Jamie Speka, West London Socialist Party
What should have been a “normal flat fire”, according to Peter Apps, a journalist at Inside Housing, culminated in a deadly tragedy, killing 72 people, 18 of whom were children. Grenfell Tower, burnt out and still standing, remains a palpable reminder of “the most serious crime committed on British soil this century.”
Prioritising profit over resident safety by way of lax fire safety inspections and building regulations underpinned the tragedy. The blame was mostly placed on the then Tory government, whose cuts and deregulation meant flammable cladding was installed on the tower. Previous governments, including Tony Blair’s New Labour, had worsened building standards and regulations.
Eight years on, Labour wants to remind us that they care. This is why Grenfell’s covering reads “Forever in our hearts”; but forever seems to have been cut short following Labour local government secretary Angela Rayner’s decision last week to completely demolish the tower.
News broke that the tower would be “carefully taken down”, in a statement put out by the government. The decision is said to have been made with careful consideration along with Grenfell Tower survivors. However, survivors are telling a different story: one where their collaboration has been set aside and replaced with undemocratic decision making.
The tower is in dire need of repair or demolition, according to expert engineers. Yet, deciding to remove the tower completely without survivors, victims’ families and the local community having control over the process of memorialisation is not the way to go.
UK Tonight with Sarah-Jane Mee recently featured a survivor, Marcio Gomes, who spoke for the “90%” of survivors who did not get a say in the decision.
“Grenfell should have been the catalyst for change,” he said. “And nearly eight years on, not a lot has changed. We’re still going through the process, we still haven’t had justice. The victims aren’t being put at the centre of the decisions that are being made. It’s almost like they want to knock it down, out of sight, out of mind.”
Labour deregulation
Marcio Gomes’s words ring especially prominent in the face of Labour’s current mission of deregulation.
The prime minister’s recent promise of deregulation looks quite similar to the previous government, only repackaged to fit the interests of the Labour Party’s backers – pro-liberalisation billionaires and corporations.
With Grenfell ‘out of sight and out of mind’, Labour can get on with business: a new runway at Heathrow Airport, raising taxes on working people, and, pertinently, vowing to relax planning laws.
Deregulation construction and tearing up planning laws would give housing developers more opportunity to build shoddy, unsafe infrastructure. It would allow little to no scrutiny from local communities, who already have few official avenues to fight back against developers. Tipping the scales towards big construction companies in the name of economic growth is reminiscent of the very same kindling that set the flames of Grenfell.
Can we trust big construction companies to build safe houses when they have historically been most interested in making the maximum profit possible? More housing is needed: is it too much to ask of Labour for all new homes to be safe? Taking the big construction companies, material manufacturers and the banks into democratic public ownership would mean we could build the thousands of high-quality, safe and environmentally friendly homes we need.
