Exposing Labour councils’ attacks on the working class
Throughout June and July the RCG, along with comrades from Focus E15, Architects for Social Housing (ASH) and Class War, as well as other housing activists, have been exposing the role played by Labour councils in the destruction of social housing. We joined Class War outside the Savills-sponsored London Real Estate Forum in Mayfair, where leaders of Labour councils hobnobbed with property developers to sell off the capital’s housing estates. A few days later we demonstrated outside the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane as Labour leaders from Southwark in south London and Newham in east London were arriving for a prestigious Municipal Journal awards ceremony. These are councils with some of the most appalling records on housing, environmental health and services. We took part in the Open Garden Estates weekend of 18/19 June organised by ASH in solidarity with working class housing estates opposing ‘regeneration’ projects that would see their homes demolished and replaced by private units for sale or rent, and we tracked down notorious Labour council leaders Peter John of Southwark, Lib Peck of Lambeth and Robin Wales of Newham to their power-hungry ‘Governing for Britain’ conference on London’s South Bank at the beginning of July. Whatever they do and wherever they go, we will be there to expose the real anti-working class nature of Labour councils, their betrayals and their lies.
Assault and arrests as campaigners target Boris Johnson
On 15 July, at a demonstration outside the north London house of Boris Johnson to expose his role in social cleansing and poor doors developments, Class War comrade Jane Nicholl was savagely assaulted by a passerby. Only the anger of the crowd prevented the man, an estate agent, from sauntering off after the attack – which resulted in Jane needing hospital treatment – and forced the police to make an arrest. Two male comrades – Ian Bone of Class War and a leading housing campaigner – were arrested, very roughly, a little later. They are yet to learn whether they will face charges. There will be a repeat march on Boris Johnson’s house on Friday 5 August, led by the ‘Women’s Death Brigade’, in solidarity with the comrades and against all male violence against women. Meet 8pm, Angel Tube, Islington.
Architects celebrated for destruction of working class housing
The Royal Institute of British Architecture (RIBA) shortlist for the prestigious Stirling Prize this year includes the architects involved in the ‘regeneration’ of Southwark’s Heygate Estate, with a net loss of more than 1,000 social rented homes. In 2010 international developers Lendlease bought the 22-acre site from the newly-elected Labour council for just £50m (a year later a neighbouring 1.5 acre site sold for £40m). Of the 2,535 homes being built overall, just 82 are for social rent. dRMM Architects have been shortlisted for the Trafalgar Place phase of the development. It comprises 235 ‘high-quality’ homes, with 25% ‘affordable’ housing (80% of market rate) and no homes for social rent. A two-bedroom flat will cost around £725,000. ASH has announced its own award to dRMM of the OJ Simpson Prize, for getting away with murder, and will present the prize at this year’s RIBA Stirling Prize Ceremony, outside 66 Portland Place, London W1B 1AD on 6 October from 6pm.
Housing Act: Can’t pay, won’t pay
Under the Housing and Planning Act 2016, from April 2017 council tenants earning above £31,000 (£40,000 in London) will see their rents rise by 15p for every pound over the threshold. However, to implement this punitive measure against council housing tenants, councils will need to have income data. Some councils, such as Sheffield, have started writing to tenants to ask for this information under the guise of ‘helping them meet their obligations’. While the measure is discretionary for housing associations, there is anecdotal evidence that L&Q Housing Association, one of the biggest in south London, is also seeking this information from its tenants. It is important to know that tenants currently are under no obligation to declare their income and landlords have no legal right to request earnings data or to require tenants to keep them informed as income changes. So do not give the council any information about your income! Non-compliance, by both tenants and council workers, is the only way to defeat this vicious piece of legislation.
New housing minister Gavin Barwell, the developers’ friend
With the appointment of Croydon central MP Gavin Barwell as both Housing Minister and Minister for London, Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May continues to cement the rampant neoliberal and anti-working class agenda of her predecessor. The private school and Oxbridge-educated Barwell may have paid lip-service, on appointment, to those who live in ‘overcrowded, even unsafe’, insecure and unaffordable rented accommodation, but his political career shows him to be in hock to private developers. It was not until his narrow election victory in May 2015 that he finally stepped down as governor of the Whitgift Foundation, the largest landowner in Croydon, through which he had attempted to impose a £1bn commercial redevelopment – including another Westfield – on the town centre. Indeed, the director of Westfield publicly backed his candidature in the general election. Meanwhile homelessness in Croydon is at a 40-year high, having increased at least 650% since 2010.
Par for the course?
In another refutation of the ‘overcrowded island’ myth used to whip up hostility to migrants to Britain, the Huffington Post recently reported that English golf courses use an amount of land equivalent to one fifth of the country’s total built-up area – which in itself only comprises 10% of all the land in England – around 270,000 hectares.
Cat Wiener
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 252 August/September 2016
