London witnessed its most devastating high-rise fire in over 70 years when Grenfell Tower in west London became a burning inferno. The blaze began at 1 a.m. on Wednesday and was finally fully extinguished on Thursday around 8 a.m. Seventeen people are confirmed dead, but many more are missing and the death toll is expected to rise.
On Wednesday morning, I went to assist in a pop-up emergency relief centre. I went with a rucksack of donations, not taking my recorder or notebook. I did no interviews. For me, it was not a day for analysis. Arriving to the chaotic scene, I saw the heroic firefighters, locals and others busy or lost in the mayhem. Flats adjacent were evacuated; media cameras swarmed around displaced residents to capture their pain.
I spent the rest of day helping in a community centre that was inundated with food, clothes, toys, toiletries and other donations. People offered their labour and beds in their houses. Donations soared to the ceiling – a story repeated in every nearby community space, church and charity shop. Soon it got to the point where donations were turned away. A lot of the work then became organizing the help and donations so they could reach those in need. The generosity was overwhelming.
A horrific incident caused so many people to give so much; that is the story, and it refers to 99 percent of people. But we need to look at why this happened, and the role of the 1 percent. These deaths could have been avoided if life had been put above profit. Labour MP David Lammy is not alone in calling this “corporate manslaughter.”
The exact cause of the fire remains unknown. But greed and neoliberalism explain its devastation. Austerity cuts explain why the fire and emergency services went into the building understaffed, and why they had to work three times longer in harm’s way than they should have.
During Theresa May’s time as Home Secretary, she [slashed over 10,000 fire officers, cutting spending for firefighters by 30 percent.
Crucially, greed explains why so many people live in buildings that are unsafe and unfit for human habitation. Of course, these residents are working class, and often largely communities of colour.
Death-trap Towers
In 1996, Kensington and Chelsea Tenants Management Organisation (KCTMO) took over as landlord of the Grenfell Tower. The organization now controls nearly 10,000 other social housing blocks from the local council. Britain needs to criminally investigate these inter-connected bodies. More broadly, the UK government and landlords, two equally entwined groups, failed to regulate not only Grenfell Tower but the whole British housing market. As things stand there is nothing to stop another Grenfell happening tomorrow.
Through a “regeneration scheme,” roughly £8.7 million was recently spent cladding the outside of Grenfell Tower. This face-lift was done to serve not only the building's residents but also nearby expensive apartments – basically, to improve their view. Across Britain and around the world, many old concrete buildings get this cladding. Critically, it has been pointed to as a reason why the fire spread so fast, which is what eye-witnesses report. This happened, too, in 2009 in Lakanal House, previously London’s worst high-rise fire. Other similar, fast spreading fires have occurred in Australia, France, the U.S., South Korea and UAE.
Unlike the previous concrete exterior, cladding panels made from polyethylene or plastic are flammable. This means fire can circumvent firewalls and fire-resistant floors and shoot up the building.
Another reason the fatalities were so numerous relates to the battle that residents were in with KCTMO and the council over the regeneration and inadequate infrastructure. They highlighted major safety issues including dangerous electrical surges (that cause fires) and failures to carry out regular safety inspections.
Residents also pointed out that the building only had one stairwell for 24 stories, and no sprinklers. A local blogger as well as community groups raised these concerns. In response, the council and KCTMO threatened to sue them, rather than rectify these ultimately deadly problems.
But this is hardly isolated behavior for KCTMO. Local residents in Ladbroke Grove report they may spend millions on cladding, but will not spend thousands to service lifts in nearby buildings. Another fire in 2015, in nearby Adair Tower, revealed a “catalogue of failures”, as well as in nearby Hazlewood Tower.
KCTMO technically is a not-for-profit company. But its four paid directors took home a combined salary of £650,000 last year. The unavoidable truth is this: cutting corners on safety put more money in their pockets.
Tory Landlords
But cutting corners and regulation is a practice running to the heart of the Conservative government. After the 2009 Lakanal House fire that killed six, the coroner urged then-Housing Minister Gavin Barwell to push through recommendations to install sprinklers in all of Britain’s high-rise flats.
For four years, the government has not acted on this recommendation. Meanwhile, Barwell, after losing his seat as an MP, recently became PM Theresa May’s Chief of Staff.
A conflict of interest is clearer still with Nick Hurd, the Tory minister in charge of fire services. Hurd is a landlord who voted against legislation proposed by Jeremy Corbyn that required all homes to be “fit for human habitation.” The Local Government minister at the time, Marcus Jones, also criticized Corbyn’s idea, saying it "would result in unnecessary regulation and cost to landlords." Jones and 71 other Conservative MP and landlords voted down the bill.
The ethos of Corbyn’s bill – providing homes fit for human habitation rather than allowing poor quality homes as profit machines for the rich – cuts to the core of what went wrong at Grenfell Tower. One specific part of Corbyn’s proposed bill called for stronger electrical inspections. These are a major cause of UK residential fires, which number around 20,000 a year, resulting in 350,000 serious injuries and 70 deaths.
What happens next in the Grenfell Tower tragedy is a major question. The evacuees will continue to need support connecting to the overwhelming amount of donations and volunteer help from the community. But the residents also need to see justice prevail. Those who profited from cutting corners must to go to jail. The Justice for Grenfell campaign will start on Friday at 6pm with a protest outside the Department of Local Government in Westminster.
This disaster has also catalyzed a fiercer debate about inequality, which was already raging with the election. The Conservatives' position is becoming untenable with every bit of contempt they show to the people, foremost the residents of Grenfell Tower.
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