Seamus Smyth, East Midlands Socialist Party
Millions are trapped in a housing system that prioritises landlords’ profits over people’s needs.
For decades, councils have sold off council homes and neglected to replace them. Public land has been surrendered to private developers.
UK households spent a record £226 billion keeping a roof over their heads last year, with housing costs rising by 41% in just five years, according to a report from Savills. In 2025 alone, £112 billion was spent on rent, including £81 billion to private landlords – a big chunk of it will have come from the government in the form of housing benefits.
The bill for private renters has risen 27% over five years. Tenants face constant rent increases or eviction as landlords chase more cash.
As of March 2025, around 1.34 million households in England were on local authority housing waiting lists. Many more are not even allowed to join or are arbitrarily and unfairly removed.
A council serious about addressing the housing crisis could immediately begin a mass council house building programme, built by properly paid workers under trade union agreed terms. Existing powers to compulsory register landlords would be used to set fair rents based on local incomes rather than market rates. Landlords could be made to keep homes to a decent and safe standard.
By taking the approach of deciding council policy based on what working-class communities need, and beginning to carry those policies out, a campaign could be mobilised with support from tenants groups, trade unions and working-class communities to demand proper funding from this weak Labour government.
Starmer’s Labour is continuing the austerity started by the Tories. Where we live in the East Midlands, anger at the establishment politicians has led to Reform winning the leadership of councils. None of those councils are fighting to cut rent and build council homes. The same is true for councils where Green councillors are part of the leadership too.
In the May elections we need candidates who put forward the policies and the kind of fight that is needed to fix the housing crisis. Socialist Party members will be standing as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, pointing towards the new mass party of the working class that we need.
