Petition: Hold A Referendum To Bring The Water Industry Into Public Ownership (Part 3)

Emma Hardy is the Minister of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). She has recognised that the current model – relating to private water companies – was broken. That’s a small step in the right direction. We now need to step up the pressure on MPs to ensure that the water industry is initially returned to public ownership.
Picture Credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Emma_Hardy#/media/File:Official_portrait_of_Emma_Hardy_MP,_2026_ (cropped).jpg (Fair Use)

REGULAR READERS will know that we’ve been championing & covering the progress of a petition which called for the water industry to be returned to public ownership.

We did this because, as National Liberals, we believe that any industry – that could be said to be vital to the national interest – should initially come into public ownership. And we feel that the water industry is vital to the national interest.

In April, and with the above in mind, we became aware of the petition – https://nationalliberal.org/petition-hold-a-referendum-to-bring-the-water-industry-into-public-ownership – created & launched by Oxfordshire-based Ashley Paul Smith, the Founder & Chair of Trustees of Windrush Against Sewage Pollution (WASP).

It called for a binding national referendum to be held ‘on whether the water industry should be returned to public ownership. Water is a basic human necessity; we believe our privatised system has failed, so the public should decide who owns and controls it.

Private water companies have about 62 million captive customers whose bills have delivered over £85 Bn to shareholders; money that in public ownership could have been spent on fixing our infrastructure. No other country in the world has privatised water like this. We believe that proposed government reforms to regulation show that water company owners are being favoured over the public, and this is not right in a democracy. A referendum would give the public back its voice about its water.’

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE

Under the rules relating to petitions, gaining 10,000 signatures ensures a response from the government department responsible for the petition topic.

However, gaining 100,000 signatures more-or-less guarantees that it’ll be debated in Parliament.

At the time we thought that there was a good chance that the petition would hit the 100,000 mark. We also noted that change wouldn’t happen overnight – there are so many vested interests at work – but the petition & any subsequent debate was a step in the right direction.

Two months ago, we followed up this initial report with an update – https://nationalliberal.org/petition-hold-a-referendum-to-bring-the-water-industry-into-public-ownership-part-2 – which noted that the petition had gained an incredible 173,000 signatures.

DEBATE – BUT NO VOTE

A date (14th September) was set for the petition to be debated at Westminster – although it wouldn’t include a parliamentary vote on the matter.

The debate was subsequently held at the beginning of this week, by which time over 200,000 people had signed the petition.

It’ll probably come as no surprise that the Seventy MPs present didn’t agree with the need for a referendum. However, on the plus side there was general agreement that the current model was “broken.”

TOUGHER REGULATION

This was confirmed by Emma Hardy (Minister of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs – basically the ‘Water Minister’) who stated:

“For too long pollution, poor performance and financial instability in the water industry has left customers and communities to pay the price.

“This situation can’t continue – which is why this government is giving the public more control and helping keep bills as low as possible.

“The prime minister has been clear that the failures of the past must be corrected.

“We are bringing in tougher regulation, stronger enforcement and greater accountability, so water companies deliver for customers and the environment.”

HOT AIR OR ACTION?

What this means in practical terms remains to be seen. We’re actually in two minds as to what’ll happen. Will all this talk simply remain hot air – or will Labour eventually take action?

As we noted earlier, change wouldn’t happen overnight. There is still a very long way to go until this issue is properly resolved. Therefore, the only viable option is to keep applying pressure on the government. And that means building on the progress made so far.

We’d therefore appeal to all readers to keep promoting – by whatever means possible – the need to return the water industry to public ownership.

Let’s get to it!

• A RECORD OF the Westminster Hall debate (held on Monday 14th can be found here: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2026-09-14/debates/0E4845C2-E1B3-4BBB-8A08-6C7E05BD78DD/WaterSectorPublicOwnership

Date: September 17, 2026

Categories: Articles

Free Speech: How Do We Protect It? – Gab Turns 10: Ten Years of Free Speech and Building for the Future (Part 2)

TOWARDS the end of last month, we published the first part of an article supplied to us by our friends at Free Speech: How Do We Protect It? It was part of a much loner article which was written by Andrew Torba, the CEO of Gab News who describes himself as a Christian Nationalist. Gab News is an alternative social media platform (dedicated to free speech) owned and operated by Christians.

Free Speech: How Do We Protect It? requested that we serialised it as it covered so much ground & raised many important issues.

Those who’re particularly interested in matters relating to free though & free speech should read this https://nationalliberal.org/free-speech-how-do-we-protect-it-gab-turns-10-ten-years-of-free-speech-and-building-for-the-future and then the text below which continues straight on from part one.

It should also be noted that whilst Gab is a Christian organisation & Andrew Torba is a Christian Nationalist, both Free Speech: How Do We Protect It? and the NLP welcomes members & supporters from all religions and none. Also, it goes without saying that there are no links between Gab, Andrew Torba, Free Speech: How Do We Protect It? & the National Liberal Party. Please note that we’ve kept the original US spellings as they are.

The original article can be found here: https://news.gab.com/2026/08/gab-turns-10-ten-years-of-free-speech-resistance-and-building-for-the-future/

The Cost Was Personal Too

Those costs were never limited to servers, payment processors, lawyers, or lost business relationships. My family has lived with the consequences of my decision to build Gab for ten years. We have been doxxed, threatened, harassed, and forced to think about things that most families should never have to think about simply because I built a website and refused to abandon it. I made the decision to start Gab; my family didn’t, and watching the consequences of that decision spill over onto my wife and children and extended family has always been the hardest part of this journey. There were moments when walking away would have made our lives much easier, but my family stood by me through all of it, and their sacrifice is as much a part of Gab’s story as anything I have personally endured. I will never be able to properly repay them for that.

As Gab grew, the censorship pressure increasingly came not only from technology companies and activist organizations, but from governments themselves. Authorities and regulators in countries including Germany, the United Kingdom, and Australia have pursued increasingly aggressive approaches to online speech, and the implications of these systems do not necessarily remain confined within their own borders. When governments pressure American technology companies to police speech according to foreign standards, they are effectively attempting to export their censorship regimes into the American digital public square.

Gab has consistently pushed back against that idea because there is a principle here much larger than our company. We reject the notion that foreign bureaucrats should be able to dictate what Americans may lawfully say on an American platform. We did not spend years fighting Silicon Valley censorship only to hand the same power to government officials overseas, nor do we believe technology companies should voluntarily transform themselves into enforcement arms for every government that invents a sufficiently broad definition of harmful speech.

This distinction is becoming increasingly important because the architecture of the Internet does not respect national boundaries in the way traditional media once did. If every country’s censorship laws are allowed to dictate what an American platform can display globally, the practical result will eventually be that the most restrictive government determines what everyone is allowed to say. We believe the proper response is exactly the opposite: defend lawful expression, resist attempts to impose extraterritorial censorship, and force governments to justify their demands through legitimate legal processes rather than expecting technology companies to obediently police political speech on their behalf.

There is one part of this story that I cannot leave out because it is impossible for me to honestly explain how I made it through the past ten years without talking about my faith in Jesus Christ. There were moments when the company was under enormous pressure, when the media attacks seemed endless, when infrastructure was disappearing underneath us, when my family was being dragged into something they never asked for, and when I had no obvious reason to believe that things were going to work out. Through those moments my faith gave me something much more important than confidence in a particular business outcome: it reminded me that I was not ultimately in control and that my responsibility was to remain faithful, do the work placed in front of me, protect my family, stand for what I believed was right, and trust God with the outcome.

My faith has also changed enormously over the course of these ten years. Trials have a way of stripping away the shallow version of Christianity that is easy to maintain when everything is comfortable. When the world is applauding you, faith can remain theoretical. When doors are closing, people are attacking you, your reputation is being destroyed in public, your family is paying a price, and you genuinely do not know what tomorrow is going to bring, you discover very quickly what you actually believe. Again and again I was reminded that worldly approval is temporary, worldly institutions are temporary, businesses are temporary, and ultimately my identity cannot rest in Gab, in what journalists say about me, in how much money we make, or even in whether the company succeeds. My identity has to be rooted in Christ.

Looking back now, I can see God’s providence throughout so much of what happened, including in things that felt catastrophic at the time. Doors closing forced us to become independent. Being rejected by institutions forced us to stop seeking their approval. The pressure forced me to examine what I actually believed and why I was willing to fight for it. The hardships made me a better builder, a better leader, and, more importantly, pushed me to become more serious about being a Christian husband and father. I would never pretend that I handled every moment perfectly, because I didn’t, but I can say with certainty that I would not have made it through this decade without Christ.

That is also why the mission today is about more than simply building successful technology companies. Technology shapes culture, culture shapes people, and increasingly artificial intelligence will participate directly in shaping how people understand truth, morality, history, faith, family, and themselves. If we believe Christ is King, then Christians cannot voluntarily abandon one of the most consequential technologies of our lifetime and simply hope that people who reject our worldview will build it in ways that are healthy for our children and grandchildren. We have a responsibility to build, to create, to compete, and to bring our values into these new systems rather than retreating from them.

• To Be Continued.

• To find out more about Free Speech: How Do We Protect It? Check out their Facebook site here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1607711629485795

Date: September 9, 2026

Categories: Articles

Free Speech: How Do We Protect It? – Gab Turns 10: Ten Years of Free Speech and Building for the Future

THE ATTENTION of our friends at Free Speech: How Do We Protect It? –https://www.facebook.com/groups/1607711629485795 – was drawn to the following article which originally appeared on 15th August. It featured on Gab News, an alternative social media platform (dedicated to free speech) owned and operated by Christians. It was written by Andrew Torba, the CEO of Gab who describes himself as a Christian Nationalist.

Free Speech: How Do We Protect It? found it very interesting. It mirrors much of their thinking – especially when it comes to the relationship between Government & private technology companies. Here, instead of protecting free speech for all, the Government seems happy to allow private companies to determine who can say what & when.

Free Speech: How Do We Protect It? opposes this form of contracting out & believes that the UK should have a formal constitution and bill of rights, based on the concept of civil and religious liberties for all. They also feel that a civil rights watchdog should be established to protect the people’s ability to make use of these rights.

The original article can be found here: https://news.gab.com/2026/08/gab-turns-10-ten-years-of-free-speech-resistance-and-building-for-the-future/

Andrew Torba, the CEO of Gab. Picture Credit: YouTube/PAHomepage.com (Fair Use)

TEN YEARS ago today Gab began with a simple conviction: ordinary people should be able to speak freely online without asking permission from governments, political activists, corporate gatekeepers, or a handful of unaccountable Silicon Valley executives. At the time that conviction seemed almost obvious. The Internet was still routinely described as this great decentralized force for human freedom, yet by 2016 it was becoming increasingly clear that the digital public square was consolidating in the hands of a small number of companies whose executives had tremendous power over what billions of people could say, see, share, and ultimately believe. Gab was our answer to that problem.

I don’t think any of us could have fully appreciated what the next ten years would bring. Gab has been banned from app stores, removed by hosting providers, cut off by payment processors, denied access to critical infrastructure, smeared relentlessly by the corporate press, targeted by activist organizations, dragged into congressional investigations, and pressured by governments both at home and abroad. There have been many moments when the conventional wisdom was that Gab was finished, and there were plenty of opportunities when surrendering would have been easier, safer, and probably much more profitable. We could have changed our rules, apologized to the right people, banned whoever we were told to ban, and slowly transformed ourselves into another sanitized corporate platform.

We chose to build instead and that decision has defined the first decade of Gab.

Gab’s history cannot be separated from deplatforming because deplatforming forced us to understand technological sovereignty years before most people were even thinking about it. In the early days of the Internet economy, the standard advice for building a technology company was to outsource practically everything that wasn’t your core product. You used somebody else’s cloud infrastructure, somebody else’s payment processor, somebody else’s app store, somebody else’s distribution network, and dozens of somebody else’s APIs and services. That model was efficient and convenient, but it contained an enormous hidden assumption: all of these supposedly neutral infrastructure providers would continue doing business with you.

We learned the hard way that this assumption was wrong. When companies decided they could remove Gab from their services because they disliked our mission, our users, or the speech taking place on our platform, we discovered that you don’t really control something when another company can shut it off with the flip of a switch. Free speech could not survive indefinitely on rented infrastructure controlled by people who were hostile to the very reason Gab existed, so we had to become more independent. We built systems ourselves, developed our own technology, established new relationships, eliminated dependencies where we could, and became more resilient with every attack.

Looking back, many of the things intended to destroy Gab ultimately made the company stronger. Every provider that abandoned us exposed another weakness we needed to address. Every coordinated pressure campaign taught us something about how technological power actually works. Every attempt to silence our community reinforced the importance of owning more of our infrastructure and reducing the number of institutions capable of exercising veto power over our existence. Out of those experiences emerged a principle that continues to shape everything we build today: never allow a single gatekeeper to become a single point of failure.

There is a fantastic recent essay called The Closure of the Internet – https://arctotherium.substack.com/p/the-closure-of-the-internet – that I encourage everyone to read because it documents, in extraordinary detail, the transformation we lived through during the years when Gab was fighting its hardest battles. The author traces how the Internet of the early 2010s where major platforms generally permitted almost anything lawful rapidly changed beginning around 2015 into an Internet governed by sprawling moderation systems, increasingly expansive definitions of “hate” and “misinformation,” pressure from governments and NGOs, demonetization, algorithmic suppression, and coordinated deplatforming.

Free speech is very easy to support when everyone agrees with what is being said. The principle becomes meaningful when speech is controversial, unpopular, politically inconvenient, offensive, or directed at people with enough power to make you suffer for permitting it. Gab has spent ten years living in that second category. We have defended the principle that lawful speech should remain free even when governments, journalists, activist organizations, corporations, and powerful interest groups demand otherwise, and doing so has come with tremendous costs.

We weren’t trying to build Twitter with a green logo. We were trying to demonstrate that Americans could still build institutions committed to the principle that free speech should not require ideological permission, and that mission inevitably meant accepting costs that companies without such a conviction would never tolerate.

• To Be Continued.

Date: August 23, 2026

Categories: Articles

Petition: Hold A Referendum To Bring The Water Industry Into Public Ownership (Part 2)

Parliament will debate a petition – on 14th September – calling for the water industry to be returned to public ownership. Given the strength of public feeling, and with one eye on a future General Election, we feel that Andy Burnham (pictured above) could be swayed. However, it’s vital to contact your MP to turn up & speak at the debate. Contact them demanding that they do just this! Picture Credit: uk.news.yahoo.com (Fair Use)

FOUR MONTHS AGO, we published an article –https://www.nationalliberal.org/petition-hold-a-referendum-to-bring-the-water-industry-into-public-ownership – promoting a petition which called for the water industry to be returned to public ownership.

We did this because we believe that any industry (that could be said to be vital to the national interest) should initially be publicly owned. (At a later date it could be run on co-operative or on syndicalist lines – whereby workers, who are completely unionised, control industry.)

The National Liberal Party – NLP – feels that the water industry is vital to the national interest. Therefore asked our readers to support the petition.

We thought it stood a very good chance of gaining 100,000 signatures. This would kick start a debate in Parliament over the issue.

GOOD OPPORTUNITY

The prospect of a debate would’ve presented a good opportunity for the electorate to exert its power to ensure that all MPs turned up to vote.

As of today, we’ve discovered that the petition has gained 173,000 signatures. This means that it’ll be debated in the House of Commons next month (on 14th September).

That’s the good news. The not so good news is that there won’t be a parliamentary vote in September.

We had anticipated this. Indeed, in our April article we noted that change ‘will not happen overnight, but this petition & any subsequent debate is a step in the right direction.’

RIGHT DIRECTION

One step in the right direction would be to use the debate to put pressure on the Government to act & actually return the water industry to public ownership.

However, as we noted earlier, we need MPs to turn up & speak at the debate. Therefore, we’re asking all readers to contact their local MP demanding that they do just this.

We all know how unpopular the privatised water industry is. Given the strength of public feeling, and with one eye on a future General Election, we feel that Andy Burnham & Co. could be swayed. .

Watch this space!

Date: August 16, 2026

Categories: Articles

What Future For British Steel?

The British Steel steelworks in Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire. (Image: PA Archive/PA Images)

IT‘S NOT OFTEN that the National Liberal Party agrees with the government of the day.

However, for once, we do. Why?

Because three days ago – on Thursday 16th – British Steel was brought into public ownership. This happened because the Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Act 2026 received Royal Assent from the King, having passed through Parliament on Wednesday. This new law allows ministers to transfer steel businesses’ shares or property into public ownership.

SECURED JOBS

The move has secured nearly three thousand jobs at the Scunthorpe Steelworks in North Lincolnshire.

(British Steel was previously owned by the China’s Jingye Group. They had previously planned to close its Scunthorpe plant. However, Parliament was recalled in April last year to approve special measures legislation to keep the plant open. An independent assessor will determine whether Jingye should be compensated for the nationalisation based on the value of the company.)

The announcement was made by the Department for Business and Trade. It noted that:

“Maintaining steel production at British Steel’s Scunthorpe site is considered essential to preserving the UK’s ability to make steel domestically.

“After assessing the impact on the country’s economy, critical infrastructure and national security, the Business Secretary concluded that government ownership was the best way to secure the company’s future and protect the UK’s steelmaking capability and supply chains.

This follows wider support for the UK steel sector including the first ever Steel Strategy, published in March and backed by up to £2.5bn of investment, which set an ambition for up to 50% of steel used in the UK to be made in the UK. “

LONG OVERDUE

It’s a long overdue move which recognises British Steel vital role in building and maintaining the nation’s railways, infrastructure and manufacturing base.

We national liberals are generally opposed to centralisation. We stand in opposition to capitalism – where property & assets are in the hands of a few – and socialism and communism – where property & assets are in the hands of the state (and party bosses).

We favour a distributist system. Here, distributism advocates a more widespread distribution of property and productive assets among individuals.

NATIONAL INTEREST

With the above in mind, however, we believe that any industry – that could be said to be vital to the national interest – should initially be owned by the public. This obviously applies to British Steel – hence our support for it being brought back under public control.

It remains to be seen what the government will do with British Steel in the future. Will it remain under public ownership, or will it be sold? If the Prime Minister was still Sir Keir Starmer it probably would’ve have been sold. What Andy Burnham will do is open to debate.

As we mentioned earlier, we favour a distributist economic system. Worker-owned cooperatives (alongside small businesses & family farms) form a cornerstone of such a system.

Therefore, we believe that the future of British Steel could be as a co-operative or be run syndicalist lines (whereby workers, who are completely unionized, control industry).

Date: July 19, 2026

Categories: Articles

National Liberal Trade Unionists – Marking The Centenary Of The 1926 UK General Strike (Part 2)

Baldwin’s Conservative government successfully framed the 1926 UK General Strike as a revolutionary threat to the constitution and democracy – as opposed to a labour dispute relating to longer working hours & and significant pay cuts. This led to thousands of middle- and upper-class volunteers joining the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies. It was chaired by Lord Hardinge (left). Arthur James Smith (right), General Secretary of the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain is thought to have coined the slogan “Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day.”

AT THE START of this month we outlined the background to (and causes of) the UK General Strike of 1926. Taking place from 4th to 12th May 1926, it involved up to 1.75 million workers.

The catalyst for the strike was the dire situation of the coal industry. The remedy favoured by mine owners involved cutting wages & increasing working hours. Obviously, the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain – the MFGB was active from the late 19th century until it formed part of the National Union of Mineworkers on 1st January 1945 – totally opposed the idea.

They campaigned under the slogan “Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day” to express the resistance to this proposed idea. (It’s widely believed that Arthur James Cook, General Secretary of the MFGB coined the slogan). The scene was therefore set for industrial action.

As we’ve previously noted, the strike brought much of Britain to a standstill. The events of 4th to 12th May 1926 remain one of the largest coordinated labour-related actions in UK history. These nine days also represent the only general strike in UK history.

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE

So, what was the government response to the strike?

The UK government, led by Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, appears to have anticipated the strike. Therefore, they were well-prepared for widespread industrial action.

As we noted in the first part of this series there had been earlier disputes in 1921 and a near-strike in 1925 (sometimes known as ‘Red Friday’).

In response to these events, the government provided a nine-month subsidy to maintain miners’ wages. A Royal Commission (Samuel Commission, chaired by Sir Herbert Samuel, who later became leader of the Liberal Party) was also appointed to investigate the coal industry.

The Commission – which started work on 15th October 1925 & ended on 14th January 1926 – reported in March 1926. This gave the government adequate time to prepare for any future strike action.

GOVERNMENT PREPARATIONS

These preparations included building up around five months’ supply of coal stocks, the creation of the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies (OMS), the recruitment of special constables, and planning in respect of transport and essential services.

Baldwin’s government also declared a state of emergency – which came into effect from 30th April 1926 – under the Emergency Powers Act 1920. This allowed regulations to secure food, fuel, transport, and public safety.

Essential services were kept going by hundreds of thousands of middle- and upper-class volunteers. They ran trains, buses, docks, and other services. Many drove vehicles or acted as special constables.

The military (in the form of the army & navy) protected key sites like docks and power stations. (However, troops were used sparingly to avoid provocation.) Food distribution was also organized centrally with armed convoys where needed.

The Trades Union Council – TUC – produced 11 issues of British Worker, which had a daily peak circulation of one million copies.

THE BRITISH GAZETTE

To counter this, the government published The British Gazette, which was edited by Winston Churchill. At its height, two million copies were produced a day. It sold for one penny, but given government resources, many copies given out for free.

The British Gazette also successfully described the strike as a revolutionary threat to the constitution and democracy – as opposed to a labour dispute relating to longer working hours & and significant pay cuts. (Framing the strike in these terms no doubt led to the huge numbers of middle- and upper-class volunteers who flocked to the government’s ranks.)

Baldwin’s government also had a propaganda advantage in that it controlled paper supplies which significantly hindered production of the TUC’s British Worker.

Baldwin himself used radio broadcasts to appeal for calm and frame the strike as an unconstitutional challenge. This echoed the message & reinforced the stance taken by The British Gazette.

LEGALITY

The government were also able to question the legality of the strike. However, it was never formally ruled illegal. Police & volunteers from the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies (chaired by Lord Hardinge) helped to maintain order. There were limited instances of violence, but the TUC were more than keen to avoid trouble. Indeed, as we noted in our previous article, strikers organised community efforts like volunteer services and football matches with police.

The government also took an extremely hard line when it came to negotiations. Here, they refused to talk (about the miners’ issues) until the TUC unconditionally ended the strike.

• In part 3 we will look at the overall impact of the 1926 UK General Strike.

Picture Credits:

Arthur James Smith (Fair Use)

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Arthur-James-Cook

Lord Hardinge

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Hardinge01.jpg

Date: May 11, 2026

Categories: Articles

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