In Dover, a Tory MP and the Unite union are working together to fight the sell-off of the port originally proposed by the last Labour government
Politics can produce odd bedfellows. In Dover, a Tory MP and the Unite union are working together to fight the sell-off of the port originally proposed by the last Labour government. Yesterday, they came a step closer when the transport secretary, Philip Hammond, re-opened consultation on the future of Britain's nine trust ports. Dover, the largest and most famous, the gateway to England beneath the white cliffs, has been run by a harbour board since 1606, but needs investment. The Treasury would like to sell it, probably to a foreign owner. The people of Dover are backing a plan for a "people's port" instead, owned in part by the town. This scheme, which won 97.5% local support in a recent referendum, ticks many fashionable boxes: it is a mutual, localist, self-financing, small state exemplar of the "big society" and a test bed for the coalition's claim that it doesn't think the market is the best answer to everything. The challenge is that simply privatising the port would almost certainly raise more money in the short term for the Treasury, and the community scheme will anyway need to raise around £200m of private investment. The transport secretary now says any successful bid will have to show an "ongoing and significant level of community participation" – a success for Dover MP Charlie Elphicke, who has been pushing the scheme. Next, on Mr Hammond's list perhaps, could be mutual, not-for-profit railways – or British Rail, as they used to be called.