All Landlords Are Bastards: The Case of the Kent Two

The Wilsons

Gobshites Fergus and Judith Wilson (above) have called time on renting to current and prospective tenants who access in and out-of-work benefits they're entitled to because "Landlords are business people and we are looking to make a profit."

With Universal Credit round the corner (somewhere) and housing benefit already slashed, these horrible bastards are concerned that they won't be able to sustain the profiteering they've grown accustomed to.

So, their solution is turf out tenants accessing housing benefit and start exploiting "eastern European people who are working".

There has been a recent spike in tenants organising against landlords, mostly private tenant groups angered by increasing rents and mostly groups or associations deploying awareness-raising tactics.

This is not enough. Landlords (social & private) must be confronted directly, and collectively, because all other options default to the state and its legal apparatus; locking struggles within their terms and preventing working class people from defining the fight. 

Remodelled solidarity networks, most prevalant in the states, have been practicing  ways of organising that puts mutual aid, direct action and direct desicion-making at the core of their struggles, but there are limitations to what these networks can accomplish and often, over time, they end up replicating dis-empowering Third Sector organisations.

We will not move any step further towards our objectives if we continue to use diplomatic, concessionary and non-confrontational tactics. Landlords and their ilk are not arsed about tenants and will only react if they are truly threatened. Anything less will result in the continued exploitation of tenants (us) by parasites like Fergus and Judith.

(ya)
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