The Labour Party appears to be entering the arena of organising private rental sector tenants who have grievances.
Party leader Jeremy Corbyn tweeted over the weekend about “five ways to take on rogue landlords” – and the video he links to pulls no punches about what he and Labour appear to think about those who operate the private rental sector.
It starts with two women, presumably tenants, talking about rats and cockroaches in a flat with one saying that they [landlords or their agents] “can take that rug from beneath your feet at any time and for any damn reason.”
The video then outlines Labour’s five steps to tackling rogue buy to let operators.
1. Build Relationships – it encourages tenants to knock on the doors of other tenants to see if they have similar problems.;
2. Tell Stories – one male figure in the video says that by telling personal stories it “gets people emotionally involved”;
3. Know Your Rights – this talks of finding sympathetic lawyers or the local Citizens Advice Bureau or others who can be “mobilised” to help tenants;
4. Find Your Labour Party Community Organisers – one of these is quoted that people have come together “to fight for their futures”;
5. Escalate Your Actions – this section talks of meetings, social media activity and petitions to “win this campaign”.
You can see the video below and the link for Labour’s plan ‘Introducing Community Organising’ is here.