Shouts for justice at Grenfell protest

by New Worker correspondent

Demonstrators called for justice outside the  draped ruins of the Grenfell Tower block which will be demolished in the autumn. They had walked in silence to the site of the tragedy in West London to hear the names of the 72 victims of the fire that ripped through the building in June 2017 and take part in a memorial rally by the tower.
Fire fighters stood to attention on each side of the road outside Ladbroke Grove station, facing the passing crowd with their helmets at their feet. Passing protestors hugged them and shook their hands.
Vice-chair of Grenfell United, Karim Mussilhy, who lost his uncle in the blaze, told the crowd: “Eight years have passed, eight years since the fire – lit by negligence, greed and institutional failure – tore through our homes, our families and our hearts.
“And still no justice has come. The truth is, there’s almost nothing new to say because nothing has changed. As we stand here eight years on, the only decision this Government has made is to tear down the tower – our home.
“Not because justice has been delivered, but despite the fact it hasn’t – before a single person has been held accountable, to make what happened disappear.
“The tower has stood not just as a reminder of what happened, but of what must change – a symbol and a truth in the face of denial, of dignity in the face of power, of our resistance, of our 72 loved ones who can’t fight for their own justice.
“And now they want it gone, out of sight out of mind, a clear skyline and a forgotten scandal”.
The crowd faced the tower and chanted: “Justice, justice”.
At the end of the rally the demonstrators filed through the gates, which are rarely opened, to pay their respects at the base of the tower to the victims of the blaze that destroyed the 24 storey residential tower.
The final Grenfell Tower Inquiry report, published in September 2024, concluded that victims, bereaved and survivors were “badly failed” through incompetence, dishonesty and greed.
The tower block was covered in combustible products because of the “systematic dishonesty” of firms who made and sold the cladding and insulation, inquiry chairman Sir Martin Moore-Bick said.

The deadly cost of austerity in the Royal Borough of Grenfell

Jeremy Corbyn with Emma Dent Coad

By Theo Russell

Former Labour MP for Kensington from 2017 to 2019 Emma Dent Coad, known locally as "the people's MP", was the star speaker at the online AGM of the Hammersmith, Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea Trades Council last week. There she spoke of the massive inequality in the borough and the many unanswered questions about Kensington & Chelsea council's £50 million Grenfell Recovery Fund.
    The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea (RBKC) has now pledged to produce a report on its Grenfell-related spending for the first time since the fire in June 2017 in which 72 people died.
    Dent Coad, who is also a current RBKC councillor and a member of the Audit and Transparency Committee, said it was “hugely frustrating that it has taken so long” to have these details made public.
    The Grenfell survivors and bereaved have so far seen very little of the funds, with many still not rehoused nearly four years later, and very little to show of the support services promised to them.
    In 2019-20, almost 60 per cent of the £4.5 million Grenfell budget for the year was staff and council property costs. Last year a council spokesperson told the London Evening Standard that £601,000 was spent on two managers - now denied by the council.
Dent Coad said people involved in the disaster regularly stop her in the street to express their frustration     with the distribution of recovery money and the lack of transparency. “I get asked about it all the time, it's not just that people are angry about it - people are hurt by it”.
    She said that “there is no leadership in the council” and described the current Tory MP Felicity Buchan as “appalling” and “a nodding dog for Boris Johnson who never stands up for her residents”.
    Current and former members and officers of the council, including the council leader, will be appearing before the Grenfell Inquiry in April, and Dent Coad said huge sums had been spent on legal advice and preparation.
    The inquiry is due to finish in spring 2022 “after which the police investigation, which has been ongoing, will spring into action - we hope”.
    “We expect to see arrests, but not to see anyone go to prison. The police can't afford to make mistakes, so they're going to be super careful”.
    Dent Coad recalled that “on the day of the fire two senior Tory councillors were overheard on an ITV report saying 'We offered them sprinklers and they refused' - a completely false claim”.
    The former Labour MP also spoke about the report by Kensington Labour Party Research Unit published last autumn, The most unequal borough in Britain, which she said had “changed the perception of Kensington and Chelsea as a playboy princes' playground”.
    `"RBKC", the report says, "the borough of princes, Sultans, plutocrats and billionaires, was our beautiful borough 'the most unequal borough in Britain'?
    ` How, in what one Councillor called “the richest borough in the universe”, with three billion pounds in reserves, could 72 people burn to death in a fire which, even in the earliest days, was blamed on 'cheap cladding'?"
    The borough has the highest life expectancy in the country, but across the borough the gap in years lived is a massive 27 years. Even more shocking, since 2010 - when a decade of austerity began to pay for the 2008 banking crash - average life expectancy in Golborne Ward fell by six years, the worst decline in the country.
    So a Moroccan man on the Wornington Green estate in North Kensington can expect to live to 64, while a white British born man near Harrods can expect to live to 91.
    This is the real impact of a decade of austerity and low pay on peoples' lives, while in London, across Britain and indeed the whole capitalist world, the rich accumulate ever more wealth, year after year.
    The report shows that by 2020 inequality was far worse than in 2014. In England's richest borough, according to Trust for London, in 2020 38 per cent of children lived in poverty, higher than the London average of 37 per cent! So the borough sees Britain's greatest concentration of the rich, side by side with its worst levels of child poverty.
    While some households have an annual income of £1.8m, while a few miles away whole communities are getting by on £18,000.
    We are not talking about the unemployed: three quarters of poor children have working parents, either full time or with at least two part-time jobs. What we're talking about here is low pay, insecure employment, daily worry and stress.
    Emma Dent Coad lost the December 2019 Westminster election by just 130 votes, after winning by 20 votes in 2017 after three recounts. But she has no intention of giving up the fight for the Grenfell community and for social justice. And despite the current difficulties and divisions in the Labour Party under Starmer's leadership, she stressed the need for a united opposition to take those struggles forward.

United for Grenfell!

by Theo Russell

Thousands of people from the local community, trade unionists from London and across Britain, and a contingent from Hammersmith, Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea Trades Council joined a highly emotional, silent march in North Kensington last Friday, two years after 72 people were lost in the Grenfell Tower fire.

There is anger in the local community at the fact that two years on no-one has been held accountable and no arrests have been made. Some survivors are still living in hotels whilst across Britain tens of thousands are still living in unsafe buildings.

The march was joined by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, rappers Stormzy, Lowkey and Akala, firefighters and about 60 ‘Riders for Grenfell’ bikers. There were banners from the Fire Brigades Union, Dundee Trades Council and Barnet Unison.

Speaking before the march, rap artist Akala said: “This tragedy was not an accident, it was the product of a philosophy that says some lives have value and some don’t. People were warned but people ignored those messages.”

The Justice 4 Grenfell Campaign issued a ‘Message of Solidarity’ that said: “We will continue to speak out on the injustices surrounding the fire at Grenfell tower and keep it in the public domain; we will continue to demand that the public inquiry keeps ‘people’ at the heart of the process; we will continue to demand changes in laws and regulations, to prevent another disaster like Grenfell happening; we will continue to make demands so that everyone has a home where they are safe. Your continued support will be critical to this.

“The North Kensington community needs and appreciates your support at this difficult time. We are with our community today. We are standing with Grenfell today and we want to say a heartfelt thank you to you for standing with us too.”

The silent march was held a day before the national Grenfell march from Whitehall to parliament.

United for Grenfell!

by New Worker correspondent

Several hundred people from the local community along with many trade unionists joined the 21st Silent March for Grenfell last week, including Fire Brigades Union general secretary Matt Wrack. The dignified and very moving event remembering the 72 people who died in the fire starts from close to the Grenfell Tower every month, and on this occasion ended with calls for justice and change from local community activists including the rap artist Lowkey.

Last week campaigners heard that no criminal charges will be made against the organisations and individuals responsible for the fire until at least 2021. Tasha Brade from the Justice for Grenfell campaign said: “Why do the police have to wait until the Grenfell Inquiry is over before taking action? Aren’t they carrying out their own investigation? So far we know that 11 people have been questioned under caution but we’ve got no idea who they are. Our community wants justice for the victims of the fire and we want it as soon as possible.”

Mounting anger over Grenfell Tower Inquiry

Moyra Samuels speaking

By Theo Russell

Warnings of protests at the Grenfell Tower Inquiry were heard this week as anger and frustration mount over the direction of the inquiry at a meeting between the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) and the local community close to the site of the fire, the worst in the UK since the Blitz.

Frustration and anger is mounting at the direction of the inquiry, where the presiding judge initially refused to take any questions from community members.

Moyra Samuels of the Justice4Grenfell campaign received loud applause from survivors and local community members at the meeting last Tuesday when she said: “There should be protests outside the inquiry, to show the judge that people are not happy with it.”

Her call was backed up by Matt Wrack, FBU general secretary, who said: “If a total ban on the use of external flammable cladding is not announced, maybe we should start protesting against the inquiry.”

Samuels told the meeting: “We are a tough community but unfortunately we discovered that through the fire at Grenfell. We need truth, accountability, change and justice.”

She dubbed Kensington & Chelsea council, the richest in Britain, “the Royal Borough of Murder and Profit”, and said that “trust between the North Kensington community and the council had broken down long before the fire”.

“We were told by fire experts that the refurbishment of the Grenfell Tower was safe, yet now a QC has told the Inquiry that it was actually a death trap. We have discovered that profit is more important than people.”

Matt Wrack added that a parliamentary committee was warned as far back as 1999 that faulty cladding posed serious fire hazards.

Now the inquiry has heard from Angelo Lucchini, an Italian architectural engineer, that the cladding used at Grenfell was equivalent to dousing the building with 32,000 litres of petrol, “enough to fill approximately 600 cars”.

The FBU is calling for a total ban on flammable cladding, which is used for weather and sound proofing, yet incredibly so far the inquiry has shown no signs of calling for a total ban.

The government has admitted that the cladding used at Grenfell was unlawful, yet instead of calling for a complete ban is carrying out a consultation on the use of combustible materials, in which companies making the cladding will take part.

Matt Wrack told the meeting that “very powerful forces are lobbying against a ban, and they have the ear of the government”. These companies are part of a multi-billion pound building, construction and property industry.

Wrack said that before Grenfell no tests were conducted on combustible cladding, which has also been used on hundreds of blocks across Britain, but since the fire dozens of tests have all failed safety requirements.

He said the FBU is also calling for a thorough review of fire and building regulations, which have been gutted in the last 20 years, and cuts to fire brigades. In 2015–2016 there was a 15 per cent rise in fire deaths in London.

Ten fire stations and 600 firefighter posts were cut during Boris Johnson’s term as London Mayor. On the day of the tragedy firefighters had to call for assistance from neighbouring brigades, yet even then had to work in the tower for 12 hours or more with no chance of being relieved.

The FBU has complained to the inquiry about its choice of expert witnesses, who include the same Chief Fire Officers who supported service cuts and deregulation.

Fifteen months on from the fire many survivors are still in temporary accommodation. The day after the fire a survivor said the tower was an “accident waiting to happen”, adding: “For years they’ve abused our community.”

Concerns about the tower’s safety began years before the fire and in 2013 the council threatened Grenfell resident Edward Daffarn with legal action after he blogged about fire safety concerns, including power surges that caused computers and stereos to blow up filling rooms with smoke.

In a blog in November 2016 Daffam warned: "It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord."

Over 100 people living in the block told an emergency residents’ meeting on the Grenfell refurbishment in 2015 that the council’s Tenant Management Organisation and the contractors were “using cheap materials and cutting corners”.

The day after the tragedy one of the messages on the tribute wall nearby read “Justice for Grenfell. Jail those responsible”. That is still what the community is demanding, and they want the cladding contractors and the senior politicians responsible to be included.