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.”
What kind of abolishment do they have in mind?
Do they simply want to nationalize non-owner-occupied residencies; or are they planning a Final Solution to the landlord problem?
OK, First, there is not going to be even a theoretical chance of a change in government before 2029, and that is only IF Labour chooses to allow elections. Noting that they hold the government by an overwhelming majority and that they have ignored and continue to ignore the “unwritten constitution” while there is no institution that can compel obedience to said constitution; such is not an unreasonable expectation. Second, IF they should call an election, the Greens by themselves have zero chance of winning on a good day with a downhill run and a blazing tailwind. Third, if they run in a coalition with Labour, they will have no influence on policy. Fourth, if any part of the Green Party war on landlords becomes law, the only reasonable response by landlords to the functional confiscation of their property would be to evict all tenants and either let the buildings stand empty or to tear the buildings down to reduce the value for tax purposes. And yes, you can bet that they will be trying to move their capital and assets out of the country. Just in passing, it is not clear from this short summary of the war on landlords includes commercial landlords. If it does, it will have an interesting effect on the economy.
Subotai Bahadur
So the plan is to make housing even more difficult to get for young people? And what little housing remains have it run but the only people who can stay in business — namely slum lords?
I suppose though if you have a party built around the ideas in Net Zero then shutting down the rental market is fairly low down the list of “dumb ideas we had”.