Home | 25th August 1995 | Issue 37

WAKE UP! WAKE UP! THE WORLD IS UNDER ATTACK!

"JUST LIKE THE NAZIS"

OUTRAGE AS MP CALLS FOR 'AGGRESSIVE' USE OF CJA

Squatters occupied an empty office block in the City in defiance of the Criminal Justice Act as new sections making criminals of homeless people came into force yesterday. Occupiers of derelict properties could now face arrest and six months imprisonment and/or a £5,000 fine.

In Brighton one senior Tory caused outrage at an explosive meeting attacking squatters, travellers, drummers, beggars and even Big Issue sellers in his tirade. Solicitor General Sir Derek-Spencer MP, the government's top legal expert and co-architect of the CJA, told the audience: "They ought to be sent away from Brighton back where they came from." He called on the Council and the police to "act aggressively against these sort of people".

Speaking at an open meeting held at Brighton's plush Metropole Hotel directly opposite the squatters on the derelict West Pier, he continued: "The Criminal Justice Act is tailor-made for this situation. The Council even treat them as people to be negotiated with."

The 400-strong audience was unanimous in its comments from the floor condemning Sir Derek's vitriol. A senior law officer told him: "I am saddened by the way you have rabble-roused this gathering. This is the most appalling example of how to alienate people and gag others who have come here to say something constructive. It reminds me of the Third Reich when the Nazis suggested banning first of all the Gypsies and then the Jews." One local resident called his speech "real bigotry [designed] to generate hysteria."

Nigel Fumess, Chair of Brighton & Hove Conservative Party, said: "I would agree with you there are a lot of people I would like to see removed from this town - starting with you. I have never seen such a disgraceful and childish example of blatant party politics."

As the all-Conservative panel struggled to keep control, one of the sea-front squatters appealed for them to "take a good look at one of the filthy homeless people. There are no night shelters here a woman can get in. I sleep with other people because I have been harassed when I sleep on my own. What you have said has hurt me. You would just as well gas the lot of us."

Van loads of police arrived as another local resident was telling the MP: "The homeless issue is not an issue of law and order - the solution is obvious. There are two million homeless people and one million empty properties. You want confrontation - we want a solution."

The meeting broke up as anger became overwhelming. There were no arrests.

CARRY ON SQUATTING!

Yesterday section 76 of the CJA came in to force along with the new Interim Possession Orders. It is important to fight IPOs as they are probably quicker than the old procedures and if you fail to leave within 24 hours of the order being served you can be arrested.

PROCEDURE

The owner can apply for an IPO if they have only found out in the last 28 days that squatters ate in. They apply for the order and the squatters get notice of the bearing and forms to reply on. If you put in a defence with the court you can go to the bearing. If you do nothing the owner will probably get the IPO. When you go to court the judge will decide if there is enough evidence to warrant a fuller hearing. If so he (and it usually is a be) will order that the old style procedures are used. If you do not file a defence immediately the IPO will be served and you will have to leave or face arrest with a maximum 6 months or a £5.000 fine. If you squat again within a year you will be liable to the same. So it is important that people defend the IPO's at the first hearing.

DEFENCES

The applicants must have known for less than 28 days that you are there. If it's a council place make a housing application from there. No need to say it's theirs or a squat. They must also be IMMEDIATELY entitled to possession. Old tenancies, licences or disputed ownership could stop them. Set up a legal group and get in touch with Advisory Service for Squatters for more details: Tel: 0171 359 8814 Mon-Fri 2-6pm

INSIDE SchNEWS

MARK SKELLY, who is at the beginning of a 12 month sentence for throwing some banner sticks at last year's Hyde Park riot has been moved from HMP Brixton. Probably a good thing as he's been strip-searched twice in the last three days. He writes: "Thank you from the bottom of my heart - I have had many letters of support which has given me the strength to get through this nightmare. You have cheered up a previously depressed man". We'll have his address next week.

MICHELLE RATCLIFFE RL1456, on remand on Cat A until Sept 27th for alleged involvement in the arson attacks connected with Shoreham Protests, has been on hunger strike for a month. "I have tried all the channels I can to get out of this cell but nobody's listening," she writes. "I just feel totally washed out".

Sorry to JOHN BOWDEN 1273/94 who was featured in SchNEWS 34 - we forgot to include his address. It is: HMP Perth. 3 Edinburgh Rd, Perth, Scotland.  

GET YOUR AMMO FROM THE STATE

There is nothing like a direct action campaign to make local councillors sit up and take notice. But if you want to persuade Councils to make lasting changes, then you - or some other 'organisation' - will need to bombard then with some convincing arguments. Moreover, since Councils can do almost nothing without the approval of central government, you will need to draw these arguments from official government publications. This is not as difficult as you might think. Governments - even Conservative govts - try to be all things to people and come out with statements which, though they may have been designed as greenwash, can be used to give official backing to radical and imaginative green proposals. The column opposite shows a few of the key documents that will provide you with the words to throw back in their faces.

But perhaps the best way to show how these government utterances can be used is by describing one modest but successful campaign.

In Shaftesbury, Dorset, last year, about ten unused Victorian stables were to be demolished to make way for a car park. On the eve of their demolition, a bunch of semi-organised protesters spontaneously squatted the stables - more to make a noisy last minute gesture than with any hope of saving them. To the squatter's astonishment, when the demolition men arrived in the morning and found protesters on the roof, they downed tools and buggered off back to Sussex, never to return. The squatters suddenly found themselves with a campaign on their hands.

Over the next week the squatters organised a rota for the squat; got a friendly architect to draw up some plans showing how the stables could be converted into craft workshops; and another local supporter created, overnight, an "environmental consultancy", from which the squatters 'commissioned' a 3,000 word "emergency report". The report, written in three days, looked at the local Town Plan, which in 1990 had predicted an "uninhibited demand" for 200 new parking places to accommodate the predicted increase in traffic. It then went on to supply a load of quotes from Sustainable Development:the UK strategy, PPG 13 and the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, showing that the Town Plan's transport policy was hopelessly out of date. For example Recommendation 90 of the Royal Commission states that the government should "implement comprehensive parking strategies designed to restrain the use of private cars". Clearly this does not mean creating another 200 parking spaces. The report also noted the Shaftesbury Town Plan advocated "the conversion of disused buildings to light industrial use", not car parks.

The report and the architects plans were circulated to councillors and the press. Two days later the Council held a special meeting and gave the stables a reprieve. Now, ten months later, though the fate of the stable block has not been finally decided, it is still standing, the car park has not been built, and the Council is agonising over the deeper implications of the government's call for a sustainable transport policy. There are two morals to this little story. One is that the bulldozers can sometimes be stopped at the last moment. The other is that we on the rooftops don't need to throw tiles at government representatives; it is more effective to throw their own words back in their faces. Why not get down the public library and arm yourself?

LOCAL AGENDA 21

This is the big daddy of all the others. The 1992 UNCED conference (Earth Summit) at Rio ruled that all local authorities should initiate their own "Local Agenda 21" policies for sustainable development by 1996. It also states that all people, including poor and disadvantaged groups, should have a say in the decision-making process and share in the benefits. The obligations of local authorities are outlined in a short document called "Local Agenda 21 Principles and Process: A Step by Step Guide", published by the Local Government Management Board. This includes a check-list of sustainable policies that local authorities should be looking into, including a shift away from car use, access before mobility, energy-efficient and environmentally benign practices, waste-minimisation and landscape protection. Available from the Local Government Management Board, Arndale House, Arndale Centre, Luton, LU1 2TS, Tel 01582 451166

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: THE UK STRATEGY (JAN 1994)

This is the Government document that confirms the government support for Agenda 21. Some useful quotes from the horse's mouth. Available from HMSO bookshops.

THE PLANNING POLICY GUIDANCES (PPGs)

 Planning policy is regulated by a series of over 20 documents known as PPGs, issued by the Department of the the Environment. These are close to God as far as the planners are concerned and are now in the process of being overhauled, partly in the light of Agenda 21. The most interesting revised version is PPG 13, on transport, which states clearly that planners should promote forms of development which reduce the need to travel. Also useful are PPG1 General policy and principles; PPG2 Greenbelts; PPG3 Housing; PPG4 Industrial and Commercial Development; PPG6 Major Retail Development; PPG7 Countryside & Rural economy; PPG22 Renewable Energy. Available from HMSO bookshops.

THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION REPORT ON TRANSPORT (1994)

This is full of some amazingly radical policies on every aspect of transport policy from pedestrians to juggernauts. In particular it recommends that "road schemes for which contracts have not been let should be reassessed... and further progress on them suspended". It is worth looking in detail at the whole document, which costs £25 from HMSO bookshops; but you can also order it from public libraries, or obtain a briefing on it from Transport 2000, Walkden House, 10 Melton Street, London NW1 2EJ.

THE 1994 SACTRA REPORT

This is the government commissioned report that concluded that road-building generates more traffic - and that the DoTs cost benefit analysis programme, COBRA, is completely up the creek. It's not worth reading the report, but it's definitely worth mentioning. You can get a briefing on SACTRA from ALARM UK: Tel 0171 582 9279.

LOCAL PLANS

If you are campaigning on local matters you will need to refer to the local Town Plans, District Plans and County Structure Plans, which are all available in local branch libraries. Sometimes you will find paragraphs in the plans which can be used to support your campaign. If not look at the date of the plan. Usually it will have been formulated before Agenda 21 and the other documents mentioned above where published. If so, you can argue that the plan is out of date and does not conform to present government policy. This is a view that councillors and planners may accept, because local plans are widely acknowledged to be slow to respond to social changes. There are of course many other government docs and circulars on specialised issues such as quarries or gypsy caravan sites, which you can get through groups campaigning on these issues, or with the help of your local librarian.

e-SchNEWS
e-mail:  Justice@intermedia.co.uk  
Sorry to e-mail subscribers for the temporary halt in electronic communication. Full service and Web page coming soon

SchNEWS In Brief

Reports that Robocop has arrived in Cleveland and Tayside forces has proven unfounded. The Sunday Times stated that 3" mini-screens pull down from officers' helmets which allow them to access database info and exchange messages. In the first place Tayside wear caps not helmets, while a Cleveland police spokeswoman told SchNEWS; "It's all rubbish. It's odd, you would have thought you could believe what they wrote in the Times, wouldn't you?". Ahh, intelligence under a police helmet - we didn't think so 

.... Meanwhile, virtual police have been playing games in readiness for Europe's biggest street party, the Notting Hill carnival, this weekend. The Met set up a cinema to practice dealing with public order situations on a computer simulation. "They say that within four or five minutes they forget they are seeing the incident on a screen at all and behave just as they would at the real event", says the Met's Jonathon Crego. Scary 

.... If you want a police-free weekend try the Reading Festival whose organisers successfully won their court case against a £100,000 extortion attempt by the boys in blue. The cops attempted to pull the plug on the Indie extravaganza demanding the cash - a three-fold increase on last year - with the comment: "These people are putting on a profit-making function and it's got to be policed". (What about ITF's six-month profit-making function carrying live animal exports at Shoreham - they weren't charged a penny?). The judge rejected Plod's point and it'll be private security only on site.....

Party and Protest

MON 28th-2nd SEPT Stop the Hawk deal! Peace Camp 0161 834 0295

THUR 31st Sinn Fein peace tour. Rally in Trafalgar Sq. 0171 609 1743

*** Talk: 'Anarchism & Paganism' @ Plough pub, Museum St, London WC1 0181 691 7685

FRI 1st-3rd SEPT - Fylde folk festival, Fleetwood, Lanes 01253 872317.

FRI 1st Off the tracks music & beer festie @ Park Farm, Donnington, 01332 384518/833673

*** Flyde folk festie, Fleetwood, Lanes 01253 872317

*** English hemp festie, Haversham, Kent 01795 417 251

SAT 2nd - 10th The Camps with No Name, Glonersbridge, Grigg Lane, Headorn, Kent 01603 661038

SAT 2nd Edinburgh Fringe festie 01312 265251

*** One World Festival @ Nunney Catch nr Frome, Somerset £10. Ozrics/Revolutionary Dub Warriors/Eat Static etc 10am-12pm.

SUN 3rd NMP Anti Racist family festie, Canning Town, Rec ground, off Newham Way 12-8pm.

*** Action at Defence Forces Equip. Exhibition CAAT 0171 281 0927

*** Nottingham Green Fair, Rec ground, near Wilford Carove, 01159 582369

and Finally

Suffers Against Sewage presented Southern Water bosses with the Golden Toilet Ring Award for being the worst water company, at their AGM last week. Meanwhile this weekend activists will warn day-trippers of the state of the filthy sea by parading a giant inflatable turd round the town. What we wonder is how you get hold of giant inflatable turds. "Hello, BIG SHITS Ltd, how can we help you?"

DISCLAIMER  
The SchNEWS warns all readers not to attend any illegal gatherings or take part in any criminal activities. Always stay within the law. In fact please just sit in, watch tv and go on endless shopping sprees filling your home and lives with endless consumer crap. you will then feel content. Honest.

Subscribe! Keep SchNEWS free! Just send 1st class stamps (eg 20 for 20 issues) or donations (payable to Justice?). Mark 'Original if you plan to copy: SchNEWS c/o on-the-fiddle PO Box 2600   Brighton East Sussex BN2 2DX. Tel: (01273) 685913.

Justice? meet at the new kensington, Kensington gardens, every Wed @ 8pm

SchNEWS printers on strike!? Go on Carly you can have me dress  

SchNEWS, PO Box 2600, Brighton, BN2 0EF, England
Phone/Fax: +44 (0)1273 685913
email: schnews@brighton.co.uk

@nti copyright - information for action - copy and distribute!