Then they came for our allotments

You wonder whether the Starmer leadership team are competing with each other to seek out the most unpopular targets for government attacks:

children in dire poverty when they refused to lift the two child benefit cap
pensioners and their heating allowance
disabled or chronically sick people with their essential benefits.

Mass outrage prompted the government to back down on some of these issues. Now it is revealed that the government, led by its soft left face, Angela Rayner, is coming for the allotment holders. She has agreed to councils selling off the allotments in eight council areas. These include sites in Storrington, West Sussex, Ashfield in Nottinghamshire and a couple in Bolsover, Derbyshire.

Under the Allotment Act 1925, a local authority can’t sell, use or dispose of land for any other use except for allotments without permission from the Government. Maybe she thought she could sneak the news out during the Parliamentary summer recess and no one would pick up on it. They seemed to forget that Jeremy Corbyn rents an allotment in North London. The Labour leadership is not just morally dead but incompetent.

Recently the government attack dogs have started again on Corbyn – denigrating him a ‘failed politician’, a ‘bloke with a big ego’ (Reeves). For somebody they think is finished and whose proposed party is sneered at as ‘the Peoples front of Judea (Monty Python, Life of Brian), they are giving him a lot of attention. It may have something to do with the 650,000 sign-ups online or the 10-15% polling.

He has bitten back with an article in the Daily Telegraph, not his usual choice of publication. But why not show his ambition that the new left party should appeal across the board by writing in the the Torygraph?.

The crack team of Labour advisors also failed to notice that there are 330,000 allotment holders in Britain with families or friends who may well enjoy the produce every year. Most allotment sites have long waiting lists (100,000 nationally) and have generally not been sold off for property speculation even under Tory governments. Instead of threatening action against the tens of thousands of empty houses and apartments often bought for speculation, Rayner is targeting allotments.

Why are allotments so important?

Like the NHS or museums they are common goods we can all use and enjoy. They are not commodities in capitalist markets to be easily bought and sold, and whose prices are fixed by the market. We should defend to the death these commodity free spaces, our common goods.

Most allotments are not tended by the rich or well off middle class. Working class people who often do not have gardens at home are well represented. People from an ethnic minority background who have a more recent family relationship with cultivation are fully part of the allotment world. They have helped introduce the cultivation of more unusual plants and vegetables. We have lots of Turkish and Kurdish growers at our allotment.

Working regularly on a piece of land gets you back in touch with the earth, gives you a break from screen time, and you get used to the rhythms of the yearly cycle. You get a sense of satisfaction from seeding a plant, transplanting it, and then looking after it until harvest. It forces you out of the house so you feel the sun, wind and rain on your face.

The government is talking about preventive medicine. What better way of keeping your body fit and healthy than regular physical activity on your plot? Eating your produce means you are avoiding the ultra-processed diet that afflicts so many. There have been lots of documented cases where growing stuff has helped people with mental health issues.

Allotments are a green option

One way to reduce our dependence on food transported from hundreds or even thousands of miles is to grow fruit and vegetables locally. Instead of selling off allotments, the government should be developing more. This is supposed to be a government with green credentials but it is selling off allotments, weakening environmental regulations on development and backtracking on the money invested in the green energy transition. However, it can find plenty of money for buying fighter jets that can carry nuclear missiles.

Growing your own food is part of our national story. During the Second World War the government encouraged the people to Dig for Victory. It encouraged people to dig up their lawns and plant potatoes.

Corbyn is correct to headline his article by saying the loss of allotments makes us all poorer. Fewer green spaces affect everyone. It makes it even more difficult for people waiting to get an allotment. Already, there are examples of capitalist companies marketing private plots for prices way above local council rents. You can imagine councils cutting back and going for an outsourced private sector solution. Already, our local council in Waltham Forest has increased the rents above the inflation rate.

Part of our history.

Jeremy makes pertinent historical points too:

The debate goes back to the English Civil War, when the King wanted to secure control of the land he had gained, while Cromwell claimed to speak for the farmers. In truth, it was the Diggers who were the real revolutionaries. They wanted land to be in common ownership.

Despite the restoration of the monarchy, huge areas of land were known as the Commons and survived for almost another two centuries. That is, until the greed of big landowners won out once again.

The Enclosure Acts, one of the most grotesque abuses of power by Parliament, took away the growing and grazing rights of the rural poor. A monstrous attack on working-class life, the enclosures represented the widespread theft of public land, sanctioned by a parliament that was dominated by landowners.

The rural poor, left with nothing and facing starvation, were forced to migrate to industrial cities. It was in these rapidly growing industrial cities – notably in Birmingham – that allotments started to grow. Allotments, then, grew out of opposition to enclosures and the privatisation of common land.

Our culture is becoming increasingly dominated by individualised screen time. The number of clubs and associations where people meet other people has decreased. Go to any allotment and you will see people collaborating, sharing plants and guidance. It is remarkably cohesive with all local communities getting involved. There is an element of self organisation with allotment associations.

Raynor is making a false argument that you need to take over these allotments to build social housing. In reality, only a relatively small percentage of Labour’s housing programme is given over to building housing for working-class people on lower incomes.

She should reverse Thatcher’s right to buy scheme and put local councils at the forefront of building social housing. Giving people huge discounts to buy and preventing local councils from using that money to build new homes has meant they have permanently lost £194 billion in lost equity. Today, tax revenues pay housing benefits to private landlords who have bought up social housing that could have been used to house their tenants at a lower cost.

We should defend our allotments against the Labour government’s attempt to allow building developers to take them over. Not one plot should go!

Dave Kellaway is on the Editorial Board of Anti*Capitalist Resistance, a member of Hackney and Stoke Newington Labour Party, a contributor to International Viewpoint and Europe Solidaire Sans Frontieres.

Then they came for our allotments

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