Crises like Grenfell and coronavirus expose the cracks in society, but they can also bring us together for change

I led the Grenfell frontline response and some of the things I saw resembled disasters in the developing world, such as famines and wars

Three years ago this Sunday, the fire at Grenfell Tower focussed the attention of not only the country but the world on the painful and unjust divisions in our society. But we also saw those divides giving birth to a unity and solidarity few had experienced before.

The Covid-19 pandemic has replicated this more recently: bringing different communities together to fill the gaps left by underfunding, neglect, and marginalisation.

I led the Grenfell frontline response for the humanitarian charity Penny Appeal and some of the things I saw resembled the situations we assist with in the developing world during famines, natural disasters or wars.

For years, I’ve been pushing for British-based global charities to do more at home in response to worsening social conditions. Grenfell was the watershed moment when many realised the worsening poverty, suffering and limited access to public services for those most in need could no longer be ignored.

I would expect to work alongside the Red Cross in Bangladesh or Uganda, not a stone’s throw from the most expensive properties in the UK. It was the rapid disaster response experience of charity workers that allowed the fallout of Grenfell to be brought under control, with our volunteers handing out food and blankets and supporting community institutions like the local mosque, with other organisations facilitating emergency cash grants to survivors.

That this response from charities used to working in the developing world was needed in one of the wealthiest boroughs in the country was a wake up call to us all. If this can happen in Kensington and Chelsea, worse could happen in Grimsby or Glasgow.

The same underlying issues that led to Grenfell have been pushed to the forefront during the pandemic. Overcrowded housing has increased the virus’s transmission in certain communities, especially Bame ones. Child poverty has become even more of an issue in the absence of school meals and with access to teachers and social workers limited.

Accelerating all of this is austerity. The services that many of the most vulnerable relied on have often disappeared, meaning that independent food banks and elderly support networks have sprung up over the past 10 years to step in where government has left communities behind. These have provided a lifeline to many during lockdown.

Most importantly for Grenfell residents, in the last decade 10,000 firefighters and dozens of fire stations have been axed. As of last December, there are still 319 buildings with dangerous Grenfell-style cladding. This means that thousands of people are living in danger of another disaster, and our fire services are even less prepared to deal with it.

Since 2010, central government funding to local authorities has been cut by 50 per cent. Unsurprisingly, local government bodies have often felt they have no choice but to cut corners, even in services as basic as housing.

Councils are responsible for many of the day-to-day decisions that affect us – especially those of us more dependent on public services. At the same time as their finances have been hit, the local press that provided much needed oversight and accountability of their actions (or inaction) has all but disappeared in many areas.

A decade into austerity, we have still not fully confronted it or articulated an economically workable alternative. I fear that, as the OECD predicts Britain will face the deepest recession of any developed country after Covid-19, things will get worse not better.

But there is hope. Covid-19, like Grenfell, has shown us that our society is less divided than it sometimes appears. Neither viruses nor fires discriminate, but the policies that protect people from them do. With both austerity and coronavirus we were told we were “all in this together” – but we were not in it together equally.

Crises expose the cracks in our society, but they also offer us an opportunity to address them together. I was inspired by the groundswell of solidarity I witnessed three years ago in the wake of the fire, but we don’t want to perpetuate the increasingly common culture of charities having to plug the gap where public services are absent.

The “new normal” we aspire to must be one where Grenfell will never happen again.

Harris Iqbal is CEO of humanitarian charity Penny Appeal.