On the evening of 17 February around 100 riot police, armed with tasers, shields, pepper spray, and batons, launched a violent attack on the political occupation on the Aylesbury Estate, in a blatant expression of class power. The estate was built in 1963 and consisted of 2,704 council homes. Today most are empty as Southwark’s Labour council co-operates with developers to demolish and ‘regenerate’ the Aylesbury. This is a process of social cleansing – perfectly good council homes are being destroyed to make way for private flats and social homes with unaffordable rents. Local residents will be forced out of the area, as those with money move in. For the council and developers, there is huge money to be made. The political occupation of a block on the estate began on 31 January. Activists, squatters, and local residents, including supporters of the RCG, came together to protest against London’s housing crisis. Across London other housing campaigns also began to gain support and attention. With the attack on the Aylesbury occupation, the Labour council has made clear that they will use the full force of the Metropolitan police to clear any obstacles to the march of capital through London’s housing estates. Repression however, breeds resistance.
The story of the Aylesbury
The Aylesbury Estate was built in response to Britain’s housing crisis following the Second World War. It was planned and built as a home for thousands of working class people. However, by the end of the 20th century, with the intensifying crisis of capitalism, such a large area of land within sight of the City of London could not escape the clutches of the ruthless private property developers. When Tony Blair was elected as Labour Prime Minister in 1997, his first public appearance was on the estate, and he pledged to tackle inner city deprivation. In 2001 the residents of the estate were presented with a stock transfer ballot. On a 79% turnout, 79% of the votes were cast against the estate being transferred from council to housing association management. In contrast to this overwhelming popular mandate, the current Labour council was elected in 2014 with a 36.4% turnout. Labour MP Harriet Harman assured the tenants that the ballot would be respected. It was not, and in 2005 the decision was made for demolition.
Plans were developed to double the density of housing on the estate, increasing from 2,700 to 4,900 homes. Of these 2,288 are due to be run by a housing association, and the rest will be up for private sale – a net loss of 412 social homes, and a complete loss of 2,700 council homes. A huge private finance initiative (PFI) deal was planned, but then withdrawn by the government in 2010. The last few years have seen a process of moving out the old residents, with whole sections of the estate left empty to fall into disrepair. In 2014, Southwark Council announced its partners for the Aylesbury development: Barratt Developments and the Notting Hill Housing Trust (NHHT). Barratt is one the country’s largest private residential housing developers. NHHT is a housing association founded by Bruce Kenrick who also founded the major homelessness charity Shelter. In a sad irony, the higher rents charged by the NHHT will make more people homeless.
Occupation
Militant resistance to London’s housing crisis seriously emerged with the Focus E15 campaign’s occupation of empty homes on the Carpenters Estate in Stratford in September 2014. (Link: Focus E15 campaign declares ‘Open House’) This was the catalyst for the escalation of housing struggle across London, as residents and campaigners saw that resistance brought victories. ‘Social Housing, Not Social Cleansing’ became a rallying cry throughout London. Strong campaigns have begun to be built across the city, with the New Era Estate and Our West Hendon campaigns north of the river and the Guinness Trust and Cressingham Gardens campaigns in the south. The March for Homes, a protest march demanding investment in social housing, brought several thousand people together on 31 January and was followed by the occupation of flats 77-105 Chartridge House on the Aylesbury Estate.
The occupation opened dozens of flats which were found to be in a good state of repair, and provided good shelter for dozens of occupiers. In a borough with more than 18,000 people on the official council housing waiting list, this shows very clearly where Southwark Council’s interests lie. The block became a visible protest against the housing crisis, covered with banners reading: ‘Repopulate the Aylesbury Estate’, and ‘No Demolition!’. Public meetings were held every evening, where squatters, Aylesbury residents, political activists and others came together to discuss politics and strategy, to plan actions, workshops and events. Supporters of the RCG played an active role, arguing for political protests to take the fight the Labour council and politicians. Political films were shown and legal rights workshops were held, alongside football matches, communal meals and discussions.
Labour vandals
On 5 February the council made its first attack on the occupation. Terrified of the protest spreading throughout the hundreds more empty homes on the estate, further drawing attention to their social cleansing policies, the council sent police and contractors into the adjoining building to destroy fixtures and fittings, to smash sinks, toilets and windows, and to weld huge metal fences around the block. RCG supporters were among those who organised a fitting response. At their first cabinet meeting since the occupation began, the council faced a lively demonstration chanting ‘Labour vandals, lying scum’, and the doors to their Tooley Street head office were blocked with some of the rubble their contractors had created in their destruction of perfectly good homes.
The council could not let such bad publicity continue and they gained an Interim Possession Order to evict the occupation on 17 February. Coinciding with a planned demonstration at local MP Harriet Harman’s surgery just minutes away from the Aylesbury Estate, protestors were not surprised to see that Harman had not turned up to face residents. The police massed at the occupation, accompanied by pompous council officials and contractors to reseal the building. The full range of the Metropolitan Police’s surveillance equipment was on show, with Forward Intelligence Teams (FIT), and helicopters filming the huge crowd which had gathered to protest at the eviction.
Police broke into the occupied block, only to find that the occupation had quietly shifted in the adjoining building – the one the council had fortified and one not covered by the possession order! Rows of paramilitary police meanwhile launched brutal attacks on groups of protestors outside, slamming several young women to ground, and violently arresting them, as well as picking off a few other people pointed out by their FIT cameraman. Reality was turned on its head as it transpired these young people had been charged with ‘assault’! Further hypocrisy came when the police attempted to gain access to the new occupation with charges of ‘criminal damage’ – flats which had been destroyed by the council’s contractors! The balance of forces meant the police were unable to evict the second occupied building, and indeed the council officials directing them had gone home by this point. Six brutal arrests were made, and occupiers and other activists must now turn to organising a political defence campaign.
Only in a capitalist society, governed by a system which has gone long past its useful life, could so many homes lie empty in a so-called ‘housing crisis’. The contradictions of capitalism are intensifying and the absurdity of a system which sends police to move people out of empty homes, whilst thousands are homeless, is becoming ever clearer to a larger number of people. If the ruling class thinks that sending in their paramilitary police to do the bidding of property developers and capital will intimidate and quash resistance, they need to think again. As the police cut their way into the empty houses of the Aylesbury Estate, which had been brought back to life by activists, protesters chanted ‘one eviction, two squats!’ While empty homes remain and those in need of them are left on the streets, housing campaigns and others must use these spaces to provide shelter and escalate the struggle against social cleansing. Four days before the eviction, a new occupation was established by tenants and Lambeth Housing Activists in Lambeth’s Guinness Trust, where residents are due to be evicted to make way for the development of luxury apartments. It is essential that these campaigns draw in and mobilise more and more working class people who are being forced out of their homes. We must build the strength and organisation of these campaigns to be able to defend against the kind of violent attack which the state launched on the Aylesbury, and defend all those arrested. Councils, politicians, capitalists and police chiefs across the country must be aware – this is only the beginning of a movement against their housing crisis and their austerity measures.
Toby Harbertson
Aylesbury Occupation blog: https://fightfortheaylesbury.wordpress.com/
South London RCG blog: http://southlondonrcg.tumblr.com/
Fightback is the only solution to the housing crisis: Fightback is the only solution to the housing crisis
Housing crisis: social housing not social cleansing: Housing Crisis – Social housing not social cleansing /FRFI 238 April/May 2014
Southwark Notes (useful info on housing and social cleansing in Southwark): https://southwarknotes.wordpress.com/
