who will not be affected by the rebate system will be even worse hit.
In fact, council house tenants will be in a position where they will be subsidising the owner occupier while receiving no subsidy themselves. This is bound to mean a great reduction in council housing, and goes hand in hand with attempts to encourage council tenants to buy their houses. Property dealers, of course, recognise that one effect of the bill will be to drive tenants from the council houses. Property prices can therefore be expected to rise steeply with this new market.
What can tenants do to fight this bill? The Labour Party has promised to repeal this bill but in Preston as elsewhere their only answer in the meanwhile is petitions, sending deputations to local Tory councillors, and advising the electorate to vote Labour. The Labour Party's record on housing shows that tenants cannot rely on the Labour Party for radical change. The tenants must organise themselves to fight the bill by a refusal to pay the inIn January the Socialist Woman Group in Preston began a series of open air meetings in Council Estates in Preston. After the response of the first few meetings other groups joined Socialist Woman to form the Tenants Action Group proposing the same course of action. From these public meetings tenants estate committees were set up to spread information about the rent increases, discuss what sort of opposition would be most effective, and organise the estates against the bill. Most tenants considered that the only way to fight the bill was to refuse to pay the increase and have nothing to do with the test.
On Saturday March 25 there was a march of about 150 tenants through Preston. This was followed by a public meeting addressed by May Hobbs, of the London nightcleaners and a militant tenant. A local tenant also spoke. After discussion a resolution was passed that tenants should withhold the rent increase and support a picket of the rent office. The Tories have already threatened eviction, but tenants have begun a rent strike this week, the first week of the rise. A rent strike is a difficult fight to maintain but the refusal to pay the increase by tenants all over the country, allied to industrial action if necessary, is the only way to defeat this bill and to defeat any further attempts at increasing council house rents.
-Cath Ryde Preston I.M.G. and Socialist Woman Group.