Greens would nationalise Thames and SE Water without paying compensation, says deputy leader – as it happened | Politics
Millward calls for immediate takeback of ‘failed’ water companies
She calls for national takeover of South East Water and Thames Water, without compensation for shareholders. She tells conference:
Burnham’s 10 year plan of gentle threats and vague notions of control is not enough. Too many of our water companies have already failed.
Right here in Sussex, we too often find ourselves driving to pick up bottled water because nothing is coming out of our taps.
Not a single major reservoir has been built in this country since the beginning of privatisation 35 years ago.
And so, today, the Green Party is announcing that we would, immediately – not in 10 years, but before Christmas, bring South East Water and Thames Water back into public ownership at no cost to the tax payer.
We have all the tools we need to make it happen. Forget compensation for shareholders and creditors, these are insolvent companies.
Earlier she had laid out the issue:
We see the sewage being pumped into our river by private profit making companies – and we see just how far wrong we’ve gone.
Water – the very stuff of life – uniquely found on this planet in the whole wide universe – the stuff we’re made of – it replenishes us, cleans us, connects us… and we — sold it.
Key events
Closing summary
We’re going to leave our live coverage there for now.
I’ll be back tomorrow to take you through the first day of the Conservative party conference and the last day of the Greens’, where members will be voting on a few significant motions.
But to recap this morning’s pledges from the party’s deputy leaders, who noted the membership growth, particularly among young people, in the past year.
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If the Greens were elected into government, they would immediately nationalise Thames and SE Water, as opposed to the 10-year plan outlined by PM Andy Burnham earlier this week which was criticised as too gentle and weak
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These “insolvent” companies had polluted and illegally dumped into waterways and are facing billions in debt; deputy leader Rachel Millward called for their imediate buyback
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“Right here in Sussex, we’re too often driving to pick up bottled water because nothing is coming out of our taps”
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She also suggested that AI technology could be owned by the public instead of by “Silicon Valley proto-fascists” whose products are accelerating climate destruction
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Fellow deputy leader Mothin Ali announced a new policy where the Greens would provide guaranteed jobs for every 18-24 year old, if in power.
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He also said the Greens was the party championing a multiracial, multicultural Britain which is only growing more diverse.
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He called on Andy Burnham to declare a national emergency in response to rising hate displays. “At a time when Britain is facing unprecedented levels of racist violence and intimidation, the country needs leadership”, he said.
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“It is a test of whether a diverse democracy can protect the equal right of everyone to belong.”
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This afternoon anti-migration protesters are gathering in Southampton and Dover in “Stop the boats” and “Deport them” rallies. Police have issued a ban on face masks following recent weeks’ displays of aggression and intimidation
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The Conservative party conference will begin tomorrow and run until Wednesday; the party is pledging childcare benefits for higher earners and cutting back on foreign aid
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Reform says the terror plot charge brought against the man accused of Ann Widdecombe’s murder highlights Nigel Farage’s concerns about his safety
The Conservatives’ party conference is due to begin tomorrow in Birmingham and will run until Wednesday.
Party leader Kemi Badenoch has already pledged to fund 50,000 new prison places – spending that would come from reducing the overseas aid budget to £1 billion a year.
The UK’s overcrowded prisons and courtcase backlog has forced policies to be put in place like early release for some offenders.
Badenoch is also expected to announce a lifting of the threshold that currently applies to families receiving a childcare benefit.
That’s currently restricted for households where one occupier earns £100,000 or more but under the Tory plan, parents working 16 –hour minimum work days would be eligible for the free 30 hours of care.
They are also proposing to slash jobs at the Arts Council England and the Environment Agency to save some £1.6bn by 2030.
Aletha Adu
Away from the main centre, the Greens heard different arguments about how hard they should challenge Labour without inadvertently helping Reform UK.
About 150 people attended a discussion on progressive politics with Joe Todd, a Green member working with Greens Organise urging the party to apply “maximum pressure” while remaining mindful of not letting Reform in, including in constituencies where the contest would be primarily between Labour and the Greens.
Adrian Ramsay, the Green MP for Waveney Valley, made the case for the party to broaden its electoral appeal beyond urban, liberal and progressive voters and compete in small-c Conservative areas.
Meanwhile Neal Lawson, director of cross party campaign organisation Compass, said the wider challenge for the Greens was finding the balance between outright opposition to Labour and the possibility of exerting pressure on, or eventually working with the party.
Speaking to The Guardian after the event, he said there was nervousness about the prospect of a hung parliament and whether the Greens as much as a smaller party could be “eaten alive” if they entered some form of partnership with Labour.
“This is big boys and girls politics, and they’re going to have to get their hands dirty if they want to have influence”, he said.
Rajeev Syal
Away from Brighton, a flagship Labour authority has warned it may have to impose a 150% council tax rise on residents to maintain current services following central government cuts under a new funding settlement.
Hammersmith and Fulham council’s cabinet has concluded in a report due to be published on Monday that such a rise would cost Band D households an additional £29.11 a week in 2027/28.
The west London council has said it is losing more than half of its government grant under Labour’s “fair funding” review, which was introduced last year to redirect cash from affluent areas to places hit hardest by austerity.
Ministers have argued that the review will mean that local authorities with “historically low” council tax levels will have the cash they receive from Whitehall slashed, forcing them to bring bills into line with national averages to make up shortfalls.
Hammersmith and Fulham, along with Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth, City of London, and Windsor and Maidenhead councils, have been given powers to raise bills above the 5% cap next year to balance its budget in the wake of cuts.
In a document seen by the Guardian, the councillor Rowan Ree, serving as cabinet member for finance and reform, said the council was “facing the biggest financial challenge in living memory” under the new funding formula. The council received £150.5m in government funding in 2025/26, but this will be cut by more than half to £72.4m over the next four years.
Read the full report here:
Half of UK wants to rejoin the EU, poll suggests
Pippa Crerar
Andy Burnham’s personal preference to rejoin the European Union after the next election is supported by almost half of all voters, a new megapoll has found, although cabinet ministers concerned about reopening Brexit divides are privately urging him to proceed with caution.
The poll by the Messina Group (TMG) found that renegotiating the UK’s relationship with the EU could boost Labour’s vote share by as much as seven points, if the prime minister offered a fresh referendum in which he campaigned to re-enter the bloc.
Almost a third of voters said an in-out referendum would be needed first, while more than one in six felt that a general election mandate would be sufficient, and the same proportion thought parliament could make the decision.
The overall findings will bolster the case of those inside Downing Street who want to promise at the next election that Labour would at least negotiate over re-entry, which the prime minister has said he wants to see “in his lifetime”.
Burnham used his first Labour conference speech as leader on Tuesday to announce a review of the options for Britain’s future relationship with Europe, and subsequently added that these should include rejoining entirely.
However, there are nerves among some Labour MPs, especially those with constituencies that voted for Brexit, that even testing out public support for the move would be fraught with political risk and a potential boost to Reform.
Aletha Adu
My colleague, Aletha Adu, was in the room this morning as Millward and Ali delivered their speeches to members. She writes:
It’s been a greyer start to day two of Green Party conference in Brighton, after the sunshine, warmth and buzz that came with Zack Polanski’s leader’s speech on Friday.
Polanski himself has already left conference to return to Holborn and St Pancas where he is campaigning for the byelection next week. But there was still some warmth in the conference centre for his deputy Rachel Millward and Mothin Ali, who received some cheers as he turned his speech towards race, belonging and the rise of the far right.
In one of the best received lines, Ali attacked Suella Braverman declaring “I’m Brown, I’m Muslim, but I’m as English as a Yorkshire cup of tea!” but there was politics behind the applause.
The Greens believe their message on race, migration and multiculturalism can help them retain the attention of progressive voters who’ve previously backed Labour. Especially since the party’s trying to present itself as a more unequivocal alternative with some people still cautiously watching Andy Burnham.
Speaking to some members afterwards there was a sense among some that Millward’s speech had felt more limited but she won applause for calling for the immediate return of Thames Water and South East Water to public ownership without compensation for shareholders.
There’s a sense of celebration among members about the size of their party and perhaps the sense that the Greens should be behaving like a party capable of converting enthusiasm into lasting political support.”
Recap of Greens deputy leader speeches
Those are the main keynote speeches today at the Greens party conference, from deputy leaders Rachel Millward and Mothin Ali who both opened their speeeches with a recap of the party’s significant membership growth particularly among young people.
There are now more than 200,000 members across England and Wales, making the Greens the third-largest political party.
“Meeting so many of you on action days around the country, getting more Greens elected, sharing our message on climate, inequality, immigration, trans rights. It’s been a year of hope,” said Millward.
While the PM at Labour conference last week announced a 10-year plan to renationalise water companies, Millward said this delay was a mistake.
She called for an immediate buyback of ‘failed’ water companies Thames Water and South-East, amid a broader call for people to take greater power of natural assets to stop tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and AI CEOs who are “hoarding the world’s wealth, polluting our planet” . She said they were fuelling the climate disaster with energy-guzzling data centres and profiting off misinformation and online division.
“Andy Burnham talks a lot about reversing 40 years of neoliberalism, but we can’t just look back. We stand on the cusp of unprecedented, technological, and social change.”
Meanwhile Mothin Ali used his speech to call for greater celebrations and protections for “multiracial, multicultural Britain” noting that the country was only growing more diverse and was stronger for it.
He said the rising levels of racist violence and intimidation though warranted the Burnham government calling a “national emergency”. As I noted earlier, there are scheduled anti-immigration protests to take place on the south coast today.
There needs to be more done to “protect everyone’s equal right to belong, and to make diversity work for us”, said Ali
Live and let live. Now, that’s a simple phrase that I’ve always lived by. But in a diverse democracy, it’s something that’s profound. You don’t have to become your neighbour. You don’t have to worship. You don’t have to vote like them. You don’t even have to agree with them. But you do have to recognise their equal right to insist and to belong… We have to speak to people we disagree with. We have to listen seriously to genuine concerns about immigration, housing, public services, and security. And we need to distinguish between legitimate political argument from the denigration of whole communities.
Greens pledge ‘youth jobs guarantee’
Ali says democracy “means very little without economic security” and launches into announcing a job guarantee for young people, if the Greens were to be in power.
There are 1 million young people in the UK – roughly one in every seven British people aged 16-24- who are categorised as a Neet (not in education, employment or training).
He notes this crisis, and says current policies – threatening to withold or cut welfare payments like universal credit if people don’t accept short-term work placements – are poor youth strategies making the problem worse.
Across London, Wales, young people are struggling from Cardiff to Birmingham, from Leeds to Leicester, from Liverpool to Sheffield. They’re forced to compete with a handful of jobs. We need to do better.
So the Greens solution, he says, is a youth jobs guarantee.
He says that the Greens in power would launch a scheme “providing a guaranteed job for every 18- to 24-year-old lasting up to two years, which start by introducing them into the areas that are worst-hit by usual unemployment”.
He doesn’t list which areas these are and detail is scant on how these jobs would be made and funded, where they’d come from, how they would be implemented.
He says the new jobs would be aligned with “our critical national missions: a stronger care economy, a green transition, homes for all, and a sustainable food system, a nature recovery”.
Mothin Ali then goes on to say the Greens could become the “most inclusive political movement in modern Britain”, saying the party wants to be the place for people to feel like they belong and are empowered.
He’s gearing up to announcing the party’s economic policy plank of promising jobs for young people – giving them financial security.
Whether you’re a black boy sitting in a park, or whether you’re a Jewish family towards a synagogue, or whether you’re a Muslim in a mosque.
Or someone seeking safety after fleeing from war and persecution.
There should be no street, no neighbourhood, and no place in this country where you can’t live your life in peace.
Belonging should never be a condition on race, religion, accent, or background.
So what do we do? When people feel powerless, give them meaningful power. When they feel unheard, create places where they genuinely have a voice.
Ali to Braverman: ‘I’m brown, Muslim and as English as a cup of tea’
He also singles out Suella Braverman, former Tory Home Secretary and now a Reform spokeswoman, who said on Question Time this week that she doesn’t consider herself to be English because of her Asian heritage.
She said she identified as British Asian but not “an English person” because her parents were born abroad – sparking widespread outrage.
“A message to Suella Braveman,” said Ali.
“I’m brown. I’m Muslim, but I’m as English as a Yorkshire cup of tea.”
