Notes from the UK Squatters’ Meeting 9/10 February 2008

This, the first attempt to coor­di­nate a nation­al meet­ing for some time, was held in a beau­ti­ful old nurs­ing home with exten­sive grounds at Head­in­g­ley in Leeds. There was a good mixed turn out with squat­ters rep­re­sent­ed from many of the major towns in the uk, some protest sites and some trav­ellers attend­ing. All in all per­haps 30–40 peo­ple.

Over­all the meet­ing was con­struc­tive and pos­i­tive with a lot of things dis­cussed with a good par­ty on Sun­day night, of which the local res­i­dents were very acco­mo­dat­ing once we explained it was a one off. It was a dif­fer­ent mat­ter with the local con­stab­u­lary who were miffed to say the least, but unable to act because of a secure build­ing and the num­ber of peo­ple present. (apart, that is, from a bit of har­rass­ment, includ­ing an iso­lat­ed piece of brutality/assault). They final­ly got their vin­dic­tive revenge by con­fis­cat­ing the van tak­ing the rig away on mon­day by claim­ing that the dri­ver was not allowed to use a ger­man dri­ving license in this coun­try!! We man­aged to save the rig though: Ha!

What fol­lows is the basic agen­da, fol­lowed by rough notes from each meet­ing high­light­ing points raised, ideas and crit­i­cisms put for­ward and gen­er­al infor­ma­tion con­cern­ing the dif­fer­ent aspects of squat­ting around the uk.

BASIC AGENDA (of gen­er­al top­ics)

1. Buil­ing a stronger net­work between squats/autonomous spaces (aut. spaces) in the uk.

2. Ini­tial plan­ning for days of action.

3. How can we make bet­ter use of squats/aut. spaces in terms of con­nect­ing them to wider issues such as increased sur­veil­lance, hous­ing prob­lems, gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, ghet­toi­sa­tion and the fun­da­men­tal issues of who con­trols our land , spaces and ulti­mate­ly lives.

4. The impact of non-squat­ted autonomous spaces (ie rented/bought/legal social cen­tres) on the squat­ting move­ment.

5. Break­ing out of the ‘squat­ting scene’.

6. The impact of drugs on the move­ment.

7. Repres­sion fac­ing autonomous spaces in the uk and how we can resist effec­tive­ly.

Sat­ur­day: first meet­ing

Intro­duc­tions

What is hap­pen­ing in places in the uk?

BRISTOL: A new squat­ted social cen­tre is in the process of open­ing. There is Mag­pie, a long term squat/autonomous space. The local social cen­tre is Kebele, which has now been there near­ly eleven years. It was orig­i­nal­ly squat­ted, the evic­tion was resist­ed and then the build­ing was rent­ed with a hous­ing co-op in it to cov­er the rent. The build­ing is now owned, but the hous­ing co-op have moved out as they found it dif­fi­cult to co-exist with activ­i­ties tak­ing place. The build­ing now acco­mo­dates free space for work­shops, a cafe, a library, inter­net and oth­er ameni­ties. Kebele has also, slow­ly, become recog­nised as part of the local com­mu­ni­ty.

NORTH EAST LONDON: A squat­ters’ net­work has been start­ed in the area around hack­ney con­sist­ing of approx. 11 squats result­ing in bet­ter sol­i­dar­i­ty and response to evic­tion threats. There has been some more social cen­tre organ­is­ing, with one cur­rent­ly by Low­er Clap­ton Round­about (info: 07506095491). Ram­parts have pos­si­bly 2 more months, but have opened a new build­ing.

LEEDS: A few res­i­den­tial squats round Chapel­town, no organ­ised net­work, no squat­ted social cen­tres, there is also a par­tial­ly work­ing ‘Com­mon Place’ legal social cen­tre

NOTTINGHAM: Sumac social cen­tre (not squat­ted), a few squats, not many activists. City has lots of poten­tial but needs injec­tion of ener­gy.

EXETER: Not much hap­pen­ing, try­ing to set up a place for tem­po­rary autonomous arts (TAA) and skill share. Big regen­er­a­tion at moment, lots of emp­ty spaces but not much action.

SCOTLAND: There are squats but they tend to be evict­ed quick­ly and legal­ly. ESRA- Edin­burgh Squat­ters’ Rights Asso­ci­a­tion.

BRADFORD: There has been a squat on West­gate for 3 years and a block of flats has been squat­ted down Man­ches­ter Rd.

MANCHESTER: Not much squat­ting hap­pen­ing. There are legal social cen­tres, the ‘Base­ment’ recent­ly closed down due to a fire/water dam­age but there is a gay/lesbian/transgender one and a mainstream/straight one which is a bit of a prob­lem.

BRIGHTON: Very dif­fi­cult to squat. squats last on aver­age 6 weeks, some­times can be moved on 3–4 times a week. IPOs (Inter­im Pos­ses­sion Orders) used more and more (gives cops instant evic­tion pow­er). Ille­gal evic­tions with bail­liffs, police or both com­mon­place. Police have gone on record in local paper say­ing that ‘squat­ting will not be tol­er­at­ed in Brighton’. There is a legal social cen­tre, the Cow­ley Club, bought with a mort­gage through Rad­i­cal Routes, with a hous­ing co-op to pay off the mort­gage. Club has cafe, bar, gigs, free Eng­lish lessons, library, book­shop and inter­net access as well oth­er activ­i­ties. Luck­i­ly there are two long term squats at the moment.

PROTEST SITES

Tara- Nr Dublin, Ire­land: been there over a year, about 15 peo­ple on 2 sites. His­tor­i­cal sites threat­ened, strong local cam­paign, need more peo­ple to help build stock­ades and fences.

Faslane, Scot­land. Punx pic­nic on 2–4 May.

Ross­port, coun­ty Mayo, Ire­land. Need sup­port. Have good local sup­port. Action camp from where direct action is done.

9 Ladies, Der­byshire- have tech­ni­cal­ly won cam­paign, wait­ing on papers. Some of site tat­ted down.

Bil­ston Glen- against a road fund­ed by biotech cor­po­ra­tions, need more peo­ple, coun­cil haven’t got mon­ey to evict.

Camp Bling- near Southend, anti-road cam­paign, been there 2 years.

Tit­nore Woods, nr Wor­thing- against super­mar­ket and urban sprawl, strong local sup­port, 2 camps

GENDER AND SEXISM

Machis­mo- there is often a com­pe­ti­tion of male vs male over dom­i­nance, some­times between female. Is this Alpha male/female com­plex a pure­ly bio­log­i­cal effect or is it rein­forced by soci­etal con­di­tions?

Is homophobic/queer/transgender ‘abuse’ a prob­lem?

Does cre­at­ing ‘queer fiend­ly’ nights encour­age seg­re­ga­tion? Maybe we should focus on anti-homo­pho­bic issues instead? How­ev­er queer fiend­ly nights allow an expres­sion of their cul­ture not always tol­er­at­ed by main­stream soci­ety. Or, in oth­er words, there is a temp­ta­tion to ghet­toize your­self in order to feel com­fort­able and fit in with like mind­ed peo­ple around you.

Maybe there is not such a prob­lem with­in the alternative/squatting scene itself, but at free par­ties when peo­ple from out­side the scene come there can be prob­lems. How can we edu­cate them and break down these dis­crim­i­na­to­ry bar­ri­ers?

Ghet­toi­sa­tion occurs on many lev­els, not just with queers, eg anar­chists, trav­ellers. Plus in wider soci­ety ghet­toi­sa­tion is occur­ing more and more, asian, black, white work­ing class and mid­dle class gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties- we need to bear this in mind.

Is it less about gen­der and more about role play­ing? Do cer­tain peo­ple take on cer­tain roles in squats- some­one does elec­tric­i­ty, some­one does locks, plumb­ing, secu­ri­ty etc.

But do cer­tain peo­ple just take on roles or fall into them- ie does a cer­tain dynam­ic grow, where peo­ple are doing the same jobs because only they have the skills?

To counter this per­haps skill shar­ing work­shops could be an option, or an appren­tice approach where peo­ple watch and learn locks being changed, plumb­ing being fixed etc.

Do gen­der stereo­types take over? Males change locks, fix plumb­ing, electricity/ females cook­ing, clean­ing etc? How can we address this?

In order to chal­lenge gender/role stereo­types peo­ple should not fol­low the eas­i­est effi­cient path‑i.e. some­one does the locks, some­one does the plumb­ing as this per­pet­u­ates role entrenchment/division of labour.

THE IMPACT OF DRUGS ON THE MOVEMENT

Both Bris­tol and Brighton split between drugs squats/creative squats. How­ev­er, is this true or can a pos­i­tive squat hap­pen when the squat is filled with munters (drug tak­ing idiots smashed out of their face talk­ing shit)?

Some squats are just par­ty squats and attract bad press.

It can be dif­fi­cult for families/children to squat because of the pres­ence of drugs.Squatting could be made more attrac­tive to fam­i­lies.

Drugs have divid­ed the squat­ting scene, or is it that they have invad­ed all of it?

A lot of peo­ple get into squat­ting through the free par­ty scene and then con­tin­ue to squat just to par­ty, espe­cial­ly those who have just left home and wish to express them­selves and not take respon­si­bil­i­ty. Is it pos­si­ble to politi­cise this ele­ment with­out being patro­n­is­ing?

If squats have a short shelf life, like in Brighton, then there is not so much motive to main­tain it by some peo­ple and a hedo­nis­tic atti­tude can take over.

There is the prob­lem that some peo­ple will come to vis­it a squat and think, ‘oh, it’s just a squat’ and will get pissed or off their head. This can be a prob­lem inside the squat but more so out­side in the pub­lic eye.

It is down to indi­vid­ual squat­ters what they want to do with their space and how they want to live.

Not all squats should be seen as places to go and be enter­tained.

How do drugs effect autonomous spaces pol­i­cy wise? How do you, or should you, draw a line on ‘accept­able’ behav­iour, to say ‘wait a minute, every­one is get­ting bat­tered’ and yet main­tain the abil­i­ty for peo­ple to be autonomous and express them­selves indi­vid­u­al­ly?

Should drugs be seen as a soci­etal symp­tom and not just con­cerned with the squat­ting move­ment?

Is there some­times a dif­fer­ence between the type and quan­ti­ty of drugs used by the peo­ple who break the squats and then those who move in lat­er, or is this a false dichoto­my?

NETWORKING AMONGST SQUATS

What is net­work­ing? An e‑mail list? More meet­ings?

It should be more than this, it should be active sol­i­dar­i­ty.

The net­work in Lon­don was cre­at­ed by hav­ing meet­ings once a month. They also have a phone with every­bodys’ num­bers on it, but no names, so that if there is an emer­gency a text can be sent to every­one.

Hav­ing Squat­ters’ din­ners, rotat­ing around each squat in an area.

N

ation­al net­work- how can we make it hap­pen?

Cre­ate a rise­up list in con­junc­tion with an e‑mail account which sends no mail but info is placed in a draft fold­er.

Have 2 nation­al meet­ings a year.

Make a new­sheet of ongo­ing news from the draft fold­er in the e‑mailm account and dis­trib­ute as print­ed or PDF.

News about squat­ting actions can also be sent to 325collective(at)hush.com and will be com­piled on the web site.

What do we want out of the net­work?

Peo­ple could work out local/specific skills and net­work them nation­al­ly.

Peo­ple should be respon­si­ble for con­tact­ing people/ find­ing out what’s going on, not wait­ing for news to be sent to them.

There can be prob­lems with com­mu­ni­ca­tion when liv­ing on site.

What is the point of the net­work?

To be a social move­ment which threat­ens the sta­tus quo, yet with­out dilut­ing our fun­da­men­tal polit­i­cal beliefs.

‘Recruit­ment’, get­ting peo­ple on board- facil­i­tat­ing our skills to demon­strate a more valid image of squat­ting than is cur­rent­ly rep­re­sent­ed.

Not all squat­ters rep­re­sent­ed at the meet­ing, we need to remem­ber that not all peo­ple squat for ide­o­log­i­cal pur­pos­es. How can we get over our polit­i­cal mean­ing with­out alien­at­ing peo­ple?

We should reach out to immigrants/refugees/vulnerable peo­ple, but hand­ing out info isn’t enough- there must be a sup­port net­work in place.

Per­haps a local meeting/info point for peo­ple to come and get help.

Pos­si­bly vis­it local hous­ing offices and hand out info?

SOCIAL CENTRES

Prac­ti­cal aspects of occupying/setting up a cen­tre were dis­cussed.

What is the effect of legal social cen­tres on the move­ment? Do they detract from the squat­ting aspect or are they a good half way house?

It can take a long time to set up rela­tion­ships with peo­ple in the local are, so long term legal cen­tres can be good for this. It means that the cen­tre can be for the local com­mu­ni­ty rather than being moved on all the time and cen­tred on the scene.

There is a dan­ger of cliques/closed groups occur­ring.

There can be prob­lems with secu­ri­ty with squat­ted social cen­tres, in case the own­er turns up.

It is pos­si­ble to file an injunc­tion against the own­er, but only with rea­son­able grounds- i.e. he has tried to breach sec­tion 6. If done file it using some­one on ben­e­fit so that it is cov­ered by legal aid.

There can be prob­lems if the fire brigade come and check safe­ty. Do a per­son­al pub­lic lia­bil­i­ty assess­ment cov­er­ing health and safe­ty aspects.

New social cen­tre lon­don- hackneysocialcentre.blogspot.com

If indus­tri­al build­ings are left emp­ty for 3 months or more then the own­ers can lose mon­ey on a tax break, so it is in their inter­rests for them to be occu­pied. For a com­mer­cial prop­er­ty to be lived in it must be part­ly res­i­den­tial-ie have a show­er, toi­let and kitchen.

Dif­fer­ent ways of occu­py­ing social cen­tres are: squat­ting, squat and then get in touch with own­er and get per­mis­sion, get per­mis­sion first, rent, or mort­gage

It is per­haps bet­ter to engage with peo­ple on a prac­ti­cal lev­el in the local com­mu­ni­ty and not just on an ide­alog­i­cal lev­el.

Outreach/word of mouth with local com­mu­ni­ty. Ask local com­mu­ni­ty, ‘what do you want?’. Make it clear that they have just as much say in the run­ning of things as every­one else.

DAYS OF ACTION

Dijon, France- the days of action con­cept was thought of and it was decid­ed that peo­ple should do things rel­e­vant to their own coun­try.

Should groups con­cen­trate on their own area or do a cen­tralised action?

Per­haps lots of decen­tralised actions as well as a big squat to make a state­ment, as just one big action on its own would maybe detract from the idea that squat­ting hap­pens every­where.

Some kind of manifesto/press release explain­ing inter­na­tion­al char­ac­ter of actions, show­ing that our strength lies in our network/diversity.

Maybe don’t con­cen­trate on the press too much so our actions aren’t twist­ed into a pub­lic­i­ty stunt.

Is the fact that we have to rely on the press a sign of our weak­ness? Should we there­fore rely on our own alter­na­tive press, or is it pos­si­ble that we can manip­u­late the main­stream press?

Put any ideas into the e‑mail account draft fold­er.

There is a Lon­don wide co-ordi­na­tion meet­ing on the 23rd Feb.

Press release will focus on national/international nature and then local groups can add their own rel­e­vant details.

Peo­ple could decide to stay in their own town or a few towns close to each oth­er could co-ordi­nate.

Pos­si­bly a sol­i­dar­i­ty action around what is hap­pen­ing in Berlin?

Per­haps clan­des­tine direct actions with/without a press release.

SQUATTING AND RESISTANCE.

what suc­cess­ful ways work to resist evic­tions?

Does it depend on indi­vid­ual sit­u­a­tion?

Why should we resist? This depends on per­son­al rea­sons and this meet­ing is not about ide­ol­o­gy.

Are there times that we should­n’t resist? When it is too dif­fi­cult to secure the build­ing. If elec­tric­i­ty is abstract­ed and can’t be cov­ered up.

There should be less focus on resist­ing evic­tions that have been to court and more focus on auto­mat­ic all round defence in case of ille­gal evic­tions. We should defend our space with­out rely­ing on the legal process.

It is rel­a­tive­ly rare that evic­tions are resist­ed when due process has been car­ried through the courts.

As soon as we become ille­gal in a space, ie after a pos­ses­sion order is grant­ed we move on, when real­ly this is the point where we should be attack­ing. We should resist because for some of us the point of squat­ting is to attack the sys­tem.

Big­ger squats rather than lots of small­er ones may be bet­ter option. But what about inter­nal pol­i­tics? Divi­sion destroys our cohe­sion

If we gen­er­al­ly believe that we are doing the right thing and these are our homes then we should be pre­pared to defend them.

Local sup­port- If the com­mu­ni­ty saw some­thing pos­i­tive in a squat/social cen­tre and then we defend­ed it, it would look good in terms of encour­ag­ing pro-active action and not rely­ing on author­i­ty.

It should not be about images though, we should not become just anoth­er spec­ta­cle.

Is it the build­ing that mat­ters or is it the com­mu­ni­ty that mat­ters?

We should­n’t have an image of the local pop­u­la­tion being total­ly apa­thet­ic and pas­sive. They may be open to pro-active par­tic­i­pa­tion.

We should­n’t be so wary/scared of author­i­ty, we should refuse to let the police in. Or does this give them an excuse to use Sec­tion 17 of PACE (sus­pi­cion that an offence is tak­ing place) to kick down the door.

Sup­port­ive acts at the time of evic­tion in the sur­round­ing area?

Once bailiffs get in should you fight back or declare non-vio­lence?

Police tac­tics- Psy­cho­log­i­cal: react to the police/bailiffs on their own terms. If they shout, shout back, if they start to be vio­lent and attack the door then proac­tive­ly defend it.

Have an action plan ready in case of sur­prise evic­tion attempt.

Knowl­edge of the law is not a defence on its own, ie- just because you know the law don’t expect the police to respect it. But it is very use­ful to know your basic rights, like not hav­ing to give your name.

How­ev­er a knowl­edge of the law is cru­cial in any form of resis­tance as it facil­i­tates an area of con­flict where tac­ti­cal advan­tage may be gained.

We should con­cen­trate on actu­al­ly defend­ing squats and not fall into the legal game, yet it is impor­tant to know some.

If you resist an evic­tion the first time and the bailiffs leave, then you can’t be sure when the bailiffs/police will come back and you will have to stay in the build­ing.

If peo­ple actu­al­ly resist and con­front author­i­ty they will be more aware of why they squat.

Mov­ing on all the time just per­pet­u­ates a tran­sient sit­u­a­tion where no con­nec­tion can be made with the local com­mu­ni­ty. This also caus­es ‘the scene’.

When you have a sit­u­a­tion where heav­ies want you out but have been unable to get in to evict you it can make it dan­ger­ous to go out.

In terms of ille­gal evic­tions you do have the right to defend the build­ing using ‘rea­son­able’ force, but not with a legal evic­tion where you only have the right to defend your­self.

Resist­ing squats in UK will give a boost to the Euro­pean net­work.

Tac­tics: Mat­tress­es behind the door frame to coun­ter­act kinetic/pneumatic bat­ter­ing rams; braces across doors/windows; trap­door on stairs with weights (eg- hardcore/rubble) on top; ring in false wit­ness sightings/crime reports to mis­di­rect police to false inci­dents; use paint bombs;create con­fus­ing con­di­tions on the ground for the police/bailiffs.

Use a video cam­era and get in the cops/bailiffs face with it.

If police confiscate/destroy video evi­dence go to court to retrieve it. Not sure if enti­tled to legal aid for this.

Have more than one film/memory card for cam­era and swap them over fre­quent­ly so that if the police get one you will still have some evi­dence.

Turn it from a pri­vate sit­u­a­tion into a pub­lic sit­u­a­tion by cre­at­ing noise/ a spec­ta­cle out­side. Fire­works?

Press cov­er­age can be ben­e­fi­cial (if rep­re­sent­ed prop­er­ly).

Use injunc­tions against own­ers if they have used threat­en­ing lan­guage out­side (get a record­ing).