A pledge to re-nationalise the railways could help to swing the election for Labour.
A pledge to re-nationalise the railways could help swing the election for Labour
A majority of voters in key Conservative held 2015 battleground seats want the railways brought back into public ownership, according to new research by Survation.
74 per cent of those in four key marginal seats who expressed a preference did not believe the railways would be worse in public hands compared to the current model of private ownership.
Half of respondents thought fares would be cheaper under public ownership and 71 per cent believed that fare prices would be either the same or cheaper.
According to the survey conducted by Survation for the RMT, 60 per cent of all respondents expressing a view said they wanted their local operator to be brought back under public ownership at the next opportunity, a view shared by 62 per cent of Lib Dem 2010 voters, 71 per cent of Labour 2010 voters and 47 per cent of 2010 Conservatives.
Even a third of those who believed their own operator should remain in private hands did not believe the entire network should be under private ownership. Meanwhile, 93 per cent of those who did want their current operator brought back into public ownership (and had a view) wanted fully publicly owned rail across the country.
Between 17th-19th June Survation polled 1,011 constituents by telephone in 4 key marginal Conservative/Labour “battleground” seats of Crawley (CON), Stevenage (
6 Responses to “Voters in the marginals want public ownership of the railways”
Leon Wolfeson
Sure, but. The railways need to be renationalised as the contracts end – because the payback to the taxpayer is heavily weighted to the end of the TOC’s, and early renationalisation would be a massive gift to the companies in question!