AS BRITISH capitalism moved into its neoliberal phase, the state moved from being a provider of public services into being a purchaser of services drawn from the private sector. We have now reached the end phase of this process.

In the first phase, the state acted like a customer of services drawn from a market of providers. Now, however, the state is tending to stand back so that entire public services are handed out, often to friends and colleagues of government ministers.

Even as the current parliament enters its final year, the government continues dissolving the British state’s traditional structures and replacing them with private providers.
 
There has been much discussion about the outsourcing of key services through privatisation, but less has been made of offshoring the British state. This involves handing over state services to overseas providers. Whole swathes of services upon which we depend are provided in this way.
 
The Railways Act 1993 sought to exclude the possibility that the British state should run the railways. This was driven by an ideological hostility to public ownership.

Much of the British railway system eventually did fall into public ownership, but the public stake which owned these operators were often foreign states. Foreign state-owned enterprises of the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, and Hong Kong have all run rail franchises in Britain.
 
Look at the water industry. We Own It recently reported that in the case of Yorkshire Water, “over half is owned by Hong Kong investment firms and over a third is owned by the Singapore government. The remainder is owned by an Australian pension scheme.”
 
When it comes to our energy suppliers, it is the same. A moment’s search on the internet shows so many energy providers now owned by foreign companies, often state-owned.
 
We could go on into non-state sectors of our economy. Steel, for example, car manufacture, and even (especially) the print media.