The Post Office announced plans this week to close more than a hundred of its remaining branches, threatening 1,000 jobs.

THE Financial Times (FT) bluntly stated: “The company said on Wednesday it would seek to hand over 115 branches to retail partners or sub-postmasters, putting 1,000 jobs at risk. Branches may be closed if new operators are not found.

The move was based on Acting Post Office Chairman Nigel Railton’s announcement of a five-year transformation plan following a strategic review in May.

The plan accelerates the government’s cost-cutting campaign to reduce state funding since the postal service was dissolved in 2012. Cashier and retail services have been separated from collection, sorting and sorting. delivery of letters and parcels by Royal Mail to speed up the process. privatization of the latter in 2013.

The Post Office is managed independently by the government through UK Government Investments, a body controlling a portfolio of wholly or partly state-owned companies such as NatWest bank and Channel 4 News.

The “full franchise model” that the transformation plan aims to complete is privatization under a different name. Crown offices now represent only 1% of postal agencies, or only 115, compared to more than 373 in 2012.

Large supermarkets and other retail chains have been contracted by the government to operate around 2,000 branches in their stores, while sub-postmasters manage a further 9,000 branches. Annual losses of £30 million in the Crown Network are cited to justify massive cost cutting, with the government refusing to provide what amounts to a pittance to maintain the service.

The Labor government is signaling that the relentless market “reforms” pursued under the Conservatives will be completed, as part of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s pledge to be “the most business-friendly government in history”.

When the transformation plan was announced by Railton at a meeting with Post Office staff at 9am on Wednesday, there was no reference to the closure plans which threaten a thousand office jobs of the Crown. Postmasters only found out later in the day, when the details were reported to the media.