Mobilising opposition: The campaign against housing action trusts in Tower Hamlets

Abstract

This paper examines tenant opposition to the British government's plans for Housing Action Trusts (HATs), using material drawn from a case study of the tenants' anti‐HAT campaign in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. After examining the HAT plans, the reasons for tenant objections to the privatisation of their council estates are explained. The political discourse of the anti‐HAT campaign is examined in order to assess the strategies by which support amongst tenants on both the affected estates, and in the borough as a whole, was mobilised. Strategies of resistance to the HATs were negotiated within the campaign through a constant process of discussion and debate about the purposes of the campaign and the construction of arguments against the policy. Central themes to emerge included a justification of the principles behind the provision of council housing; parallels that could be drawn between the HATs and the London Docklands Development Corporation; the notion that only tenant power could defeat the HATS; and arguments linking local experiences of the ‘housing crisis’ to the HATs and the government's housing policies more generally. The experience of this campaign underlines the necessity for potential divisions in such campaigns to be minimised in order to mobilise support and achieve their objectives.