As the saying goes, ‘If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.’ Right now, Thames Water, a vital public utility serving a quarter of England’s population, is being devoured by powerful corporate interests. The public has been completely sidelined. It’s high time the 82 percent of us who want water in public ownership got that seat at the table.

On the brink of bankruptcy, Thames Water is the poster child for failed privatisation, but it’s not alone. Since Thatcher sold off our water in 1989, the whole industry has built up a £60 billion debt mountain, while handing out £78 billion in dividends – mainly to overseas shareholders. Privatised water represents the most unholy of business models: a natural monopoly that a handful of foreign billionaires have captured, then drained of cash and loaded with debt, all while bills go up and sewage spews into our rivers and seas. This is the ‘doom-loop’ of water profiteering, and the government is turning a blind eye.

Now, Thames Water has run out of other people’s money to line its pockets, and it’s desperately seeking approval for a £3 billion crisis loan at the High Court. At the same time, it is pushing for a 53 percent customer bill increase and pleading with regulators to delay the collection of environmental fines. Any other company in the same situation would have gone bust long ago. Thames Water only remains operational because the government is stubbornly refusing to take it back into public ownership.

The Environment Secretary, Steve Reed, can step in at any time and put Thames into a Special Administration Regime (SAR) – effectively a form of temporary nationalisation. Under the SAR, it’s possible to negotiate a significant reduction – around half – in its corporate debt, putting the company on a much better financial footing. Tony Blair used this same mechanism to turn the failing private Railtrack into publicly owned Network Rail.

Once Thames Water’s debt has been slashed, the only long-term solution is full public ownership. Last month, Steve Reed took the important step of launching the biggest commission into the water industry since privatisation. But he banned it from even looking into nationalisation as a potential solution. This is baffling logic from Labour.

9 out of 10 countries run water in public ownership. Publicly run water in Scotland saves customers £113 a year. Municipally run water in Paris has delivered free drinking water fountains and €89 million of investment in 2023. Modern democratic public ownership works.

So why is Steve Reed ruling it out? If he spent more time with billpayers and water campaigners and less with water company bosses, he might have a different view. Whatever the reason, it’s a dereliction of duty not to explore all viable solutions. If I ever have the misfortune to suffer a compound fracture, I don’t want a doctor who prescribes a sticking plaster because they are ideologically opposed to surgery.

Where does this leave the financially stretched British public and the ecologically stressed British countryside? Many of us refuse to take this lying down. Four UK academics have set up the People’s Commission on the Water Sector, which will mirror the government’s commission but look at all forms of ownership and include the views of billpayers and sewage campaigners. Matt Staniek and the Save Windermere campaign have been holding a weekly demonstration outside United Utilities in the Lake District for nearly 18 months. Groups like Surfers Against Sewage, Henley Mermaids, SOS Whitstable, and Ilkley Clean River Group are fighting for our rivers and beaches.

Back in London, Liberal Democrat MP Charlie Maynard and Ash Smith of Windrush Against Sewage Pollution are challenging the Thames Water bailout in the High Court this week. We’ve teamed up with Compass to launch an action outside the appeal hearing on Tuesday 11 March. We’ll be calling for a Thames Water Emergency Board to represent the views of billpayers, workers, and environmental groups who’ve been sidelined in this process.

When we talk about modern public ownership, this is what we mean: democratic structures of governance that hold publicly owned utilities to account, where the voices of citizens and the environment are not drowned out by ineffective regulators and company fat cats.

A growing coalition of people is willing to stand up and fight back against the financial and environmental havoc wreaked by privatising profiteers. When will Steve Reed accept that he is swimming against the tide of public opinion? The longer the government refuses to end the privatised water scam, the higher the price we will all end up paying.