German state-owned Deutsche Bahn is about to buy the Arriva train and bus network in Britain, proving the Tory/Labour privatisation policy to be a shocking hoax which has seen Britain’s infrastructure pass into foreign ownership.
Deutsche Bahn is set to buy Arriva for about £1.6 billion within the next two weeks, according to news reports.
Arriva runs 20 percent of London’s buses and the Cross-Country and Wales rail franchises. According to reports, Deutsche Bahn has been in detailed talks with Arriva since making an approach last month.
Deutsche Bahn has the backing of the German government in its takeover bid which gave it an advantage over the French state-controlled SNCF railway network, which was also attempting to buy Arriva.
The French government refused to back the SNCF bid, as now the path is open for the German state to buy up yet more of Britain’s infrastructure.
Deutsche Bahn was created in 1994 through a merger of the rail arms of west and east Germany. It is one of the largest transport groups in the world, and the biggest railway operator and infrastructure owner in Europe.
The move gives lie to the underlying rationale for privatisation in the first place, namely that the British state could not run a transport network efficiently.
It seems, under the Tory privatisation plan (which was endorsed and carried through by Labour) that it is “wrong” for the British state to own our railway network, but it is perfectly acceptable for the German state to own it.
The topic was recently raised by the British National Party’s candidate in the Hastings and Rye constituency, Nick Prince.
Mr Prince has made the reopening of branch lines, closed during the privatisation rush, an election issue in his campaign.
“The BNP would re-nationalise the railways,” Mr Prince told a local newspaper. “All profits will be re-invested and the days of putting passengers’ safety at risk due to shareholders’ returns would be a thing of the past.
“Congestion would be eased by a cheap, light tram system, costing just £1 million per mile to install. More regular trains will stop at the marsh stations to serve those communities that have been all but cut off and there would be no further cuts to services on the main London lines,” Mr Prince said, expertly summing up the BNP’s position on the privatisation of the railway system.
* British Rail was privatised by the John Major Tory government, starting in 1994.
Ownership of the track and infrastructure passed to Railtrack, whilst passenger operations were franchised to individual private sector operators (originally there were 25 franchises) and the freight services sold outright (six companies were set up, but five of these were sold to the same buyer).
The public image of rail travel was severely damaged following the series of significant accidents after privatisation. These included the Hatfield accident, caused by a rail fragmenting due to the development of microscopic cracks.
Following the Hatfield accident, the rail infrastructure company Railtrack imposed over 1200 emergency speed restrictions across its network and instigated an extremely costly nationwide track replacement programme.
The consequent severe operational disruption to the national network and the company’s spiralling costs set in motion the series of events which resulted in the ultimate collapse of the company, and its replacement with Network Rail, a state-owned, not-for-dividend company.
In other words, the simple cost of maintaining an infrastructure of that size is too burdensome for a private company whose first obligation is to pay shareholders a profit.
This simple and obvious rationale underpins the BNP’s transport policy, which is underlined by the fact that the British state has the right to prevent our nation’s infrastructure falling into foreign ownership.
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