New advances are being made by the rapidly growing squatting movement in London in response to attacks not only from the courts but also from so-called 'friends' of the movement.
A few months ago the Law Lords reinterpreted the laws relating to squatting in order to make it more difficult for courts to grant suspension of eviction orders. They also made it illegal to conspire to commit the civil (not criminal) act of squatting. Furthermore, it has recently come to light that as from April 1974, Housing Authorities will no longer be legally obliged to guarantee accommodation to anyone - even children or families.
However, squatting activists are under attack not just from this direction but also from the 'official' "squatting' organisations (which do not squat but use empty properties which the councils allow them to borrow). In Elgin Avenue, W.9., for example, there are 200 Red Weekly 7 September 1973 Page 2 squatters and tenants, 100 of whom belong to such a boay, student community housing Threatened with homelessness as a result of redevelopment plans, they decided to stay put in their homes until everyone in the street was guaranteed re-housing and the redevelopment plans for the area were discussed and approyed by them. However, this of course meant breaking the agreement which SCH had made with the Greater London Council to vacate all the properties by a certain date. This struggle, around the slogans of No Evictions! - Housing For All!', has received considerable support from local tenants and community newspapers, as well as the unanimous support of the Camden Federation of Tenants and Residents Associations (the largest body of its kind in London). Despite this however, SCH went ahead with an attempt actually to evict its tenants in Elgin Avenue. This was foiled by the combined action of the newly-formed All-London Squatters Federation and the SCH tenants. But then another 'official' "squatting' body to which SCH is affiliated, the Family Squatting Advisory Service, moved in and unsuccessfully attempted to force SCH to evict its tenants!
Such moves amount to an attempt to consolidate the previous weaknesses of the movement, reflected in the 'agreements' with the GLC when it is now actually strong enough to fight back. By agreeing that they, organisations for the homeless, should themselves evict the homeless, they are accepting that the responsibility for the situation rests with them. These divisions come at a dangerous time. The attacks by the courts and increasing homeless ness have meant an expansion by the squatting movement into new areas. in Herne Hil for example, luxury flats owned by Grandiose Ltd! were taken over, while at 220, Camden High Street, a shop-front owned by speculator Joe Levy has been taken over for use as an information and organisation centre to aid the struggle of tenants and squatters locally and all over London.
The ruling class is obviously not going to tolerate such moves to take over properties which it actually wants. Already it is limbering up for the attack. Tower Hamlets Council recently sent thugs to smash up the interiors of squats (containing families) in East London. On Tuesday Camden Council was applying for court orders to carry out mass evictions of the organising centres of important squats in the alca London squatters are increasingly in the front line of the struggle for better housing for all.' On Monday, demonstrators against the threatened Camden evictions marched around the local council blocks ex plaining how squatters and tenants, who are fighting rent increases under the Housing Finance Act, are engaged in a common battle against the threat of rising homelessness. It is through such actions that sections of the working class can begin to be drawn into a struggle whose outcome will have important implications for the whole labour movement, Piers Corbyn Michael Price The TUC, however, is advocating the other kind of subsidy - combined with subsidies to the producers and distributors who are subject to the control. This gift from the State to maintain profits, however, has to be financed from resources somewhere else. There are in the present situation of little spare productive capacity only three places that such resources could be drawn from. One is from abroad, which means per mitting the current balance of payments deficit (now running at the staggering level of £1,350 million annually) to worsen even further. This is not open to the Tory government without the risk of a further collapse of sterling, which would only exacerbate inflation in general. The second alternative is to draw the needed funds from profits. This is, of course, directly contrary to the whole aim of the Tories' economie strategy. There remains only the third alternative.- to draw the resources from the working class itself. Anything gained from price control would have to be lost in other ways -through taxation for example.
This stark inevitability is a further illustration of the consequences of the TUC's talks with a government whose unswerving strategy is to reduce the real living standards of the working class, The TUC is inevitably landed in a dialogue not about whether the real needs of the workers can be met or not, but about the details of how they will be sacrificed in the Tory Government's attempt to salvage capitalism from its economic crisis.