GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

doing it”. We had Tony Blair in 2004 within minutes of our motion being passed

at the Labour Party Conference and it was done in the way that it should have

been done, it got a two thirds majority, we were putting a manifesto together for

the 2005 election and that pledge should have been included. What he did

was he brought out a load of lies and told people that this was going to take

money away from schools and hospitals. I do not want money taken away

from schools and hospitals, neither does anybody in my union, because rail

workers are not an island, our kids go to school and, sadly, from time to time

we all get ill and have to use our health services. But what he said was

absolute rubbish. “The way we run our railways is through franchises and

when those franchises come to an end, you take them back inhouse and it

does not cost a penny.” It is happening and actually it is Labour authorities

who are leading on this. The Metro in Newcastle was privatised and is now

back in public ownership. The West Midlands Tram had never been in public

ownership and the Labour controlled authorities in the West Midlands have now taken it into public ownership. I am really hopeful that if on June 8 th we get

the result that I hope, the next thing to be taken into public ownership will be

our railways. They should have never been privatised. I think we have shifted

the goal posts so much. This would not have been controversial 20 years ago.

The idea of a so-called natural monopoly, that a natural monopoly should be

run by the State was not controversial in mainstream economics. We have got

an extreme form of neoliberal economics in our country and unfortunately that

has eaten away into many of the things that we love. This is a nonsense. To

run a railway here so that the state companies of other countries can come

here and make a profit is just ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous. The other good

thing about voting Labour is we will wipe the grin off Branson’s face.

(Laughter) That is another good reason to vote Labour!

Just moving on to the other issue which is about the London Underground. We

had a very bitter dispute at the start of the year. Sadly, our members had to go

on strike. Nobody wants to go on strike, but we had to do it to make a point

and the point we had to make is that Boris Johnson in his last act of vandalism

on Londoners took out 850 jobs, 850 safety critical jobs out of our London

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