Momentum is ignoring the views of working class people by intervening in North London housing

Haringey's new housing scheme would have been transformative for so many – but the hard left won't let it happen

Some Labour Party members in Tottenham accused the council of using the HDV to 'socially cleanse' and even 'ethnically cleanse' the area. (Alamy)

There is a political battle going on within the London Borough of Haringey which has become so loud that it has gained the attention of the national media. There have been mass deselections of moderate Labour councillors, replaced by those backed by Momentum, and Haringey now looks set to be the first left-wing led council after the local elections in May 2018.

The issue at the centre of it is a regeneration project, known as the HDV, the Haringey Development Vehicle. In partnership with a private company, the Labour council’s aim is to use the HDV to redevelop some of the most deprived parts of the borough, including building over 6000 homes. The HDV has been actively campaigned against by Momentum and this week, the national Labour Party has intervened to “ask” the Labour council to halt the scheme.

Momentum poses as a radical pressure group, yet they have refused to hear the voices of working class people who live on the estates, who speak in support of the scheme and want change. One Labour councillor, a long-standing party member and trade unionist, told me, “I knocked on many doors in Northumberland Park during the summer and 98 per cent of the people I spoke to were in favour of the HDV. In fact, the concerns they had were how long it was going to be before the development got started.” When I spoke to local residents on the estate I was told again and again that they wanted it to happen. “Change is needed in Northumberland Park,” as one person said to me.

I was told by the former Chair of the residents committee on one of the estates that anti-HDV campaigners had knocked on doors and told council tenants the council was going to “throw you out, send you to places like Birmingham and Manchester and not going to let you back”. The campaigners repeated this idea again and again that existing council tenants would not be re-housed under the scheme.

Even some Labour Party members in Tottenham accused the council of using the HDV to “socially cleanse” and even “ethnically cleanse” the area. None of this is true, yet these arguments have become accepted in the wider political discussions about the HDV. The truth is that the Labour council has given a legal guarantee that every council tenant would be given the right to a property on the new scheme. Their statement gives “a guaranteed right for all existing council tenants to remain in, or move back to, their estate if it is redeveloped.” It’s not ambiguous, and yet it is not being heard.

There are many examples which demonstrate the thoughtful and humane approach of the moderate Labour council to the communities affected. For example, those living in overcrowded conditions, which, as those of us who work in housing know, is a high proportion of council tenants, would be given the right to a property that was the right size for their family. For so many children, growing up sharing a bedroom with their parents, siblings, and even grandparents, this would have been utterly transformative. Space, privacy, and dignity for all of them. This was guaranteed to people under the HDV, and yet, again, it has been ignored and dismissed by the highly political anti-HDV campaign. Why? The answer is that ideological opposition to the involvement of the private sector has been placed above the needs of families for better housing now.

The HDV is on its knees, and with it the hopes of some of the poorest communities in Haringey for decent housing. If the HDV is stopped, it may well be seen in time as a great betrayal of the very people Labour is here to represent, it will consign hundreds of people to housing poverty, overcrowding and dilapidated conditions for at least another generation, it will be a sad day for Labour’s history of championing the poorest, and it will be a sad day for Haringey.