Our Strategy

It’s important to understand we’re not doing this as a protest.

We’re not trying to get the government to change their minds out of the goodness of their hearts.

We’re doing this to make it as hard as possible to keep water companies private by forcing the water companies, which are very vulnerable right now into bankruptcy and scaring off investors.

Our tactic to do this is financial disobedience.

England and Wales are the only countries in the world with a fully privatised water system. More than 70% of shares in English water companies are owned by foreign investors, including private equity and companies registered in tax havens.

As value is extracted from this national resource, the service provided is threadbare, with sewage regularly and illegally discharged into rivers, little maintenance or upgrading of the system, and in Devon a recent outbreak of waterborne diseases as a result of unclean drinking water.

Water is a scandal in plain sight, and a symbol of the failure of the neoliberal privatisation model and of ‘trickle down economics’ - the billions made from water companies has mostly ‘trickled’ into foreign tax havens, to little benefit of anyone in England or Wales.

Among water companies, Thames Water, serving 15 million people in Greater London and the Southeast, is in crisis, with over £15 billion in debt and a history of fines for continuous water leaks. It is close to collapse and plans to raise water bills by 40% by 2030 to reduce its debt.

The previous government, after drawing up a plan to bring it into national ownership should it collapse, refused to bail it out. Currently a quarter of Thames customers are in arrears, creating further risk for the company.

Water is the lowest of current UK utility and essential services bills (energy, council tax, housing). It is unique in that it is illegal for companies to cut off customers’ water services, and because of this, poverty advisors will often advise people to stop or delay payment of their water bill as a first course of action (and prioritise food for children, housing costs etc).

Utilities payment defaults are not automatically reported to credit agencies - only if non-payment continues to the point that the utility company refers the customer to a debt collection agency (typically after an extended period of non-payment).

In recent years utility companies have pushed customers towards a monthly direct debit payment system and in the case of companies - like Thames Water - that are heavily in debt, this monthly income is used to service their debt interest payments.

These factors combined contribute to the water companies financial vulnerability - payment defaults by a larger number of customers who are pushed to the edge by the cost of living crisis, or a switch to quarterly, six monthly, or annual bills by customers who do not wish to service the debts of a company that is not serving them, and who can afford to switch (i.e. people for whom receiving a quarterly bill of £112 is not overwhelming. An average monthly bill is £37, an average annual bill is £448).

A sudden further drop in their short term income or ability to service its debts could push it to collapse and a government decision on if and how to act.

Keir Starmer has committed to renationalising railways within the next five years. However, it will do this by not renewing operator contracts as they expire (other privatised services have different models so this process does not provide a template for utilities), and it will not nationalise rolling stock - the most profitable part of train operation. Nonetheless the policy will be to the benefit of public finances by an estimated £2.2 billion a year and benefit consumers through cheaper fares. Rail nationalisation is supported by nearly 70% of UK voters.

The Labour Party has not committed to renationalising any other public services. While the UK public support the renationalisation of not only railways but also utilities there are still strong narratives (from the right, centre right and centre left) that the private sector run things better, that renationalisation will cost too much money in compensation to the companies that currently own utilities, in addition to the costs of the further investment needed in failing services.

Research (from around 5 years ago) demonstrates a net benefit to the public purse from not having to pay private shareholder dividends, from any profit remaining within the UK economy, and from the effect of reduced bills on consumers. Calls for a solution for failing water companies span the political spectrum - from the Daily Mail to George Monbiot.

Water is an issue with very strong public awareness and anger which can be utilised to create pressure for change.

The primary tactic and threat of payment refusal is already an inevitability for the many people who cannot afford to pay, and one that can be widened and made inclusive through local and national mobilising, and communication about forms of refusal and its impact

Public refusal to continue with financial participation in the scam of privately owned water coupled with the likelihood of financial collapse of water companies will create a crisis moment.

We can amplify the scale of protest through creating media hooks e.g. public polling showing the scale of anger and desire for renationalisation giving cover for the government to react; working with investigative journalists to create scandals further exposing the nefarious behaviour of water companies; Newspaper Op Eds from unusual allies or individuals affected by sewage/poor water quality/bills.

We can work with a range of allies across the political and issue spectrum to attract a wide range of people to participate in the mass refusal tactics and demonstrate to the government that this is a priority issue and a crisis they need to urgently resolve.