SQUATS GOING ON AROUND HERE?

From Rough Music

The last issue of Rough Music saw Hove MP Mike Weatherly safely ensconced in Wanker’s Corner, mostly due to his attacks on squatting and homelessness. Unfortunately even our heroic efforts weren’t enough to halt the anti-squatting bandwagon.

The last issue of Rough Music saw Hove MP Mike Weatherly safely ensconced in Wanker’s Corner, mostly due to his attacks on squatting and homelessness. Unfortunately even our heroic efforts weren’t enough to halt the anti-squatting bandwagon.

Now an amendment to the already fairly draconian Legal Aid bill was pushed through at the last minute. The amendment (known as Clause 26) creates the new offence of ‘Squatting in a Residential Building’, effectively outlawing all squatting apart from commercial and industrial buildings.

The whole bill has now winged its way to the House of Lords to be slowly mulled over by a bunch of unelected land owning bastards. Clause 26 is particularly slipshod and the Lords tend to take their time (they’re paid by the day don’t ya know) so it shouldn’t come into force until next Spring. Also, despite their obvious bias, the Lords do tend to be a little better on civil liberties so there’s an outside chance that the act won’t even become law.

Locally the squatting scene has continued to steadily improve over recent months. Obviously it’s still not as good as it was in the nineties, but then what is? A number of high profile buildings have been opened up including info shops, cafés and social centres (unfortunately not many have been in Mike Weatherly’s constituency, though rumour has it this may soon change).

On a day-to-day level links between different squats and between squatters and the wider community have strengthened, resulting in large groups coming out in solidarity at any sign of trouble. This has had a big impact on the number of illegal evictions.

With winter upon us shelter becomes even more of a priority for most people, yet by next year seeking shelter in most abandon buildings will be a criminal offence if the government gets its way.

This may soon be the only option for many as St Patrick’s Hostel in Hove will close at the end of January 2012. St Patrick’s is the only homeless shelter in Brighton & Hove that doesn’t require a ‘local connection’ to admit people – this handy bit of bureaucracy removes the local authority’s requirement to help even the most needy if they can’t prove they have links to the area.

Interim accommodation should be provided before the ‘local connections’ test is applied, but in reality this is rarely the case. Unfortunately this particular piece of red tape is very effective at reducing the number of homeless people in an area. Thus few on the council are willing to challenge it despite the fact that it actually forces more people out into the cold.

Next winter’s double whammy of no homeless shelters and the criminalisation of squatting could result in even more deaths on our streets. If this does happen it would not be unreasonable to lay the blame at the door of the Tory government and in particular band wagon jumpers like Mr Weatherly.

While Mike Weatherly may well have been evicted from Wankers’ Corner this issue, it is worth remembering at times like these that he is still very much the consummate wanker.