Deja Vu as Labour's Attempt to Bully Tenants Backfires

Former councillor Paul Fisher
 with Linford Christie on Ivybridge

Back in the mid-1980s the Labour Party in what was then Isleworth South ward launched a sustained offensive to take control of the New Ivybridge Tenants’ Association (NITA). In line with its general policy towards residents’ associations at the time it sought to achieve this by ensuring that whichever members it had in the catchment area were active on the association, and these would then be sustained and promoted at every opportunity by the ward councillors, who would use any influence at their disposal to have them elevated to the most senior Committee posts.

On Ivybridge the Labour offensive was helped along by the fact that one of the people who had been elected to serve on the fledgling Committee was a member of the fascist National Front. Alan Minehan was himself an inoffensive and mild-mannered man, a fact conceded even by his critics, but nevertheless he was a member of an avowedly racist party serving on a tenants’ association on a multi-cultural estate. There were quite valid concerns about the message that his presence on the Committee would send out to estate residents.

Not that I accepted them as valid at the time. For in 1987, when it all began, I was still the NF organiser in the area. Taking its cue from Labour the local NF had also developed a strategy of attempting to infiltrate residents’ groups, and it was not unreasonably assumed that his presence on the NITA Committee had been part and parcel of that strategy.

As it happens though the assumption was incorrect. The first I knew of Alan Minehan’s involvement with the association was after he had been elected to the post. I distinctly recall my sense of surprise when he strolled into the Victoria Tavern in Isleworth that very evening, after the meeting, and told me all about it. He said they had asked him to be Treasurer - I advised him against it, counselling that the man holding the purse strings would be the easiest person for an adversary to set up once his presence on the Committee had become known to the local political establishment. But I told him also that he should hold firm and resist any attempts by anyone to boot him off on the grounds of his politics.

Sure enough, a storm blew up and the appointment made the headlines of the local newspapers. The councillors objected to his appointment and a number of his fellow Committee officials, most but not all of them Labour members, called upon him to stand down. Acting on my advice, he stayed put.

Looking at those events in retrospect I see them now in a very different light. Were a similar thing to occur today I would oppose the presence of a member of a racist political party at the top table of a local residents’ group with every fibre of my being.

However none of this detracts from the fact that Labour’s motivation in opposing Minehan, as both he and I suspected at the time, was primarily a cynical and self-serving one. This was borne out by subsequent events. Just as I had predicted, once he had been removed from the Committee a similar purge was conducted against other non-Labour members, none of whom had anything to do with the NF or held racist views of any kind. And the defection of one of the "approved" group's number to the cause of the purged residents confirmed the accuracy of our suspicions for once and for all.

In those days, as now, there were divisions within the ranks of the Labour Party locally. When a Feltham councillor by the name of David Archer, now sadly deceased, wrote to a local newspaper urging Alan Minehan to leave and denounce the National Front as a resolution to the estate’s sorry predicament I wrote back to attack him for his comments. It is only now that I understand his motive for making the suggestion, far from being hostile, was to offer us a way out of the impasse that had been created which would have well and truly scotched his party colleagues’ plans for the association. Through my own limitless arrogance and stupidity, a golden opportunity fell to waste.

Now let us fast forward 26 and a bit years, and to an incident which has truly demonstrated not only the paucity of Labour’s claim to have been acting out of the loftiest principle back in 1987, but that they have learned absolutely nothing from the emergence of the ICG and its not inconsiderable success, notwithstanding our election defeat in 2010, during the long intervening period.

A couple of months ago former ICG councillor and leading local activist Paul Fisher was co-opted to the Committee of the United Residents’ Association of Ivybridge (URA), the successor organisation to NITA. Unlike Alan Minehan, no claim of racism or fascism could conceivably be laid at Paul’s door. Nevertheless, prior to the URA’s last meeting its officers had been contacted by the local Labour group demanding that it reverses its decision to co-opt Paul.

Apparently Labour in Isleworth still operates under the peculiar misapprehension that it can decide who may or may not serve on the management committee of a local residents’ association. However, unlike in 1987 the association today is truly independent. Even the one high-profile member that Labour has on the Committee, who had been pressured by his party to lead the charge against Paul, told them to do one, and Paul’s continued presence on the Committee was reconfirmed by a unanimous show of hands.

Anybody who doubts that, even if the wake of 2010, the goalposts have moved significantly in the community’s favour in its dealings with the dictators should consider the experience of Paul and the URA and reflect upon it.

Does it Matter Whose Idea it Was?

The recent news that the highly successful Rainbow Project had been nominated for a national award in recognition of its partnership work between the local authority and tenants across the borough was truly fantastic.

The Community Impact Award, made by the National Housing Federation, recognises work undertaken in neighbourhoods by active residents. As I write there is no news as to whether the Project won the award last night in the face of some stiff competition from other projects in other boroughs.

Under the circumstances it may appear churlish for me or anybody else to be concerned about wherein lies the "credit" for the Rainbow Project initiative. On a local community internet forum myself and one or two others have been jokingly anticipating the announcement by the present administration at the London Borough of Hounslow, probably through Ruth Cadbury's blog (to which I have referred rather too much recently already), that this was an initiative devised and managed by the Hounslow Labour Party and by her in particular. This would follow a long-established pattern of behaviour, seen most recently in an attempt to steal the plaudits for the success of the resident-led campaign for funding for the repair of the roof at the St. John's Community Centre in Isleworth (which Labour had originally opposed!).

No such claim has yet appeared on the blog - presumably she, like me, has been awaiting the final outcome of the award, and in the event this article may indeed pre-empt such a move.

The Rainbow Project was, as most people who take an interest in these things are aware, first mooted in 2008 under the previous council administration and formally launched following the HRA (Housing Revenue Account) Budget meeting of 2009. This of course happened on the watch of an ICG Lead Member for Housing (myself as it happens), against a certain amount of protest from some individual Labour councillors who felt we were committing too much of residents' money to causes identified by residents. There was an attempt by them to amend the motion introducing the Project so as to bring the management of funding bids under their own control via the Hounslow Homes Board, over which despite being in opposition they still wielded a disproportionate amount of influence. This attempt to subvert the spirit of the Project was thwarted by a majority on Borough Council.

A clue to the importance of correctly identifying the source of this initiative lies in the terms attached to the award, notably that its purpose is to "recognise the vast range of work being done in neighbourhoods by active residents".

In other words it is the success of the community itself, not the political stewardship of the Rainbow Project, which is being considered for recognition.

Any attempt at "ownership" by a political party or administration would be in direct contravention of the whole spirit of the award, and indeed of the Rainbow Project itself.

The Rainbow Project was inspired by tenants themselves, whose idea it was from the outset. We as a Community Group serving as part of a coalition administration merely put the meat onto the bones of the idea and presented it - first to Hounslow Homes and then to Borough Council - on the community's behalf.

Let us hope that this important fact, as well as the Project itself, can for once at last be recognised.

First meeting as a ROWE Committee member

ROWE's brand new kitchen, funded by the ICG-inspired Rainbow
Project in collaboration with Giggles nursery
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At its last Committee meeting (its first since its 2010 Annual General Meeting, which I had the honour of chairing), members of Residents Of Worton Estate (ROWE) - a residents' association based, as the name suggests, on Isleworth's Worton estate - did me the honour of co-opting me to their top table.

It was felt that my experience as a ward councillor for twelve years prior to May this year - three of them as Lead Member for Housing and Community Safety - might prove useful to estate residents as they strive to build their association and their community.

Although I am not a resident of the Worton estate I gladly accepted the role. As well as having worked closely with ROWE for the whole of my time as an elected member I have strong connections with this estate in particular. My father was brought up in Octavia Road, directly opposite the site where the Community Centre now sits. As a child I would visit the same house, then occupied by my late uncle John, my aunt Barbara and my cousins Lisa, Anne and Steve (now also sadly departed), every Sunday morning. When we reached our teens Steve and I would often go fishing somewhere nearby.

A few years later I attended a youth club at my Church which, as a result of its location at the junction of Twickenham Road with Worton Road, inevitably became something of a meeting point of the Worton and non-Worton worlds. Ironically, when one considers my later attachment to the estate, the Worton lads and my own little gang were in constant conflict with one another. When walking home from school in those days what would have been a shortcut for me was in fact a definite no-go area. Instead I took the longer, but safer, route along the St. John's Road.

Anyway, I am digressing. At the meeting tonight I was amongst friends, as I always feel I am these days when passing through Worton. It is in the spiritual if not the literal sense my home.

There were seven ROWE members present, including myself. This may seem a modest number, but when one considers the nonsense that this estate has had to put up with in the past from the local authority it is a miracle that the association still exists and that the Community Centre is still standing.

A couple of years back, at a meeting that I also chaired, what had become an almost moribund association relaunched itself with a new Committee of some 14-16 members. However many of the new additions had been lukewarm, had turned up to their first meeting expressly to criticise the work of others rather than to offer their own help, and had promptly either resigned or drifted away.

This time things are clearly different. The seven members present tonight, plus a few more of my acquaintance who weren't in attendance this evening, are clearly determined to make things work for the benefit of the estate community. We were joined by the local Tenant Participation Officer from Hounslow Homes and Councillor Sue Sampson, both of whom made helpful contributions and seemed to be there with good intentions. I was especially pleased to hear Cllr. Sampson tell the meeting: "This is your association, I'm here to listen and not to tell residents what they want".

Encouraging signs, or lulling us into a false sense of security? Time will tell.

The big news on the estate at the moment is the £419,000 in Section 106 money made available as a result of the controversial Worton Green development, which remains unspent. ROWE is keen that residents will not lose control over the fate of this funding. As always the wheels of progress are turning oh so slowly, but they are turning nonetheless.

Speaking personally I see my role on ROWE as being an advisory rather than a leadership one. As a non-estate resident I feel my place is to take a back seat and speak when I think it might be helpful to do so. I will endeavour to avoid controversy, and it will be interesting to see whether or not it avoids me.

Despite a plethora of forthcoming meetings I find myself strangely looking forward to the next ROWE gathering in October.

On St. George's Day and Every Day, Together is Better!

I have not long returned home from one of the most successful, innovative and ambitious events that I have yet attended in my capacity as Lead Member for Housing & Community Safety.

For me personally, the Better Together event jointly organised by Hounslow Homes and the Hounslow Federation of Tenants' and Residents' Associations (HFTRA) did not get off to a particularly good start. Despite me being Lead Member not only did I have no input into the organisation of the event, but somebody also forgot to invite me. It transpired, I have to add, that this had been a genuine oversight and as it turned out every councillor had been sent a last-minute "reminder" of an event which they knew nothing about, but I would not be human if memories of the Bad Old Days in which excluding ICG councillors was turned almost into an art form did not come flickering back at least momentarily.

But any lingering doubts were quickly dispelled as soon as I walked into the Paul Robeson Theatre in Hounslow Treaty Centre, where a hugely impressive crowd that included my friends and colleagues Councillors Jon Hardy and Paul Fisher was already gathering.

The afternoon event had been masterminded jointly by the Tenant Participation Officers at Hounslow Homes and by HFTRA (chaired by Julie Brooker, pictured above). Its purpose was to bolster participation in the lives of our communities by hard-to-reach groups who, for whatever reason, often find themselves left out of the business of the established tenants' and residents' associations on our estates.

It has to be said that in almost every instance the exclusion of these hard-to-reach groups, in particular newly-arrived communities, is entirely unintentional. People new to our estates, to Hounslow and to the country may understandably feel overawed and a little reticent about joining their local tenants' group, which usually tends to comprise a relatively small number of people who know and have been working with each other for many years. For their part those established groups may desire to reach out and embrace those who are new to their communities, but are unfamiliar with the cultures concerned and sometimes do not know how. If this stalemate is not broken, the association soon becomes unrepresentative of the people it serves and seriously negative implications for Community Cohesion begin to develop.

So the purpose of Better Together was to try to break through those barriers by bringing established tenants' leaders and representatives from hard-to-reach communities together, to introduce one to the other, and to celebrate - appropriately, on St. George's Day - our common citizenship and those things that unite us as tenants and indeed as human beings (please click here for some earlier thoughts of mine on this particular concept).

As Lead Member I have long argued that a powerful tenants' movement on our estates and in our communities is singularly the best vehicle there is for improving Community Cohesion. People and groups of people who are unfamiliar with each other and possibly even a little fearful suddenly discover that the problems which concern them in their everyday lives are the same problems which concern their new neighbours. When residents are brought together to discuss these problems, barriers just disintegrate before everybody's eyes.

By some this message was never completely grasped. To others it represented a threat, because it meant that improved Community Cohesion came about only by virtue of an empowered tenants' movement, which has a propensity to ask awkward questions and to make demands that are sometimes incompatible with the path of least resistance and a quiet life, and always incompatible with the control agenda favoured by some.

What inspired, enthused and excited me about Better Together wasn't just the massive turnout (250-300 people), the excellent food or the wonderful dancing. It was the fact that here was a really radical initiative to empower tenants by aggressively promoting cohesion that had been organised by Hounslow Homes and HFTRA, not only without any pressure from me but even without my knowledge! It wasn't simply like receiving a surprise birthday present, it was the pair of socks that I'd always wanted.

I cannot describe my feeling of sheer satisfaction at having witnessed such an event being driven by Hounslow Homes and HFTRA, two groups of people who had fought me tenaciously thoughout every minute of the Hounslow Homes Management Review in 2006 as I ploughed on stubbornly with my plans to improve and democratise the process of Tenant Participation in our borough. Back then some harsh words were spoken. I hope and believe that much of the innocent mistrust that had inspired the opposition to me back then has since melted away, but in the overall scheme of things that is not really that important. What is most important that even those who would still probably like to see the back of me next year are now singing from the same democratic hymnsheet. I feel I can declare with supreme confidence at long last that it is now official - working together really is better!