I’m pleased that after speaking to local members of Labour’s sister party – the Co-operative Party – of which I’m a member, the party today nominated me in the selection process to choose Labour’s next parliamentary candidate for Rugby.
Co-operative values are aligned to my Together We Can approach
As a member of the Co-operative Party, I share its values of ‘building a society in where power and wealth are shared’ as much as possible, where power is decentralised, and communities, workers and citizens empowered by co-operative ownership models and the co-operative ethos of community participation, democratic engagement and contribution to the wider public good.
Democratic public ownership
One of the party’s core beliefs is in “democratic public ownership” and regarding our utilities, particularly the so-called “water industry”, the current system of privatision has been an abject failure. The privatised companies proffering to us a common good that falls from the skies, have profiteered at the expense of the public, polluted our rivers and sea, and we have seen public value extracted through dividend payments that often go abroad and on vastly inflated senior executive salaries. Over the long term I hope a Labour government will increasingly strengthen its stance on the water industry. The shadow environment secretary Steve Reed MP recently put the industry on notice that Labour will put it under “special measures.” This is a welcome move.
Innovative co-operative policy-making ideas on community assets and housing
I’m also impressed by the party’s innovative approach to policy-making. This is of particular relevance to my thoughts on the regeneration of Rugby town centre, where I will be exploring the party’s ideas around a Community Right to Buy, which would provide communities with first refusal of assets of community value, for example shops, pubs, cinemas, music venues, football clubs, leisure centres and even local bus routes.
The co-operative approach, where appropriate, could help us develop local and community owned initiatives and regeneration in both the rural and urban areas.
I’m also keen to explore the party’s ideas around co-operative housing and reform of the planning system, including the need to re-establish the principle of community interests over developer benefit, assessing the affordability of homes based on income not market value to ensure wider access to affordable homes, and reforms to the financing of co-operative and community-led housing schemes to enable them to scale up.
Thank you to local Co-op Party members for nominating me. If selected on 15 November, I look forward to working with members as a Labour and Co-operative candidate.
Find out more
You can find out more about the Co-operative Party here.
