Will Baron Bassam do the right thing on squatting?


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9:05 am - March 26th 2012

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contribution by Jack Hewson

In 1975 Steve Bassam – now Baron Bassam – provided legal assistance for three of his fellow squatters in a Crown Court case following their eviction from a property in Brighton.

As his then friend Tony Greenstein recalls Bassam had “stood shoulder to shoulder” with him as “heavies” smashed their way in assisted by an Alsatian attack dog.

During their eviction one of the landlord’s men was injured as the occupiers defended themselves.

Baron Bassam denies involvement in this particular incident but as a member of the Brighton and Hove Squatters Union (BHSU) this was just one of several squats the future Lord was involved with until he left Brighton in 1977.

These were not his only leftist credentials. He wrote for a local radical paper the Brighton Voice and according to Greenstein once told the general management committee of the local Labour Party they were far too right wing (a claim Bassam also denies).

Now Chief Labour Whip to the House of Lords, will Baron Bassam defend the squatter community with the same vigour he did in the 70s?

Squatting a residential property will become a criminal offence unless the Lords vote to amend clause 136 of Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill (LASPO) when it is voted on tomorrow.

Originally scheduled to be voted on at report stage on Tuesday last week, the clause was not debated until midnight and the vote has been postponed until tomorrow when it will be given the less fatigued attention of the Lords at LASPO’s third reading.

How Baron Bassam instructs the Labour peers to vote could determine the result.

“When Steve was homeless he understood that squatting, not in people’s homes but using the empty houses of property companies or the council, made sense to people because it kept them off the streets,” said Mr Greenstein who is now secretary of Brighton and Hove TUC Unemployed Workers Centre. “He was in that position back then. For him not to stand up for the community of which he was once part would be plainly hypocritical.”

Responding to his former comrade’s recollections Baron Bassam claimed Greenstein’s memory was “selective” but admitted his past involvement in Brighton’s squatter movement.

“I was indeed involved with the BHSU over a couple of years mostly focusing on trying to get homeless people locally housed in property mostly owned by private landlords and some council housing. With exception of the one incident most of these squats were peaceful.”

He emphasised his belief in non-violent direct action and said his views on the proposed criminalisation are straightforward:

“I think that the current changes [to the law] are probably unnecessary – Labour put some sensible provisions in place in 1977 that appear to have worked well enough since.”

The financial cost of criminalisation could be as high as £790m according to research released last week by SQUASH, enough to more than wipe out the £350m that LASPO was designed to save.

The research, endorsed by academics from three Russell Group universities, concludes that the government has failed to calculate the cost of prosecuting evictions and re-housing evictees.

Will Baron Bassam remain true to his youthful radicalism when he tells the Labour peers how to vote?

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Reader comments


1. Matt Wardman

>The financial cost of criminalisation could be as high as £790m according to research released last week by SQUASH, enough to more than wipe out the £350m that LASPO was designed to save.

Notes that comparisons are being made that £790bn over 5 years will wipe out a £350bn annual saving.

At this point, and having observed that the figures Squash have generated seem to have been pulled out of someone’s rear end, I gave up.

Duh.

2. davidh

I recall in the late 1990′s as leader of the council he had clearly abandoned his radical routes at the crossroads to power and influence, and demonstrated a political ruthlessness.

At that time he was a mere Lord, and so earned the nickname Lord Bash’em of Brighton following his underhand tactics in the council elections (I think he campaigned on the doorstep that the Greens would lead to a binge of drug taking. I think there were some old hands who claimed to know which dealer he used himself).

Of course now he has no democratic mandate, and hasn’t done for years, and the Greens are in control of the council at Brighton.

Interesting to see he is still suggesting people have selective memories, when of course he does not have a selective memory himself.

Lets hope it is Steve that votes not the Baron…

3. Spotty-faced Marxist

He has a tiny entry on Wikipedia. Doesn’t seem to be much to say about him. How the hell did he get to be Chief Whip in the Lords ffs?

4. chip butty

@ 3

He got where he is by abandoning any radical roots and toadying up to the Blairites and New Labour in the ’90s.

I used to work with him back then. I say ‘work’ but he didn’t do much of that, he spent most of his time political schmoozing on the phone and on his job as leader of Brighton Council, he spent so much time doing this he blocked the fax and had to be told to pack it in (there was a photo of him in the ’70s with long hair and wearing a top hat pinned to the wall by someone).

Another former radical who also worked there was ‘Blairite Out-Rider’ Stephen Byers, so you get the idea.

I was a squatter in London in the ’70s. We managed to defeat a property developer who was letting houses he owned grow derelict in the hope he could demolish them and build offices.

Squatting is a centuries old fine English tradition. I wouldn’ t hold out any hope for Bassam defending it.

5. davidh

Unless my reading of Hansard is careless, there was no amendment proposed relating to Clause 136 of LASPO.

If this is right, then Baron Bash’em of Brighton must now believe that Squatting should be a criminal offence.

What a man of principle…

6. Wyatt

If you call the “right thing” defending the right for people to trespass, then I certainly hope not.


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
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