‘WE WILL win this fight!’
That was the message from speaker after speaker at a rally of more than 1,500 delegates from trade unions and tenants’ federations across Britain, who descended on Westminster on Wednesday to fight the government drive to destroy council housing and return to ‘Rachmanite’ private landlords.
Labour MP Lynne Jones warned that in Birmingham, the council housing stock was being demolished at a rate of 1,300 dwellings a year.
The anti-privatisation rally was called to demand the right of tenants in every local authority to choose the ‘fourth option’ to remain in council housing.
This was the policy voted for at the Labour Party conference, but rejected by the Blair government.
Amongst the speakers at the rally were leaders of UNISON, Amicus, the TGWU and CWU trade unions, as well as MPs, including George Galloway, Lynne Jones, and Austin Mitchell, and tenants’ leaders from Birmingham to Cardiff.
Tenants and trade unionists opposed to privatisation said they were being bullied, victimised and intimidated by government and local officials determined to push privatisation through.
However, in most places tenants had still voted overwhelmingly, when given a ballot, to reject housing stock transfer, or any other form of privatisation, including ALMOs (Arms Length Management Organisations).
A contingent from Swindon marched into the conference at Westminster Central Halls under the local banner of the Transport and General Workers’ Union.
John Wignall, a UNISON member from Swindon, told News Line: ‘We feel an urgent need for more council housing.
‘There’s 6,000 people on the waiting list in Swindon.
‘It’s appalling that they’re trying to privatise it all.’
David Glaholm, a Labour councillor, said: ‘We’ve travelled all the way from Swindon and they’ve charged us £8 to park for two hours!’
He added: ‘It’s a national scandal that so many people haven’t got a roof over their head and I’m surprised the Tories aren’t beating the Labour Party over the head about it.’
Another delegation of tenants and trade unionists, from Braintree in Essex, also spoke to News Line.
Malcolm Mead, from Braintree Defend Council Housing, said: ‘We’re a rural district and we represent 8,500 council tenants spread over 54 small hamlets and villages and three towns.
‘We’ve got small funding from the GMB and the local FBU and Amicus branches.
‘The unions should be campaigning and providing transport for this campaign.
‘We are putting our own money into the kitty for our campaign, but we’re getting marvellous support from the tenants for the aims of our campaign.
‘We’ve managed to distribute 6,000-plus leaflets, we’ve spoken face to face with over 1,000 people and we’ve only found 12 who support council house sell-offs.’
Building workers’ union members Charlie Honeyman (Dudley UCATT), Stuart Baker (Sandwell UCATT branch secretary), and Alan Knight (UCATT national executive member), also spoke about the urgency of the struggle against privatisation.
They said: ‘There’s a group of us who’ve come down from the Midlands – from Dudley, Cannock, Stoke and Cheadle – because the government aren’t listening to what tenants want, and in some cases they’re not being given the chance to vote on what is a very political issue.
‘In Dudley we’ve just voted “no’’ for the second time to stock transfer.
‘It was put to the tenants and they voted overwhelmingly to stay with the council, who they trust.
‘It was put across that if they accepted stock transfer, the heavens would be opened for them – new kitchens, new bathrooms, decent homes.
‘We’re fighting for the “fourth option’’, which is to maintain council housing and also for council housing to be maintained by DLOs (Direct Labour Organisations), which are directly accountable to the ratepayers of the borough.
‘In Sandwell’s case, the stock has already gone to an ALMO and 18 months later some of the truths which Defend Council Housing told us have come true.
‘A large chunk of the repair and maintenance work has been contracted out to private companies, so a lot of the direct funding that comes from the government has not been given to the direct workforce of the area.’
They added: ‘We are here today because we want the stock returned to council ownership.
‘We not only want them to keep their hands off council housing, we want them to provide the money to build more council houses, so the next generation have got homes and work.
‘The Labour Party conference, on two occasions now, has actually voted for the “fourth option’’.
‘If they keep on ignoring that, then what is the use of actually having a Labour conference?
‘The Labour manifesto is being produced by a handful of selected people, ignoring the ordinary Labour voters.’
John Marais, from Cambridge Tenants Against Privatisation, told News Line: ‘Cambridge has kicked out transfer twice and now we’re fighting to get more money in to improve our council homes and to build new council homes.
‘We’re very grateful to the unions who helped us get here today.
‘Our council were too mean to even help with fares for people on benefits.
‘Amicus helped us instead, so now we know who our friends are.’
Bob McMahon, from the Coopers Lane Estate Tenants Association in Camden, said: ‘We’re here to defend council housing.
‘We voted against an ALMO nearly two years ago.
‘The government are still refusing to give way on this issue and it’s something we feel very strongly about.
‘The way the funding was before all the ALMOS was doing quite well, and now all of a sudden we’re in difficulty, because the government refuse to give the money to meet the Decent Homes Standard.’
He said tenants feared that plans in other London boroughs to demolish whole council estates, rather than maintain them, would be repeated in Camden.
‘This is what we feared when the ALMO was being sold to us,’ he said.
‘It’s a route to privatisation.
‘We were told this wasn’t privatisation, but it’s been proved it is by what they’re doing in Southwark.
‘There are many, many people who live and work in London who simply can’t afford private housing.’
Opening the rally, Labour MP Austin Mitchell, said to loud cheers that the government’s drive to destroy council housing was ‘the most un-Labour policy’ he had ever seen.
‘We need the “fourth option’’ for rebuilding, renovating and repairing council housing, instead of the government syphoning huge sums out of local councils’ housing revenue accounts,’ Mitchell added, warning: ‘We’ve come to crunch time.’
Ex-Labour MP Tony Benn said: ‘The provision of affordable housing is the best key to happiness for any family.
‘This government is privatising council housing and it’s privatising education and the health service and that raises the question: what is democracy for?
‘This government is transferring power back from the polling station to the market place.
‘What is the point of voting for a local authority if it doesn’t control housing, it doesn’t control schools or any other local services?’
Jim Murphy, secretary of Cardiff Tenants Federation, said a programme of improvements to the city’s council housing stock was underway.
‘Cardiff has not gone down the road of stock transfer!’ he said to applause.
Ex-Labour cabinet member, Michael Meacher, said council tenants were being threatened with ‘blackmail’ in an attempt to drive the government’s privatisation programme through.
‘They are being told, “there will be no money for repairs and improvements unless you privatise, transfer to housing associations or an ALMO.’’
‘I think this is one of the great scandals of our time.
‘The government says it believes in “choice’’. Why can’t we have the option to stick with our local authority and have the same funding on a level playing field with all other “options’’?’ he asked.
‘The National Audit Office says it costs £1,300 more per dwelling for exactly the same improvements under an ALMO, housing association or PFI scheme.
‘Who gave the government the right to deliberately waste taxpayers’ money?’
Meacher said the government was ‘syphoning off £2 billion’ from council housing rent accounts and ‘right to buy’ receipts.
Amicus official John Allot said: ‘We represent over a million trade unionists and many are council tenants and 16,000 of our members are directly involved in repairs and maintenance of council homes.
‘Amicus is strongly opposed to the government’s current housing policy. It is little more than privatisation by stealth.
‘They want the banks and corporations to make loads of money out of decent, affordable council housing and they’re getting away with it so far.
‘They talk about “regeneration’’, “pathfinders’’ and all the rest of it. They’re bleeding council housing dry.’
But he added: ‘In the 1980s Thatcher was defeated because Labour councils stood together and said, “we won’t have anything to do with privatisation’’.
‘We need the councils on board, to stand together now and say, “no, we’ve been here before’’.’
Labour MP Kelvin Hopkins condemned ‘the outrageous attempt to continue with the programme of the destruction of council housing.
‘We’ve got to stop it,’ he said.
‘The only way to house 1.5 million on the waiting list is by a massive programme of local authority house building.
‘It’s absurd to say we can’t do it when we’re the fourth richest country in the world.
‘In Luton where I’m an MP we said we’d campaign long and hard against any stock transfer and we won.
‘This is a tremendous campaign and I think we’re going to win.’
Mike Tansey, a Sunderland councillor, said he had been disciplined ‘four times’ by the Labour Party, before eventually being driven out of the party ‘because of this perverse policy against council housing’.
CWU postal union leader Billy Hayes said he had been a council tenant for 39 years before becoming a full-time official of the union.
He said he was also vice-chair of the Labour Party ‘policy forum’, which backed the ‘fourth option’ in July 2004.
‘I believe when we voted at the Labour Party conference to uphold the “fourth option’’, that was the right decision,’ he added.
‘I also believe in keeping the post office in the public sector.’
He warned: ‘We can see the beginnings of Rachmanism.
‘If we want to deal with the housing crisis in London and other parts of the country, the fight for the “fourth option’’ is the only way we’re going to do it.’
Adam Wilkinson, from Save Britain’s Heritage, said the policy of demolishing council homes was reducing the housing stock and increasing housing prices.
He said in some areas estates were being deliberately run down ‘so the land is ready for property merchants to take over’.
He added: ‘The way this is going about is not democratic.
‘Tenants are not being told that “regeneration’’ or “renewal’’ choices both involve the demolition of their homes and privatisation.’
He said that ‘pathfinder’ bodies are ‘completely unacceptable’.
He pledged: ‘We will fight with you against Prescott’s insane policy to wipe out 168,000 perfectly serviceable, decent homes.’
John Hines, from Birmingham council, said: ‘We have 70,000 council homes in Birmingham and I’m proud of that. The tenants want me to continue to be their landlord.
‘We are having to sell brownfield sites where thousands of council homes once stood.’
But Labour MP for Birmingham Selly Oak, Lynne Jones, said: ‘I’m pleased our tenants in Birmingham have listened to sensible arguments and want to remain council tenants.
‘These councils who provide services have to listen to what the tenants say and by golly they had to in Birmingham.
‘But the problem is the numbers of council tenants are dwindling rapidly.
‘What really worries me is the amount of demolitions.
‘It is not good enough to say “the only way to get that £600 million of investment in Birmingham is if you sell more homes and furthermore, you have got to demolish more homes’’.
‘By 2010 we’re going to have only 58,000 council homes, if the council continues to demolish at the rate they have of 1,300 homes a year.
‘We have to have fair financing for council housing.’
She also warned of ‘dire overcrowding’ and ‘not a cat in hell’s chance of getting a housing association or council home’, unless the demolitions were halted.
East London Respect MP George Galloway applauded all those council tenants across the country who had voted to remain with their councils ‘in the teeth of a huge campaign of bribery, moral blackmail and intimidation of tenants to sign themselves out of the public realm’.
He said Labour-run Tower Hamlets was spending ‘hundreds of thousands of pounds on glossy leaflets and DVDs’, as well as employing officials ‘to put the arm on their tenants to say they no longer wish to be council tenants’.
‘What is Labour for if it no longer says there are some things done better by the public sector and housing is one of those?’ he asked.
‘The council is not just intimidating its tenants, it’s intimidating its workers.
‘In our borough we have one of the worst examples of victimisation of a council worker I’ve ever seen, because of her efforts to defend council housing, and we must demand the reinstatement of Eileen Short,’ Galloway said to loud applause.
‘Tower Hamlets is another example of how this can be stopped.
‘Defend Council Housing has led a campaign which has turned the whole situation around and has begun to win ballot after ballot.
‘We have begun to defeat the machine and they have postponed remaining ballots until after the local government elections on May 4!’
UNISON Deputy-General Secretary Keith Sonnet said: ‘UNISON is very proud to be part of the alliance opposing the privatisation of housing and calls for direct investment in council housing.
‘Councils are now saying they do not want to outsource their housing and they are being bullied and pressurised to deliver the answer the government wants.
‘My union has been in the forefront of calling for a level playing field so tenants who want to remain with the council can have their homes brought up to the very modest Decent Homes Standard.’
He added that the union was going to send ballot papers out to all its members in local government for strike action against the attack on their pension rights.
Graham Pordage, from TAROE, also spoke.
He said: ‘We in Camden rejected stock transfer many years ago and we recently rejected an ALMO by an overwhelming response.
‘Tenants must have the right to remain with the landlord of their choice.’
Others on the platform at Wednesday’s rally included Alan Walter (Defend Council Housing) and Jack Dromey (TGWU deputy-leader).
