Royal Mail a key election battleground

The future of Royal Mail was confirmed as a key election battle ground at SNP conference today as controversial UK Government plans for part-privatisation were flatly rejected by the party.

SNP delegates in Glasgow underlined their support for Royal Mail to remain in public ownership as postal workers protested outside Labour’s South East Regional conference in Gillingham.

SNP Postal Affairs spokesperson, Mike Weir MP, said:

“It says everything when, as the SNP supports Royal Mail in Glasgow, postal workers are protesting outside Labour’s conference in Gillingham.

“It is plain as day that privatisation would spell the beginning of the end for Royal Mail, opening the door to job losses, service cuts and a deterioration in the working conditions of postal workers.

“A private partner will only be concerned with profit, and Royal Mail must not lose its social focus which is essential for rural areas. Peter Mandelson must ditch these ridiculous plans, and focus on investing in Royal Mail as a public service for the public good.

“The future of Royal Mail as a public service is a vital interest to Scotland and this is set to become a key election battleground.”

SNP South of Scotland MSP, Christine Grahame, said:

“Plans to privatise Royal Mail are simply madness, and Scottish MPs who fail to stand up against Lord Mandelson’s plans should be named and shamed.

“We have witnessed the damage done to the Post Office by Labour’s local closure program, and we cannot diminish our postal services further.

"Lord Mandelson is bounding where even the great privateer Mrs Thatcher feared to tread and it is utterly extraordinary to see a so-called Labour government taking the knife to such an important public service.”

Notes:

1. The motion as passed is as follows:

ROYAL MAIL

This Conference is fundamentally opposed to the plans of the UK Labour Government to part privatise Royal Mail; and believes that Royal Mail should remain a publicly owned company.

Conference deplores the deliberate destruction of the postal network which was an essential precursor of this privatisation and condemns those Labour MPs who tried to pretend they were supporting campaigns to keep local post offices open while meekly trooping through the voting lobby at London Labour’s command.

2. The Gillingham Protest:

Postal workers are today staging a protest outside a Labour Party conference as part of a campaign against government plans to part-privatise the Royal Mail. Members of the Communication Workers Union are lobbying delegates to the South East Regional Labour Party Conference in Gillingham.

Terry Jackson, the union's south east regional secretary, said: "We will use every opportunity to take the Keep the Post Public message to the Labour Party, Government and public. "We will be reminding Labour delegates of the agreements reached and the Labour Party conference decision last year which all endorse a wholly publicly owned, integrated Royal Mail group. "Normally we would have taken a stall and advertised in conference brochure, but we felt it was inappropriate at this time to give additional funds to the party while our members' livelihoods are under threat.”