Building Resistance
organising opposition to new anti-squat law
The date the new anti-squatting law comes into force in English and
Welsh law has been set for September 1st. The Advisory Service for
Squatters (ASS) have issued a warning and a call to arms: “We
are going to need to be more organised and look after each other
better. We will need legal back-up available on the street, and people
will need help moving quickly and storing their possessions. We need
networks, linked up with others resisting evictions and attacks on
housing rights.”
The Eviction Resistance Network
(ER) have emerged to counter to the new law and new enforcement
techniques. They have already mobilised big numbers to resist several
evictions, and their phoneline is open 24/7.
As SQUASH and ASS are
attempting to demystify the new law in terms of who'll be affected, and
how best to protect yourself (see the links below), there have been
signs that the police might be trying to evict people already in situ in
long-term squats come the law change. ER have reported that sections of
the new law have been posted on the doors of residential squats in East
London by over-eager cops. Whether this is a pre-emptive eviction
notice, or just plain intimidation, is hard to tell. New laws are not
legally supposed to be applied retrospectively.
As SchNEWS has previously reported, illegal evictions have been
occurring in Brighton as property owners and authorities get ahead of
themselves. Similar events are reportedly happening in Bristol, where
residential squats are being thrown out before the law change, along
with non-residential property- such as the former building society
premises that was illegally attacked by Avon and Somerset police on
August 15th.
Gung-ho policing means that the legal stuff is worth getting to grips
with, as you'll need the info on why your place is legal to shout at
incoming police. The ambiguity of the law (e.g. residential squatting is
illegal, non-residential legal) suggests that application of the law
will be muddled, and cops are easily confused. Also worthwhile reading
is the Code of Practice of High Court Enforcement Officers, which, amongst other stipulations, states they must act in a “professional, calm and dignified manner... with discretion and fairness” and not allow debtors to threaten violence.
Squatters rights activists are gearing up in other ways. ASS are holding a meeting on Monday 27th of August. Squattastic are also getting together around the second week of September (date TBC) to discuss and organise. Brighton locals SNOB have called for an action to take place at 2pm, October 13th at Victoria Square Gardens, Brighton.
Solidarity is the name of the game.
There's also around 420,000 empty commercial properties in the country. Make of that what you will.
NEVER TOO LET
The squatting law is only the start of it. This summer we've also
witnessed exposes on dodgy landlords and 'beds in sheds', rapidly
increasing rents, government plans to lift rules on affordable housing
in new build developments - while 1.8 million families wallow on
affordable housing waiting lists, housing benefit caps forcing
low-income workers out their homes, Olympic gentrification of London
boroughs, a 25% per cent increase in homelessness ...
This year has seen the quagmire of the housing crisis cruelly
exacerbated by Tory 'screw the poor' thinking from all directions. Not
surprising from ministers more concerned with the profits of their
development and financier chums than kids in cramped and mouldy high
rises– property firms donated a total of over £3.3 million to the
Conservatives in the three years leading up to last autumn.
However the gravity of the situation has led to a boom in grassroots
organising against evictions and wider housing rights issues from those
within the rental sector. Active groups around the country are fighting
for better housing and tenancy rights with mutual aid, addressing
individual and community struggles against the backdrop of the need for
radical change in the housing market. Together, they could constitute
the embryo of a wider grassroots housing rights movement that the
country sorely needs.
New group Housingforthe99
have the stated aim of campaigning against rip-off rents and for secure
and affordable tenancies. After demonstrating against the Olympics'
bogus claims that affordable housing would be one of the Games'
legacies, the group also targeted the National Landlords Association-
who represent over a million landlords, lobbying against regulation and
advocating insecure tenancies. A Solfed action
at the end of July saw dodgy letting agents Victorstone forced to
reimburse three renters from Bethnal Green over £1200 that they'd tried
to steal even though the deal, and the house, fell through. Local groups
include Haringey Solidarity Group, Hackney Housing Group and Bristol Housing Action Movement.
Advice for squats vs. the new law:
ASS homepage: http://www.squatter.org.uk/
Eviction Resistance: http://evictionresistance.blogspot.co.uk/
For an in-depth overview of the housing crisis, see this offering by the anarcho-academics at Corporate Watch
SchNEWS - Direct Action Newsheet
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