Homeless people have been moved out of the subways around the UK Westminster Palace thanks to Members of Parliament (MPs) complaining about them.
Vagrancy Act, 1824
The Metropolitan Police are using the 1824 Vagrancy Act that forbids rough sleeping. According to the Independent newspaper one 60-year-old homeless man said, “They asked me to leave. I asked why, but they didn’t give me a good reason, they just said, ‘Section four’ – meaning section four of the Vagrancy Act, which I’ve heard before. It’s happened quite regularly since the end of February. There was one officer who told me they had had a complaint from a MP.”
The tunnels around the Westminster ‘Tube’ subway station are dry and quite warm, and link the underground train station to the Palace of Westminster. Police harassing the homeless is a relatively new thing. While not exactly welcomed to the complex, most of those sleeping there caused no trouble. The newspaper reported that one guy had just woken up and was reading his Bible when a group of police told him to move on – hardly an offensive act!
Homeless Death in the Complex
In December a homeless man died in the complex of tunnels. The BBC reported, “The man, who was named as Gyula Remes, 43, was found by British Transport Police at 23.30 GMT on Tuesday outside Westminster Underground Station. Officers administered first aid and he was taken to a central London hospital but he died in the early hours.”
Members of the homeless community said Remes had recently landed a job. He was fond of giving his fellows food and sweets that he had thanks to his job. Having a job in London is no guarantee of being housed. This is due to the sheer expense of housing in the city, which is one of the most expensive cities in the world in terms of property values.
Polarised Parliament
While one MP showed callousness toward an ‘unwashed’ person asleep in a tunnel, not all MPs are the same. Parliament is as polarised toward social issues as the public. I can almost certainly say that the complainant was from an MP in the governing Conservative Party. They are known for their hard politics toward the vulnerable in society. Like the US GOP, the party calls itself the ‘party of business’. It sides with lower taxation policies no matter the effect of poor government services on those who need it.
A group of left leaning MPs have put forward a ‘Private Members Bill’ to repeal the Vagrancy Act. The Independent reported, “Layla Moran, the Lib Dem MP who has launched a private members’ bill to repeal the act, said: “The news that the Vagrancy Act is actively being used to deter vulnerable people near Westminster is shameful – we must stop using this outdated law”.
The government will likely oppose the Bill in question. It has such a horrid record when it comes to dealing with those in poverty. Private Members Bills often fail thanks to the government refusing to support them. Being the largest party in Parliament, this may well be the case.
With Jeremy Corbyn leading the Labour Party, for the first time in nearly 40 years there is a party that actively fights the plight of those at the bottom of society. Unlike the Conservative Party, it is largely funded in small sums from individuals. (Being the party of business, the Conservatives take large lumps of cash from business). Labour is now the biggest party in Europe in terms of membership. It has more members than all other parties in the UK combined. This is why we see a polarisation in both Parliament and among the public.
Where Will They Go?
It seems that those moving on the homeless living in the tunnels don’t care where they move to. Westminster Council has a poor track record when it comes to homeless people. They have fined them heavily and have even had them put in prison. 1,660 homeless people have been arrested for vagrancy between 2013 and 2017 in the central London area.
The Independent reported, “Rough sleepers we work with tell us how they feel harassed and anxious and unsafe,” said Shaista Aziz, co-founder of the Labour Homelessness Campaign. “People who are rough sleeping are people denied agency and rights,” she added. “The Vagrancy Act is a cruel and out-of-date law that is being used to further alienate, criminalise and demonise the most vulnerable in society.”
A March 27 opinion piece in The Guardian newspaper suggested, “This is how today’s governing classes comport themselves, while the country teeters on the edge of a cliff: they behave with neither care nor caution, let alone concern for the welfare of the nation. These people are laughing at us, even as they take our money to go about their daily business.” About sums it up!
