National Housing demonstration 18 June

National Housing demonstration 18 June   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Nancy Taaffe, housing campaigner

Disgracefully, the Tory government’s Housing and Planning Act 2016 became law on 12 May. Pressure from housing campaigners forced some concessions but the central intention of this act – to eliminate secure low cost housing for working class people – still remains.

It will ‘cleanse’ our inner cities of workers – the very people who make cities function. It will force us onto cramped, privatised transport, spending our time and our money for the privilege of working. Or it will mean that the only way we may live near our work is to squeeze into overcrowded homes.

The Socialist Party has a proud history of campaigning to defeat bad laws and scoring victories against Tory governments. We forced Thatcher’s ministers to stump up extra funding for Liverpool’s socialist council in the 1980s, which built thousands of new council homes. We led a mass non-payment campaign in the early 1990s which defeated the unjust Poll Tax and helped bring down Thatcher. More recently our sister organisation in Ireland, with its strategy of mass non-payment, forced the government to retreat over implementing the hated water charges.

We intend to do the same with this spiteful Housing Act. We will be organising around the defiant strategy of ‘I’m Not Moving’, and bring together people who want to make this Act unworkable.

  • No to ‘pay-to-stay’ rent rises. We say to local councils, housing associations, etc, that we have no intention of paying extortionate rents for homes that many of us have lived in for years.
  • If any arrears accrue because we are too poor to pay – we will not move!
  • If our estates are threatened with demolition from bogus plans for ‘regeneration’ – we will not move.
  • If councillors don’t actively oppose this act and make it unworkable, then we will encourage tenants, residents, and campaigners to stand against them in local elections.

See also: The Housing Act – Landlords and developers set to profit

  • ‘We Won’t Move’ all-London public meeting, Tuesday 21 June, 7.30 at The Indian YMCA, 41 Fitzroy Square, W1T 6AQ

Axe the Housing Act national demo

Saturday 18 June, 12noon Hyde Park Corner, London SW1

www.wewontmove.blogspot.co.uk/