Why do Tory voters want to nationalise utilities?

If you thought that the Corbyn era marked the death of debate over nationalisation, you may well have been mistaken. 

On the contrary, it seems support for public ownership of crucial utilities is stronger than ever – and not just amongst so-called “looney lefties”, but the majority of Tory voters too.

According to a bombshell new Survation sample poll of over 4,300 adults aged 18+, conducted between 25 July and 1 August, the public is overwhelming in favour of nationalising sectors including energy, water, buses, rail, Royal Mail and the NHS. 

For water, 69 per cent are in favour of public ownership, while 19 per cent favour privatisation. For Royal Mail 68 per cent favour public, compared to 21 per cent favouring private, and for rail and energy, the figures are 67 per cent public vs 21 per cent private and 66 per cent public vs 22 per cent private respectively. 

Crucially, when the figures were broken down along party lines, voters appeared largely united in their desires. 

While 75 per cent of those who voted Labour in 2019 believed energy should be run in the public sector, 62 per cent of 2019 Conservative voters agreed with them. The same percentage of Tory voters supported nationalisation of Royal Mail, in addition to 79 per cent of Labour voters, and 68 per cent of Tory voters plus 79 per cent of Labour voters favoured nationalisation of the water sector. 

It wasn’t just younger cohorts driving the trend. In fact, public ownership of all utilities was most popular amongst those aged between 55 and 64. 

These findings chime with a poll of Times readers this week, which found 71 per cent of 13, 351 readers partaking were in favour of public ownership of water. 

Amid a drought and an energy crisis, nationalisation appears to be an increasingly attractive prospect to large swathes of the British population. 

Warnings that annual gas and electricity costs could top an eye-watering £5,000 by April next year have left much of the public reeling.

And the bailout of energy provider, Bulb – following its collapse from skyrocketing wholesale gas prices – has put the public purse on course for overall costs of more than £2bn.The taxpayer spent £1.2bn last year to keep the company going, and is set to pay another £1bn to persuade energy group, Octopus, to take over Bulb. The TUC, meanwhile, has been loudly declaring that the government could spend practically the same amount – £2.8bn – to buy up all the big five energy retailers. 

Nigel Pocklington, the chief executive of energy supplier, Good Energy, has urged the public not to get “misty-eyed” over nationalised utilities and its potential to ease soaring household bills. He slammed publicly owned utilities as “hopelessly inefficient” and reminded people that, historically, they drove “very little innovation.”

But it seems the public aren’t “misty eyed” for energy alone. 

A growing number of critics are condemning private water companies as fit for profit, not purpose – accusing them of putting shareholder interests ahead of their own customers. 

Despite top staff taking home millions in bonuses, water companies have failed to meet their own targets on fixing leaks and angered many by incessantly dumping raw sewage in our rivers. 

The tone of blame adopted by some water bosses has done little to help the situation. 

As Jenny Hjul wrote in Reaction, Cathryn Ross, Thames Water’s strategy and regulatory affairs director, did, under pressure, concede on the Today programme last week that her organisation could have done more to prevent leaks of around 600 million litres a day. But she then proceeded to admonish Britons for using more water than Danes or Germans. It seems, despite their own mismanagement, these companies have no qualms about demanding sacrifices – and water rationing – from the general public. 

Meanwhile, surveys indicate that publicly-owned Scottish Water is the most trusted public utility in the UK. And according to Analysis from the European Environment Agency: ”Scotland – which has its own state-owned water company – massively outperformed its neighbours with water standards similar to much of Scandinavia.”

The public mood seems to be clear. But how much are these latest polling results really a deviation from the past?

Certainly, support for energy nationalisation is on the up. YouGov’s biannual tracker reveals that the percentage of British adults “strongly in support” of bringing energy companies back into public ownership has been on an upwards curve since June 2021, and has reached its highest level for years. 

But in general, nationalisation of key utilities has tended to poll well throughout at least the last decade. 

A September 2012 GfK NOP poll found 70 per cent of the British public supported returning rail to public ownership, an Angus Reid poll conducted that same year found 71 per cent of the public supported renationalising the water sector, and another YouGov poll conducted a year later found that 67 per cent were against the privatisation of Royal Mail. 

Strikingly, a 2015 YouGov poll showed that the majority of people, including those who identified themselves as Conservative or UKIP voters, supported the nationalisation of railways. Aside from gaining cross-party support, analysis of polling from 2017 to 2019 also shows that the pattern is broadly consistent across age groups, gender, education, class, income, ethnicity and region.

Anthony Wells, an associate director at YouGov, has said: “Because no mainstream party promotes nationalisation any more, we forget it’s broadly popular.” 

The chances of either of our wannabe Boris replacements suddenly doing a U-turn on nationalisation are slim, to say the least. Indeed, Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Centre for Freedom, has insisted that the nationalisation of the energy sector would raise prices in the long term and would be an “absolute betrayal of Thatcherism”. Both Truss and Sunak are keen to express their devotion to the ideology that bears her name. 

But it does raise the question: if support for nationalisation of utilities among Labour voters seems to consistently come in above 70 per cent, why is the party not reflecting its own voters’ preferences?

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has repeatedly rejected calls for nationalisation.

Perhaps it’s all part of his attempt to distance himself from his predecessor. Jeremy Corbyn pushed state ownership back to the forefront of public policy debate, with his insistence that “Tory privatisation of our utilities has been a disaster.” But many of Corbyn’s policy policies became toxified simply by name association.

Ironically, however, Starmer may well have scrapped one of the only policies of Corbyn’s that appealed to a broad electorate. 

If none of our party leaders are preparing to push for public ownership of utilities, then it’s about time they attempted to convince voters of the merits of privatisation.