Society Should Guarantee the Right to Housing

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Society Should Guarantee the Right to Housing

Brown’s new plans for the NHS:
Retrogression Must Not Prevail in the Health Service! Fight for an NHS Based on the Right to Health Care!

Repeal SOCPA!

A huge source of worry for many young people starting out after school and university, and having concern for their later security, is the situation regarding housing, which has reached crisis proportions. According to the Office of National Statistics, the average price paid by first-time buyers in the UK rose by 204% between 1995 and 2005, while their average incomes increased by 92%. More generally, the average house price is now nearly 10 times the average wage. Homelessness continues to be a big problem: 84,900 households were in temporary accommodation on 30 June 2007, according to the Communities and Local Government website.

            There is also substantial talk currently circulating of a likely impending fall in house prices. Rather than provide a solution by alleviating the pressure on first time buyers, this will seriously affect that large part of the population who are currently burdened with mortgage repayments, not least young people who have recently taken on massive debts in order to buy their first homes.

            A modern conception of the rights belonging to individuals views them as emerging from the humanity of the individual. People require a stable space in which to base themselves, a protective a place to recuperate, a calm environment in which to develop, with decent living conditions, and so on. These are necessities of life, expressing themselves in the need for a home. Based on this need is the right of the individual to housing: housing is an inalienable right for all people in society by virtue of their being human. It is not a question of wealth or resources.

            This modern conception of the right to housing is in contradiction with the outdated idea that individual rights emerge from the possession of money: the capitalist conception of rights based on private property. According to this outdated conception, housing is a privilege based on what an individual can afford to buy. As private property, housing is something to be bought, sold, invested in and speculated upon. Consequently, housing is a question of an individual's wealth and any social provision, where it exists as a result of people's demands, is subordinate to the right to private property and made a matter of resources.

            The prevailing conditions are those of the property market, which is increasingly coming under the control of large property investors and developers. These are conditions of escalating competition along with growing monopolisation. The right to private property is increasingly becoming the monopoly right to plunder the lucrative housing market. The right to housing not at present being recognised, the government does not fundamentally address the nature of the property market and does not act to bring the issue under conscious control. The government does not take up its social responsibility and so market forces manipulated by the monopolies remain the determining factor.

            In such a situation, individuals act out of necessity and participate in the property market. People attempt to buy a house, and possibly invest in more "properties". A few individuals do well out of this situation, to the detriment of the majority who struggle to pay the ever rising costs, and those who face no prospects of owning a house, or even become homeless. In other words, in such a situation, the needs of individuals are not harmonised with, but contradict, the needs of society.

            In the face of the housing crisis, calls are made for "affordable" housing. But what is the issue? In contemporary society, the notion of housing as property is a block to the realisation of the right to housing. The "right to buy" one's council house in the 1980s did not solve the problems at that time and are indeed a factor in the problems that have developed today. The very idea of having a right to buy, as opposed to the right to housing, is part of what is in crisis.

            People must secure their existence and individuals currently have no choice but to continue to buy and sell houses. But people, especially young people, must discuss the way out of the crisis, to move forward on the basis that housing is a social problem. Housing is a right that individuals have by virtue of being human, which must give rise to a demand that it be recognised and realised. The government must be held to account over its social responsibility to guarantee this right; the monopolies must be prevented from blocking it.

            It is the responsibility of society to provide the right to housing with a guarantee. To guarantee this and all other rights, young people and workers must organise themselves to participate in governance, to bring into being a pro-social government in which they are the decision-makers. Such a government will carry out concrete measures to solve the housing crisis, beginning with increasing investments in social housing and other social programmes by giving them first claim on the economy and enacting legislation to restrict the assumed right of the monopolies to prey on the housing system.

As the workers’ and people’s movement marches forward into 2008, Gordon Brown, as the present champion of privatisation and the monopolies, sets out his agenda on the NHS and has not changed course from gearing all the efforts of the NHS to paying the rich. Brown speaks of preventative measures, and announces a mass screening programme, but NHS staff have commented that rather than the investment that is promised, cuts to the services are happening in all areas of the NHS.

            Brown talks of a voucher style system which he names “personal health budgets”, making the central issue one of finance, when the central issue should be that of the human being and providing the care and services needed.

            Health care workers have voiced their findings on the Brown agenda. They do not understand the logic that, while Brown is proposing funding for screening, only a week previously he was announcing that funding should be taken away from patients with hardening of the arteries and kidney disease, the very same conditions that he is now proposing to screen for. This shows the complete incoherence in the empty promises of the Brown Labour government. The Prime Minister continues to paint a vision while underneath he is completely undermining the NHS.

            Along with the Darzi report which is due later this month, and will culminate in a “new constitution”, the promises of the Brown government to provide a better NHS are not reflections of the reality that health care workers and patients are faced with. All over the NHS, there are redundancies, cutbacks and over 50 District General Hospital closures planned by NHS authorities. This is the New Labour reality, an NHS which is increasingly being farmed out to multinationals, with the creation of PFIs, polyclinics, etc.  This attack on the NHS is part of the tearing up of the very fabric of society continuing the Thatcherite notion that society is no more. What sort of society treats the health of its members as a business venture designed to line the pockets of the rich? A society run by multinational corporations and the monopoly capitalist class is the answer, and it is something the working class and people are increasingly aware of. They understand that this is an anti social offensive, of which attacks on health care are just part.

            So what sort of society and what sort of health care system do the working class and people see that can provide a future where all basic rights are fundamental? Increasingly, along with other public service workers, health workers are seeing that it is their own experience they can rely on. They understand that they have the knowledge to build a society which has health care as a fundamental core. They see that such a health care system can only be run on a democratic basis with the conscious participation of all. As well as defending their own interests, health care workers have the care and treatment of their patients at heart and the patients have the welfare of the staff at heart; this is social love, which is the only kind of love, and part of the basis for creating a society that has the human being at the centre. This social love extends to social responsibility, and that the fight for a different health care system goes hand in hand with the struggle for a different society in which all public services are under the control of the workers and people who make the decisions which will affect them and fellow human being. This concept of the working class and people being the decision makers is very important in the path to building a bright future for humanity; it is one that will lead to the empowerment of both the individual, the “I” who lives by his/her relationship to the world, and the empowerment of the collective, and society as a whole in which sovereignty and decision-making vests with the people.

            This power of conscious participation is the way to build a health service that does not have to be subservient to the will of big business, but actually is run to provide the best health care and treatment for all the people, without discrimination. Only the working class can create such a health care system, and build a society that has its fabric sewn with conscious participation and social love, where the right of the people to participate in governance is fully realised.

           

Whose NHS? Our NHS! Who decides? We Decide!

On Wednesday, January 9, a group of cross-party parliamentarians and well known protesters will be gathering outside Downing Street at 10am to hand in a petition to the Prime Minister and to read out the name of people who have been arrested under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 (SOCPA).

Everyone is invited to come and support. There will also be daily petitions to Number 10 in the run up to the consultation deadline next week. Please contact “repeal SOCPA” if you would like to take part. E-mail: info@repeal-socpa.info Homepage: http://www.repeal-socpa.info

**

Press Release: January 8, 2008

Cross Party Parliamentarians Highlight New Threat to Freedom to Protest

10am, Wednesday 9 January 2008, outside Downing Street, London

Liberal Democrat Peer, Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer, Labour MP John McDonnell and Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski will be part of a group assembling at Downing Street on Wednesday morning to hand in a petition as a response to the Government's consultation on the controversial law banning unauthorised protest near Parliament [1]. Baroness Miller recently introduced a private members bill to repeal the law prohibiting protest [2]. Mr Kawczynski was recently threatened with arrest for holding a small placard outside Downing Street without police permission.

The group will also include Maya Evans (tbc), Walter Wolfgang, Brian Haw, Mark Wallinger and Jenny Jones, Green Party member on the Greater London Authority. Maya Evans was the first person to be convicted under the law when she read out names of British soldiers killed in Iraq [3]. Walter Wolfgang was charged under the Terrorism Act after being removed from the Labour Party conference in 2005 for saying ‘Nonsense” out loud during the Home Secretary’s speech.[4]

The gathering wish to highlight the ominous signs that the Government is planning to further restrict the rights of demonstrators across the UK. The consultation looks set to recommend increasing police powers to control, or even to ban, public assemblies, under the guise of “harmonising” the laws regarding static demonstrations in line those governing public marches. Police permission could be required (6 days in advance) for groups of as few as 2 people to assemble or hold any placard anywhere in the country. [5]

Some of the group will read the names of protestors arrested under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 which bans any demonstration that has not received prior authorisation by the police. The legislation was originally introduced to remove Brian Haw's continuous peace protest from Parliament Square but many peaceful protestors have been criminalised as a result [6].

Baroness Miller, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Home Affairs, said: “'Harmonisation' of the marching/assembly laws would lead to stricter rules for demonstrations in London and across England and Wales. This is unacceptable and should not be considered in the context of a review designed to relax the rules governing demonstrations around Parliament.” [7]

Maya Evans said: “The danger is that the Government will be able to score media points for repealing unnecessary and draconian legislation, whilst in reality further tightening the screws on protest and dissent around the UK.”

NOTES

1. The Home Office consultation, 'Managing Protest Around Parliament', is available from:
  http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/cons-2007-managing-protest.

2. The Public Demonstrations (Repeals) Bill [HL 12] was introduced in November 2006 by Baroness Miller,   http://tinyurl.com/2s6avm

3. See ‘MPs condemn arrest of woman who spoke out’, Daily Mail, 8 December 2005,   http://tinyurl.com/zoep7. Maya Evans was the winner of the Human Rights Award 2007 for her campaigning work and commitment to the cause of liberty, for her courage in standing up for our fundamental rights to peaceful protest and freedom of speech,   http://tinyurl.com/3eylcg

4. Heckler returns to hero's welcome, The Guardian, September 29, 2005,   http://tinyurl.com/8rhfb. Walter Wolfgang is now a member of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee.

5. For an analysis of the Government's consultation document see:
  http://www.repeal-socpa.info/briefing.htm

6. For more on the history of SOCPA, see:
  http://www.repeal-socpa.info/SOCPA.htm

7. The full text of Baroness Miller's response to the Government consultation on 'Managing Protest around Parliament' can be read at:
  http://www.repeal-socpa.info/Baroness_Miller_response.pdf