One million council homes

Submitted by Matthew on 28 May, 2013 - 8:08

It is time for Trotsky’s transitional programme list of demands and the key demand is the building of one million new council houses over four years.

This demand was put forward by Owen Jones in The Independent recently.

Building one million new council houses over four years answers the question which many workers ask about what a workers’ government would do.

A council house building programme can be achieved under capitalism but raises a whole series of questions about how such a demand can be met.

One answer is to use the £24 billion a year currently paid to private landlords via housing benefit. This has to be linked to the expropriation of the banks, the land, and the building industry.

At the same time, it is necessary to raise the minimum wage to £18,000 a year, followed by the phasing out of housing benefit and tax credits.

Such a demand puts pressure on Ed Miliband to “make Labour fight”, and is the only way of undercutting support for UKIP amongst the most despairing sections of the working class.

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