Labor Party head Jeremy Corbyn wants to seize houses of rich people to house Grenfell Tower survivors
The man who nearly become the next prime minister of the United Kingdom would seize the homes of wealthy neighbors to house the survivors of the public housing fire in Grenfell Tower were he in power. James Tapsfield reports in the U.K. Daily Mail:
The homes of rich people in Kensington could be seized for Grenfell Tower residents made homeless by fire, Jeremy Corbyn said today.
Mr Corbyn said the London borough was a 'tale of two cities' between a wealthy south and a poor north.
He suggested that 'requisitioning' vacant properties would be a solution to the shortage of available accommodation for those displaced.
'Properties must be found – requisitioned if necessary – in order to make sure that residents do get rehoused locally,' Mr Corbyn told a meeting of MPs.
'How is it acceptable that in London you have luxury buildings and luxury flats kept empty as land banking for that future while homeless people look for somewhere to live?'
I am far from an expert on London real estate values, but I do know that Kensington is an upscale district, albeit one with some housing projects in addition to the multi-million-pound houses for which the borough is famous. No doubt some houses are vacant some of the time because the owners have multiple houses in various cities, while others are being held for appreciation, renovation, and sale. This is exactly the kind of red meat that anti-property rights leftists seize on to decry some people having too little, while others have "too much" – according to leftists.
Let us be clear: the Grenfell Tower victims were victimized by socialist housing policies. It was government negligence that led to flammable siding being installed in an expensive "renovation." It is not the "unfairness" of private property that made them homeless; it is the lack of accountability of government bureaucrats. Should government seize the property of others, you can be sure that property's condition will worsen under the care of the bureaucrats and their chosen beneficiaries. The crumbling buildings of Havana speak to the future of Britain should Corbynites gain power.
Should a coalition government be unable to form, and should a new election be called, there is a good chance Corbyn will get the power he seeks.
In April, Theresa May had a healthy net favourability rating of +10. At the end of May, following the campaign and negative reception of the Conservative manifesto, it fell to -5. Following the election result it has plummeted to -34. The Prime Minister is currently about as unpopular as Jeremy Corbyn was in November last year, when he scored -35.
Meanwhile, the Labour leader has experienced a remarkable turnaround in public perception. Having experienced increasingly worse favourability ratings since Theresa May took office last summer, Jeremy Corbyn sank to a low of -42 in late April, just after the election was called.
However, the public's view of the Labour leader improved markedly over the campaign, reaching -14 in the last YouGov favourability survey before election day. Now, following the result, his net favourability score is +0 – meaning that as many people now have a favourable view of him as have an unfavourable view.
The results clearly chart how the Prime Minister alienated a big section of her voter base. While Theresa May was seen favourably by 85% of 2015 Conservative voters in late April, by mid-June this had fallen to 57%.
By contrast, over the same timeframe, the proportion of 2015 Labour voters with a positive impression of the Labour leader rose from 40% to 75% as Corbyn won them round. He also experienced a huge improvement among 2015 Lib Dem voters, rising from 15% to 69% over the course of the campaign.
Nothing would kill the UK economy faster than a Corbyn government seizing the houses of the rich. London is full of property owned by foreigners, who would dump it on the market and pull their money out of the London financial markets. Best of all (for the left): they would blame it on Brexit.
Socialism ruins everything it touches. London could go from one of the world's premier cities to a dull, stagnant, depressed hellhole full of angry poor people. See the fate of Caracas.