“there are stark choices ahead for the new Prime Minister and it is clear to many of us that people want the economy transformed – not just tinkering round the edges – and people know it is possible.”
Apsana Begum MP
By Sian Errington, Arise Festival
In an overflowing room on Tuesday at TUC Congress 2026 more than a hundred were welcomed to the event on how we achieve an ‘Irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people’ by Sarah Woolley, General Secretary BFAWU.
Organised by Arise – A Festival of Left Ideas and the GFTU, it brought together General Secretaries, activists and Socialist Campaign Group MPs. Public ownership as well as redistribution was a key theme, with speakers covering the connected nature of the multiple crises we face, the need to continue strengthening trade union rights and industrial power and fighting for racial justice being central to our actions.
Apsana Begum MP was one of several speakers who highlighted that “there are stark choices ahead for the new Prime Minister and it is clear to many of us that people want the economy transformed – not just tinkering round the edges – and people know it is possible.” Public ownership has to be at the heart of this, Begum argued, with the example of taking water firms into public ownership given as a public, economic and environmental need as well as being hugely popular.
Taking the actions that are required to truly rebalance our economy so it delivers for working people, and not repeating the actions of others in allowing ‘tough decisions’ to fall on the already hardest hit was taken up by Zita Holbourne, speaking as Black Activists Rising Against Cuts (BARAC) and also attending TUC 26 from the Artists Union.
Economic justice must also be a fight for racial justice, with Holbourne opening by outlining how BARAC was established in response to cuts, austerity and systemic and institutionalised racism and finished by speaking powerfully about Prof. Jason Arday, with “no excuse for over 200 articles in the space of less than three weeks, targeting him” that led to him taking his own life.
That dangerous times we face with the far-right on the march was also taken up by Andrew Fisher, iPaper columnist, highlighting that people know they are being ripped off and how this knowledge is being effectively repurposed by false narratives. That migrants are to blame, ‘net zero’ is driving up costs and disabled people are taking benefits. Yet the reality of people’s economic situation has meant the door is ajar to Government actions being taken that can re-balance the economy, such as public ownership.
Expanding on this theme, John McDonnell MP pointed out there are 14 million people living in poverty – with being “the world that is being experienced”, not being invented, and that “If we have a Reform government [we could enter] one of the darkest periods in our country’s history”. McDonnell highlighted the urgency of not just pushing for actions that start to redistribute wealth and power in the immediate term – the Budget is coming up on 28th October – but of also ensuring that collective discussions are happening about the links between the multiple crises we are experiencing, with severe climate impacts already being felt on people’s lives and resources, through drought and the impact on global supply chains, and the devastation of wars.
Matt Wrack, NASUWT General Secretary, had earlier in the meeting focused on how the need to redistribute power incorporates the strengthening of trade unionism and collective trade union rights. The weakening of these have been central to the offensive against the organised working class – the movement that had previously helped to deliver greater equality in our country – and the past 40 more years being an attempt to roll back those gains.
Eddie Dempsey, RMT General Secretary, highlighted how Britain needed to not just spend more – it should own more with public ownership such as water, transport and our public services and in the actions we take, such as addressing the housing crisis through council homes, not creating a further speculative housing bubble. In a link to Matt Wrack’s earlier comments, Dempsey pointed out that our country’s most important asset is our people, yet we “we currently have the biggest labour force we have ever had but a quarter are in gig and insecure work”.
Gawain Little, GFTU General Secretary further highlighted the need for concrete actions that can rebuild our trade unions in industrial strength alongside campaigns in local communities that can drive change in our economy.
Returning to a theme many speakers raised, that Andy Burnham taking over from Keir Starmer offered an opportunity to push for the change required, Professor Costas Lapavitsas highlighted that a Prime Minister even mentioning reindustrialisation felt like a breakthrough, and that “is the terrain that we need to fight on”. Focusing on embedding change – achieving an irreversible redistribution of wealth and power, he argued it was “not just about how we divide wealth, but how we can create wealth. And who owns those things that creates wealth”.
- A further event will be happening in Liverpool later this month ‘A Fork in the Road Moment – For an Irreversible Shift in the Balance of Power & Wealth’. Monday Sep. 28, 6:30pm, with MPs, campaigners and trade unions. You can register here.
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