Anger at Corbyn’s call to grab empty homes
JEREMY Corbyn and shadow chancellor John McDonnell were accused by rivals yesterday of using the fire disaster to push a hard-Left agenda to seize empty homes to house Grenfell residents.
The Labour leader appeared to tell the victims to forcibly “occupy” luxury dwellings, while Mr McDonnell said he would like wartime-style emergency laws to accelerate the taking over of private houses.
The duo cynically seized upon complaints from ordinary Britons struggling with housing shortages and sky-high prices in a bid to advance their Marxist cause during TV interviews. Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said: “Corbyn has shown he is willing to trample over the bodies of the Grenfell fire victims in a cynical attempt to score a political point and push his far-Left agenda.
“He seeks to exploit a tragedy and shows himself for what he is – a Marxist who believes all private property should belong to the state.”
In a reference to Mr McDonnell’s recent call for a million people to take to the streets to force a new election, George Freeman MP, who chairs Conservative Policy Forum, tweeted: “The Grenfell Tower tragedy raises very serious questions but Corbyn and McDonnell advocating seizure of private homes and inciting riots is irresponsible.”
Asked how requisitioning or compulsorily buying homes which wealthy owners deliberately kept empty would work, Mr Corbyn said: “Occupy, compulsory purchase it, requisition it, there’s a lot of things you can do. In an emergency, you have to bring all assets to the table.”
Mr McDonnell said Labour had long highlighted the “obscenity” of poor quality and overcrowded housing existing alongside properties left empty. Stressing that hotels were not necessarily suitable and that at least one Grenfell Tower resident had been sent, inappropriately, to an old people’s home, he added: “I would have done whatever necessary to house those families. And if that needed requisitioning of properties, yes.
“In emergency...as we saw in wartime periods as well, you can requisition properties. You will need powers to do it. We have got those powers.
“I would have convened Parliament immediately to push more legislation through within 24 hours, if that was necessary. We cannot be in a situation where we have people who have lost their homes are struggling to find alternative accommodation and we have properties standing empty.”