Greens vote to make ‘Abolish landlords’ Party policy, while getting their excuses in early

In the US the time elapsed between ‘Defund the Police’ Actually Means Defunding the Police, Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police until Ha Ha Of Course We Didn’t Really Mean It Like It Sounded was about a year.

The Green Party of England and Wales leaves lumbering American lefties standing. PoliticsHome reports,

The Green Party has voted to make party policy a motion that seeks to “abolish landlords”.

The motion titled ‘Abolish Landlords’ was supported by a large majority of members at the party’s conference in Bournemouth on Sunday.

The motion has now become party policy, though leader Zack Polanski is not obliged to adopt the specific wording.

On Friday, PoliticsHome reported that the policy motion was being put forward, which sets out five steps the Greens would take to outlaw landlords.

Starting with rent controls and abolishing Right to Buy, a future Green Party-led government would also tax landlords via business rates on Airbnbs and double taxation on empty properties.

Under the proposals, the party would also end Buy to Let mortgages and give councils the Right to Buy when landlords sell properties, when the property doesn’t meet insulation standards, or when a property has been vacant for more than six months.

Carla Denyer, Green MP for Bristol Central, sought to stress that despite the motions “eye-catching” title, “it does not actually ‘abolish’ landlords”.

Neat. If the Greens get into coalition with Labour, they can say while introducing this policy, “Too late to complain now. It was clearly stated to be our policy back in 2025.” And when the policy goes the same way as every other attempt at rent control (as even they have some inkling it will), they can say “Doesn’t count, ‘coz we had our fingers crossed.”