“Public services for people not profit”, that is what the UK organisation ‘We Own It’ stands for since launching in 2013: “After 40 years, privatisation of our public services has failed. It’s time for public ownership. We use it, we pay for it, we own it.”
In the mission statement, ‘We Own It’ declares: We Own It campaigns against privatisation and for 21st century public ownership. We believe public services belong to all of us – from the NHS to schools, water to energy, rail to Royal Mail, care work to council services. Privatisation keeps failing – but there are lots of brilliant examples of public ownership we can learn from in the UK and around the world. Public ownership is incredibly popular. It will save money for the public purse, improve people’s lives and help us tackle the climate crisis. We Own It is completely independent of any political party – our only policy is public services for people not profit. The majority of our funders are individual donors.
For many years, ‘We Own It’ is campaigning to get water back in public ownership and to end the misery of debts and pollution of the privatized water utilities: “English water companies work for a handful of shareholders around the world, while pouring sewage into our rivers and seas and allowing water to leak from the pipes.” (see the history and basic facts here on their website).
The Blue Community network is proud to welcome such a profiled and experienced organisation as the first affiliate in the UK to our network. And we look forward to working together for water and sanitation as a human right in public hands – in the UK and worldwide.
Blue Community Co-Founder Maude Barlow welcomes ‘We Own It’ by saying:
“To see such an important British actor as ‘We Own It’ joining the Blue Community is a wonderful and encouraging moment. The forces fighting against privatisation and for public services are uniting and it is great to see that the Blue Community can provide the platform for this common effort.”
Cat Hobbs, founder and director of ‘We Own It’ states:
“Water is the stuff of life. We should never be scared that it could be cut off or that our rivers and seas might be unsafe all because a few people have made themselves very rich at our expense. Privatisation is more costly, less accountable, and more damaging to our environment. England and Wales are international outliers with a uniquely extreme form of privatisation. We’re proud to lead a community of over 100,000 people united in a call for the internally accepted common sense policy: democratic public ownership.”
For more information on ‘We Own It’, visit their website. – see the history and basic facts here on their website