[Squat!net]

Squatting collective the Autonomous Nation of Anarchist Libertarians (ANAL) continue to underline exactly how much high-end housing is lying empty while homeless people sleep on the rain-soaked concrete, having spent last night moving into another mansion.
The group wrote: “Facing a police enforced eviction at 4 Grovesnor Gardens, ANAL have decided to relocate AS CLOSE TO THE QUEENS BEDROOM as possible…. Overlooking Wellington barracks, introducing our new squat, 19 Buckingham Gate.”
19 Buckingham Gate, which is just yards away from Buckingham Palace’s gardens, is the third property in a row to have been taken on by the collective, which took over 108 Easton Square in January (where they fended off fascist attackers) and 4 Grosvenor Gardens in February.
The overall site, 18-19 Buckingham Gate, is currently being given a slightly gaudy-looking makeover by developer Simpson Haugh and Partners, with a view to turning it into 14 luxury apartments for the sort of people who can afford to pay (if it’s anything like the neighbours’ place) £2.5 million a pop for the chance to get a good view of the royal behind.
The developer lists the owner as “private,” however if it’s not “18-19 Buckingham Gate Investment Ltd” then coincidences abound.
If ANAL keep up their current rate of mansion occupations they could have collectively squatted in properties worth well over £100m by the end of the year. [Read More]

Heads-up for the long-awaited Issue 5 of your friendly, local squatters’ paper.

SLAP! is a squatter’s freesheet first printed in early 2016. After a quick half-year of squat-hopping, sitting around and organising elsewhere, some of us involved in the previous four issues teamed up with others and knocked-together a fifth. SLAP! is back to support the flow of counter-info between London squats and act as a semi-regular message-board for squat happenings, updates and unapologetic ideas.
[Read More]

Belgravia squatters the Autonomous Nation of Anarchist Libertarians (ANAL) report that they fought off an attack on the 28th from heavies wearing fascist-linked masks, who seem to have been trying to get them out of the mansion belonging to Russian billionaire Andrey Goncharenko that they squatted on Wednesday.
At the time of writing they are asking for more support to head down to 102 Eaton Square to provide solidarity and support for the occupiers. In a series of notes from their Twitter account, they said:
[The] fascists [have been] fought/scared off. Police liaised and content. We would still appreciate numbers here to display that we will resist … They smashed windows while children were in a peaceful occupation wearing fascist face-scarfs. [The] mansion [is] being secured from the inside after attack by fascists. Children [have been] moved upstairs. No reports of injuries.
ANAL are working to turn the Belgravia squat, in the heart of one of London’s poshest areas, into a homeless shelter for the cold weather. 25 people have been housed so far and there are plans to hold movie nights and other events at the venue. Goncharenko’s representatives, MCA Shipping Ltd, are seeking a possession order and a hearing is scheduled for January 31st. [Read More]

Bristol Council’s decision to dive into the property guardianship game seems to be coming a cropper as several “guardians” have launched legal and direct action challenges demanding something be done about rat-infested and dangerous tenancies in its buildings.
Having closed public services across the city, the council has found itself flush with empty commercial and office properties, which it decided to make a few pennies on by jumping into bed with Camelot property management in 2013. The firm, along with another company Ad Hoc, now rents out much of its portfolio.

Camelot specialises in the gray-area rentals market of property guardianship, getting hard-up people needing a home to fork out anything up to £500 a month, plus deposit of £500-600, to stay in empty non-residential properties with few rights and eviction at a month’s notice. The firm has repeatedly been condemned as trying on dodgy practices, including initially only offering three weeks’ notice (breaching minimum guidelines) and using “pseudo-legal gibberish” to intimidate people they want out. [Read More]

This morning Oxford residents and local homeless people dropped an enormous banner from the front of the old VW garage on Iffley Road declaring “People need homes, empty spaces need people” as a new petition gains momentum and puts pressure on the owners, Wadham College, to support the plight of homeless people this winter.

The building, which has laid empty for two years, was opened on New Year’s eve providing shelter for rough sleepers in response to the growing homelessness crisis.

A group, which included Oxford University students and alumni entered the building after finding, to their amazement, the front door had been left open. A member of the group, Sandra Philips said,

“We have made a temporary home for some of the homeless and rough sleepers of Oxford because council cuts have forced the closure of night shelters and homeless people are dying on our streets. This building lies empty whilst hundreds are without a home or even a roof over their head. We all have an obligation to do what we can to help this situation, everyone is affected by the housing crisis in some way.” [Read More]

In the past year or so, the bottom feeders of the press managed to write many lurid stories about comrades in the UK and our networks, which have not only invaded people’s privacy but have put them at risk from the state and fash. These journalists infiltrated our protests and social events, took close range pictures, trawled social media and pieced together sensationalist and often wildly inaccurate pieces about individuals, and put footage on the internet that led to people being targeted by the cops.
[Read More]

The Squatters Handbook  (ISBN 0 – 9507769 – 7-1) has been published by the Advisory Service for Squatters in London since 1976. It is now in its fourteenth edition and provides over a hundred pages of detailed legal and practical information about squatting and homelessness in England and Wales. Be aware that the law is different in Scotland and Northern Ireland and that the info in the handbook won’t apply there.

We put out the 14th edition of the handbook in October, 2016. More content, easier to read, plus glossary and index and more up to date.

It costs only £2, or £3.50 with postage. Arrangements for squat groups and bookshops.

If you’re in London, come into the office to pick them up. Otherwise, write, phone, or email for your copy. Send us your name and address along with a cheque for £3.50 written out to ASS, or seven 50p stamps (or equivalent), and we’ll get one in the post straight away. We don’t take credit cards. If you urgently need one, call or email us with your details and we’ll send one out along with an invoice. If you live outside of the UK, you can order them from AK press. Contact us for bulk rates if you need a load of them. [Read More]

We are rats running rabid through the stinking guts of London …

Sick of the fractured ‘scene’ of squatters in London, sick of faux-punk venues and the fashionable veneer of rebellion, sick of the apathy and passivity, sick of housing where everyone is locked in their own rooms, their own lives, their existence atomised, stinking of fried chicken and choking on the bones of what once was, we came together to act …

We are a collective of those in active rebellion.

Warsaw. Barcelona. Roma. Thessaloniki. London. All over we meet in joint attack.

We organised on the beaches of London for the TRESPASS gig – selling propaganda to fashion punx and tourists about the trial of the Warsaw 3, dropping banners and smoke flares whilst the crowd rioted amongst itself, spitting in our faces and rejecting all politics.

We put on infonights, skyping with comrades from across Europe, and people came and listened, complained that there was nothing organised in London, that everything was too fluid, too temporary, that nothing ever happened, and we laughed to hide the tragedy of their blindness to their own domestication.

‘You can’t win’, they said, and we sneered, knowing our victory is in the struggle itself.

We meet in the streets outside squats under threat of eviction in Bethnal Green, Brixton, Aldwych, to jeer at bailiffs covered in paint, or see doors battered in, or taunt the cops and accuse them of murder by association. Though we called out for accomplices, few came, but enough remained to support each other and fight. [Read More]

A few days ago the former Camelot Europe HQ, in Westland Park London N1 was squatted in protest against guardian companies’ anti-social profiteering from empty properties and homelessness.

For those who don’t know, Camelot are the original “guardian” company, invented to counter the squatting movement in Holland by moving in people who act as security by living there. Guardians pay rent but have less protection than ordinary tenants, at least according to the wording of their contracts. Other guardian companies also exist, such as our least-favourite Dot Dot Dot ……

A couple of articles have appeared in the Guardian but with certain problems. Both of them seem to agree with Camelot that what the people acting as security guards by living in their properties are is merely licencees, when most legal advice shows that they clearly have tenancies. When challenged on this point most guardian companies back down and come to a deal, rather than allow the issue to go to court. [Read More]

News from London squatters:

The old Crown Court in Southwark squatted !

Between the Trinity House estate and the snatch-vans at Southwark Police Station, the old Crown Court was squatted. The building was formerly the Inner-London Crown Court, and was used to convict and imprison primarily poor and working-class inner-London residents. Along with much of the neighbourhood, it is now owned by the Trinity of St Clement, whose redevelopment plans are eerily similar to the violent regeneration elsewhere in Southwark.

Squatting this building is our response to the criminalisation of the poor and deviant in Southwark, London and beyond. This building’s legacy of imprisonment should be written-over and damaged, and the current situation for London’s poor and deviant challenged. Mainstream culture talks of state and prison violence as if they were elsewhere, but being nicked and doing bird are realities in poor, inner-London life. Wherever we steal, work illegally or resist evictions at our council homes and squats, snatch-vans and courts are used against us. [Read More]

Squatters in Mornington Crescent successfully resisted a second eviction attempt on Wednesday [previously on S!N]. In another show of strength and solidarity by London squatters, thirty to forty people turned out against the bailiffs. Banners were dropped opposing the Housing Bill and evictions ‘from London to Calais’ after the recent squat eviction in the French city. Security contractors Clearway Services arrived prematurely to secure the building but were quickly forced back into their van. ‘There’s who-knows how many of them here,’ a contractor reported to his manager, before driving off with the pigs not so far behind.
[Read More]

London’s most famous eco-squat, Grow Heathrow, celebrates 6 years of inspired resistance. We go along to the party and talk to activists there about their struggles, their successes and our shared future.
Grassroots Takeover radio show: https://soundcloud.com/grassroots-takeover/happy-birthday-grow-heathrow

source: Occupy London http://occupylondon.org.uk/listen-here-to-interviews-and-highlights-from-grow-heathrows-6th-birthday-party/