beyond trains. A publicly owned railway - yes. But also data infrastructure, social media tools, R&D, automated cars and buses: we should be pitching public ownership in 21st century terms, not 19th century ones. We have a chance to be radical and set the agenda. 

Join us in Liverpool at the World Transformed. We'd love to see you there. Let's create a world where calling for public ownership no longer means you're part of the 'radical anti-establishment' - where it's just common sense.