DCH and DPAC Tenants and Housing Summit, Report 2

Personal report by Joan Grant

The following report by Joan Grant looks at the event previously prospectively outlined on the Defend Council Housing (DCH) website, of which there is another report from Benefits Justice published in the previous blog post on Kilburn Unemployed blog.(1) (2)

Tenant and Housing Summit

Saturday 13^th June 2015

In the morning there were a number of speakers. There was an inspiring talk by a woman from Greater Manchester Against the bedroom Tax, there was a woman from Unite and Paula from DPAC also did a speech. I arrived at the event at about 12 noon, so I missed a couple of speakers. I videod all the speakers that I heard. 

 

At 12.30 we broke into workshops. I attended the workshop on fighting estate demolitions. There were speakers from a number of campaigns: Sweets Way, West Hendon, Haringey, Walthamstow and possibly a couple of others. Again, I videod the speakers. 

 

We then had quite a lively discussion. Diane Abbott was at the workshop. 

 

All the campaigns are doing the same things. They are bringing residents of all tenures together to fight demolition and so called regeneration. They are having to fight mostly Labour Councils etc, though some Tory councils also have schemes. We need a body who can do that work on a pan London basis. Clearly Defend Council Housing does a lot of good work. 

 

There was a certain amount of wrangling in the workshop about whether the Labour Party are deliberately striking bad deals with developers or whether they are just incompetent.

The wrangles about the Labour Party got even more extreme in the plenary session. There will be actions taken to fight demolitions, the cuts and austerity more generally. We could easily spend the next 5 years marching. 

 

However, we know from past experience that marching alone does not work. I think we should set up a new single issue party. There are all sorts of single issues parties: parties to get us out of the EU, to promote Christian values, to defend internet security, to protect the environment and the health service etc. 

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We need to take power at a local level. We need tenants on local councils. We need tenants in the room as members of the Council when negotiations are taking place with developers. You can win seats on a local council with just a few hundred votes. I think we need to be thinking more strategically. 

 

The Labour Party has taken its core vote for granted for far too long. It needs to get its act together on housing. It has just been wiped out in Scotland. It needs to know that it faces a similar fate in England if it continues to let us down on this issue.

Notes

(1) Tenants and Housing Summit e-leaflet accessed Monday 15 June: http://www.defendcouncilhousing.org.uk/dch/resources/summit13june2015.pdf
(2) http://kilburnunemployed.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/defend-council-housings-tenants-and-housing-summit-report-1.html

Defend Council Housing's Tenants and Housing Summit, Report 1

The Tenants and Housing Summit organised by Defend Council Housing (DCH) and Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) took place on Saturday 13 June in Central London,

"to resist Government attacks on council housing, tenants and benefits. A 'summit' for all those fighting for rent control and the homes we need."(1) Its agenda and prospectus are/were set out in a leaflet appearing on the Defend Council Housing website.(2)

Benefits Justice's Report on the Summit, by Eileen and Kate

Notes on 13 June Tenants and Housing summit (organised by Defend Council Housing and Disabled People Against the Cuts in central London)

Around 120 people attended, from organisations incl. DCH, DPAC, Housing Justice, Radical Housing Network, Radical Assembly, TUSC, Trade Unionists for Housing, Young GMB, Unite Community, NUT, Bolton Against Bedroom Tax, Generation Rent and various London borough campaigns

Action plan agreed:

*a housing bloc on the Peoples Assembly London march 20 June: assemble 1 Poultry opposite Bank of England 12 noon

*25 July national day of local actions for housing and against benefit cuts and bedroom tax

*a campaign against the extension of Right-to-Buy to housing associations financed by open market sale of council homes

* A national London march for Housing and Homes (date to be agreed)

• housing campaigns, hustings and lobbying aimed at Scottish, Welsh, London and other local elections 2016

Other actions

• 16 and 22 June: lobbies of Hackney council (was going to fine rough sleepers £1000 - petition and protest made them drop it)
• 16 June Trade Unionists for Housing: 6.30pm GMB HQ Young London - open meeting on housing
• 16 June 6.30pm Radical Housing Network: ‘What would a rent strike look like?’, Brick Lane
• 18 June meeting on housing Unite offices Holborn
• DPAC: short March for London 20 June; meet 1.30pm opposite Downing St
• 26 June DPAC campaign against introduction of psychological therapies into Job Centres march on Streatham Job Centre. Meet 1.30 Streatham Memorial Gardens SW16 (Pilot project to bring CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) into… Continue Reading Stop Forced Treatments 26th June 1.30 Streatham
• 2 July Westminster Hall - Labour London mayor candidates hustings - challenge on housing
• 10 October: People’s Assembly and Unite Community conference on housing
• Bolton 1st Sat of every month: Wake-up Bolton (+ Wigan etc) - open mic events in city centres

Other

• stopping evictions: use all legal means, bailiffs have limited power, peacefully refuse to leave; but law on landlord’s side so build anti-eviction networks (many already set up);
• need broad national movement for homes, including private tenants’ union;
• estate demolitions/loss of homes: lobby and negotiate with councils + direct action + confront developers + Waltham Forest Trades Council organised ballot of residents
• new Right to Buy: serious attack than can be beaten.Statement being drawn up - paper and on-line petition - as focus for campaign; force Labour councils to resist selling valuable properties; organise with housing associations and tenants groups (leader of Southwark council has come out saying he wants to oppose it)
• include refugees/migrants/asylum seekers in fight for homes;
• Cambridge Trades Council - target letting agents for flash protest; build campaign to occupy empty properties
• Southwark Benefit Justice: job centre protests linking up with PCS
• homeless camp taking place in Manchester

Notes

(1) Defend Council Housing homepage accessed Monday 15 June. http://defendcouncilhousing.org.uk/dch/
(2) Tenants and Housing Summit 13 June e-leaflet, accessed Monday 15 June.  http://www.defendcouncilhousing.org.uk/dch/resources/Benefitsworkshop13juneweb.pdf

God Help Us All

As more and more details of this so-called comprehensive spending review are emerging, it is looking more like what it actually is not what it claims to be. It isn’t anything even remotely close to a nation’s budget. This monstrous document is a fiercely aggressive and monumentally mind-blowing draconian supernova.
The financial meltdown of 2008-9 and Labour’s mismanagement of the treasury gave the Tories once in a century chance of finishing what Thatcherites started in the 80’s:
• Replacing Keynesian policies with neo-liberalist ones.
• Stripping the society of all that is good, just and charitable.
• Turning this country into a barren post apocalyptic land of capitalism, where social justice is stuff of science fiction.
• Truly, actually and factually turning Britain into the junior partner of America; where everything is run by money hungry corporations, where mentioning free health care and welfare state is synonymous with being a billion times worth than Stalin and Mao put together.
If I didn’t know anything about Cameron and Osborne’s politics, and someone asked me to draw an honest mental picture of them just based on the spending review, I would say they most definitely grew up dreaming of playing Frisbee with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher while being tutored by them, learning how to pin all the problems that exist in every single society on the poor, the unfortunate and the working class.
If anyone just looks at the housing benefits section of the spending review, it will be as clear as day that how brutal and devastating the effects are going to be. Cuts to the housing benefits will result in a mass exile of at least 2 million people from inner London, likes of which are unheard of in contemporary peace times. They will have to move closer to M25 or even outside of it in order to be able to afford a place to live; they won’t be able to commute to central London to their jobs and very likely will have to find employment elsewhere. There will be a vacuum of employment in inner London. Even some Tory politicians such as Boris Johnson are opposed to this social cleansing. Somebody needs to tell Mr Osborne that a cosmopolitan city such as London could not survive without working class people. Somebody needs to shout and scream at Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne and tell them:
“if you have what it takes, if you have a single shred of courage blame the budget deficit on people who caused it, crucify the sleazy corporate fat cats of Wall Street who caused the financial meltdown that brought our planet to the brink of bankruptcy, the working class people, the poor and impoverished haven’t done anything wrong, leave us alone and let us be…”.
But the chancellor would never do such a thing, he would never go after the bankers and financial feudalists, he is a trust fund child himself, he would never harm his own kind.
We all need to seriously dig deep and do a thorough cultural shake up; we need to rid ourselves of this culture of political masochism and apologism. We are all living in very dangerous times and a very important period of our domestic modern times. If the government goes ahead and implements all these policies, the negative and sinister effects of them could not be reversed, full stop. If I was a man of faith I would say may God help us all.