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| Haringey council taken over by Momentum? It’s just locals taking back control | Haringey council taken over by Momentum? It’s just locals taking back control |
| (about 1 month later) | |
| This isn’t a hard left plot: Labour members simply opposed a council that handed its assets to private interests and turfed poor people out of their homes | |
| Tue 12 Dec 2017 06.00 GMT | |
| Last modified on Tue 12 Dec 2017 08.26 GMT | |
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| I’ve just been reading about the most terrifying place. For weeks, this “toxic” neighbourhood with its “poisonous” atmosphere has been all over the front pages and columns. It’s a land of revolutionary politics, of “ruthless attacks” and “purges”. Hordes of Trotskyists reportedly roam its high streets – like wildebeest, if they only swapped the majesty of the Serengeti for suburban pound shops. It sounds, frankly, dreadful. | I’ve just been reading about the most terrifying place. For weeks, this “toxic” neighbourhood with its “poisonous” atmosphere has been all over the front pages and columns. It’s a land of revolutionary politics, of “ruthless attacks” and “purges”. Hordes of Trotskyists reportedly roam its high streets – like wildebeest, if they only swapped the majesty of the Serengeti for suburban pound shops. It sounds, frankly, dreadful. |
| It also happens to be right next door to where I was born and raised. Indeed, it’s where I’ve spent much of the past year reporting, on exactly the local politics that now jostles news of Meghan and Harry’s engagement on the front page of the Times. Which is how I know that the fantasies generated by the Murdoch papers and others are just those: a purpose-built media onslaught. | It also happens to be right next door to where I was born and raised. Indeed, it’s where I’ve spent much of the past year reporting, on exactly the local politics that now jostles news of Meghan and Harry’s engagement on the front page of the Times. Which is how I know that the fantasies generated by the Murdoch papers and others are just those: a purpose-built media onslaught. |
| The name of this suburban dystopia, by the way, is Haringey. The north London borough has been splashed all over the press and the BBC for one thing: an outbreak of thuggish sectarianism. | The name of this suburban dystopia, by the way, is Haringey. The north London borough has been splashed all over the press and the BBC for one thing: an outbreak of thuggish sectarianism. |
| Believe the papers, and Labour’s “hard left” (according to the Times) zealots – with their links to Jeremy Corbyn, Momentum, even the Socialist Workers party – have forced out the party’s “moderates” from being candidates at the next council election. It has been a “vicious” battle (says the Evening Standard, in which sensible centrists have been drowned out by denunciations of “zombie Blairites” (the Times, again). Something similar can be seen in Watford and Croydon, among others – but the Labour stronghold of Haringey has seen the biggest shift leftwards. | Believe the papers, and Labour’s “hard left” (according to the Times) zealots – with their links to Jeremy Corbyn, Momentum, even the Socialist Workers party – have forced out the party’s “moderates” from being candidates at the next council election. It has been a “vicious” battle (says the Evening Standard, in which sensible centrists have been drowned out by denunciations of “zombie Blairites” (the Times, again). Something similar can be seen in Watford and Croydon, among others – but the Labour stronghold of Haringey has seen the biggest shift leftwards. |
| Come May 2018, the extremists will be voted into power and Haringey will become a bastion of the loony left – just as it was in the dysfunctional 80s, when any child caught singing Baa Baa Black Sheep would be shipped off for political re-education. Or so the story goes. | Come May 2018, the extremists will be voted into power and Haringey will become a bastion of the loony left – just as it was in the dysfunctional 80s, when any child caught singing Baa Baa Black Sheep would be shipped off for political re-education. Or so the story goes. |
| If you discern a tincture of scepticism in my retelling, it’s because that version of events is a Christmas pudding of half-truths. Fairer reflections can be had in a hall of mirrors. Even that detail about “zombie Blairites”, lovingly recycled, is wrong. | If you discern a tincture of scepticism in my retelling, it’s because that version of events is a Christmas pudding of half-truths. Fairer reflections can be had in a hall of mirrors. Even that detail about “zombie Blairites”, lovingly recycled, is wrong. |
| Something bigger is going on here than a little poetic licence over one local authority – something that makes it important for anyone, anywhere who wants a different politics from the dross we’ve been served up by New Labour and Tories alike. Between them, the rightwing press and the Labour right are targeting Haringey in a proxy war against Corbyn. It makes an ideal spot: it’s where he was councillor for almost a decade before going into parliament, and it’s just a few minutes from his home. Framing what’s just happened there as a “twisted revolution” (the Standard, again) is only the first step. After next May’s elections, it will be painted as Corbyn-ville. And the press will pile in. | Something bigger is going on here than a little poetic licence over one local authority – something that makes it important for anyone, anywhere who wants a different politics from the dross we’ve been served up by New Labour and Tories alike. Between them, the rightwing press and the Labour right are targeting Haringey in a proxy war against Corbyn. It makes an ideal spot: it’s where he was councillor for almost a decade before going into parliament, and it’s just a few minutes from his home. Framing what’s just happened there as a “twisted revolution” (the Standard, again) is only the first step. After next May’s elections, it will be painted as Corbyn-ville. And the press will pile in. |
| Tthe HDV will chuck families out of their homes, rip apart local communities and shut down shops and businesses | Tthe HDV will chuck families out of their homes, rip apart local communities and shut down shops and businesses |
| Newspapers that usually ignore our town halls will swoop on every attempt at democratic radicalism and any gaffe committed by a councillor. Outgoing officials can expect to be pumped for scandal; local activists to have their pasts dug up. Each story will come with a big red moral – that this is but a foretaste of life under Prime Minister Corbyn. In this way a pocket of London and its people will have their history cannibalised and subtleties erased to suit the agenda of those who couldn’t give a stuff about it. | Newspapers that usually ignore our town halls will swoop on every attempt at democratic radicalism and any gaffe committed by a councillor. Outgoing officials can expect to be pumped for scandal; local activists to have their pasts dug up. Each story will come with a big red moral – that this is but a foretaste of life under Prime Minister Corbyn. In this way a pocket of London and its people will have their history cannibalised and subtleties erased to suit the agenda of those who couldn’t give a stuff about it. |
| I have never been a member of Momentum or any political party, believing that journalists can support causes but shouldn’t be beholden to them. On the other hand, I do have a thing about handing over public assets to private interests and turfing people out of their homes for the crime of being too poor to live there. | I have never been a member of Momentum or any political party, believing that journalists can support causes but shouldn’t be beholden to them. On the other hand, I do have a thing about handing over public assets to private interests and turfing people out of their homes for the crime of being too poor to live there. |
| That’s why I keep writing about Haringey. It’s where council leader Claire Kober plans to take the vast bulk of municipal assets – everything from libraries to school building to council homes – and stick them for 20 years into a vast private fund worth £2bn. Her partner in this new Haringey Development Vehicle (HDV) is the multinational property developer, Lendlease. If you want an explanation of why Haringey has just seen a clearout of its councillors, drop labels such as Trot or Momentum. Use HDV. | That’s why I keep writing about Haringey. It’s where council leader Claire Kober plans to take the vast bulk of municipal assets – everything from libraries to school building to council homes – and stick them for 20 years into a vast private fund worth £2bn. Her partner in this new Haringey Development Vehicle (HDV) is the multinational property developer, Lendlease. If you want an explanation of why Haringey has just seen a clearout of its councillors, drop labels such as Trot or Momentum. Use HDV. |
| Unprecedented in its scale and scope, the HDV will chuck families out of their homes, rip apart local communities and shut down shops and businesses. Its proponents cannot be described as moderates, any more than Thatcher’s sell-off of our water and electricity can be described as moderate policies. Kober and her supporters on the council claim that it is the only way Haringey can tackle its giant housing crisis. That overlooks the fact that the very first tranche of public property to go into the pot will be the entire civic heart of Haringey, including the central library and the civic headquarters. It ignores the fact that the HDV has no explicit target for social housing. | Unprecedented in its scale and scope, the HDV will chuck families out of their homes, rip apart local communities and shut down shops and businesses. Its proponents cannot be described as moderates, any more than Thatcher’s sell-off of our water and electricity can be described as moderate policies. Kober and her supporters on the council claim that it is the only way Haringey can tackle its giant housing crisis. That overlooks the fact that the very first tranche of public property to go into the pot will be the entire civic heart of Haringey, including the central library and the civic headquarters. It ignores the fact that the HDV has no explicit target for social housing. |
| Kober’s team promises that every resident of an estate bulldozed by the HDV will be able to return once it’s rebuilt. Yet the actual HDV policy passed by Haringey cabinet this summer has enough escape clauses to keep David Blaine happy. Leaseholders get a worse deal; housing association tenants enjoy no such certainty and council estates that will be knocked down later are totally exempt from these guarantees. Whatever Haringey claims is council policy, its own legal advice states: “The HDV will comply with [council policy] subject to certain exclusions.” In those exclusions lie people, families, communities. | Kober’s team promises that every resident of an estate bulldozed by the HDV will be able to return once it’s rebuilt. Yet the actual HDV policy passed by Haringey cabinet this summer has enough escape clauses to keep David Blaine happy. Leaseholders get a worse deal; housing association tenants enjoy no such certainty and council estates that will be knocked down later are totally exempt from these guarantees. Whatever Haringey claims is council policy, its own legal advice states: “The HDV will comply with [council policy] subject to certain exclusions.” In those exclusions lie people, families, communities. |
| By bringing in the HDV, Kober triggered nothing less than civil war in the local Labour movement. Momentum certainly latched onto the issue, as a good campaign group would. But others who opposed it were the area’s two MPs, including notable revolutionary vanguardist David Lammy, the Maoist Lib Dems, the big unions and the two constituency Labour parties. The council’s own scrutiny committee published two thorough reports calling for an immediate halt – twice. The leadership not only ignored all such democratic checks and balances; it organised secret meetings with Lendlease that backbench councillors didn’t even know about. | By bringing in the HDV, Kober triggered nothing less than civil war in the local Labour movement. Momentum certainly latched onto the issue, as a good campaign group would. But others who opposed it were the area’s two MPs, including notable revolutionary vanguardist David Lammy, the Maoist Lib Dems, the big unions and the two constituency Labour parties. The council’s own scrutiny committee published two thorough reports calling for an immediate halt – twice. The leadership not only ignored all such democratic checks and balances; it organised secret meetings with Lendlease that backbench councillors didn’t even know about. |
| Haringey is not the site of some revolutionary plot. It is the story of a brittle, dogmatic leadership that couldn’t handle well-founded dissent. Those who talk of bullying should note how one councillor was suspended from the party merely for opposing cuts to services for elderly and disabled people. Kober’s supporters never seriously challenged their leader on the most serious policy seen in their borough in decades. There was also a sense of entitlement, best summed up by the Times front page that noted how one councillor “resigned after he was not automatically reselected”. The indignity. | Haringey is not the site of some revolutionary plot. It is the story of a brittle, dogmatic leadership that couldn’t handle well-founded dissent. Those who talk of bullying should note how one councillor was suspended from the party merely for opposing cuts to services for elderly and disabled people. Kober’s supporters never seriously challenged their leader on the most serious policy seen in their borough in decades. There was also a sense of entitlement, best summed up by the Times front page that noted how one councillor “resigned after he was not automatically reselected”. The indignity. |
| They lost to grassroots activists who stuck in freedom of information requests, put awkward questions in council meetings, did their best on a shoestring budget and stuck by their guns. The result is that come May, Haringey will almost certainly have a Labour council that is overwhelmingly anti-HDV. This is no happy ending – they face a heavy barracking from the usual suspects in the press and rightwing pressure groups, and some councillors will inevitably be found wanting. But an inspiring start? I’ll take that. | They lost to grassroots activists who stuck in freedom of information requests, put awkward questions in council meetings, did their best on a shoestring budget and stuck by their guns. The result is that come May, Haringey will almost certainly have a Labour council that is overwhelmingly anti-HDV. This is no happy ending – they face a heavy barracking from the usual suspects in the press and rightwing pressure groups, and some councillors will inevitably be found wanting. But an inspiring start? I’ll take that. |
| • Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist | • Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist |
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