‘Elderly couple told they had to sell home to house asylum seekers’ is a headline tailor-made for the anxieties of 2024. It is the kind of headline, indeed, that trumps the story itself: it confirms everything the typical conservative Telegraph reader intuits about what is going on across the West as we speak. The old order disappearing; a great wave of immigration replacing it; and all for some reason facilitated and even encouraged by the state – which, to top it off, forces the people already here, who can ill-afford it, to subsidise the process financially. That the headline also concerns housing, the hottest hot button issue of the day, of course rounds everything off perfectly: if there is one thing guaranteed to unite young and old up and down the land, it is outrage at the thought that precious housing stock should be compulsorily sold to house migrants rather than being made available for citizens to buy.
The actual story could never live up to that headline, and sure enough the truth as reported is much less blood-boiling than it sounds at first blush. Yes, an elderly couple were told in a letter they received from their local authority (North Northamptonshire Council) that they had to sell their home to house asylum seekers, but they received another letter three days later apologising and telling them the first had been sent in error. Their house was not going to be compulsorily purchased at all. The story was actually a bit of a damp squib, then, in its own narrow facts.
Nonetheless, it is far from a ‘nothingburger’, and has some disturbing and important connotations that are worth teasing out. For it brings to the fore the crucial connection that I have previously drawn between the ownership of property and the form of government which it is proper to label tyrannical, in that it governs in a manner which transcends law, and indeed only tolerates the existence of rules insofar as they apply to the subject, rather than the ruler himself.
What happened to the elderly couple in question has, though, first to be set in context. While no local authority anywhere in the U.K. is currently compulsorily purchasing homes that are lived in, it seems that throughout the country they have been quietly “identifying empty properties” which are owned, with the aim of buying them through compulsory purchase orders (though it is unclear whether any purchases are yet actually taking place) – and that they are doing this explicitly because of a rise in the number of asylum seekers being granted leave to remain in the country. So while no homeowner is being turfed out of a house in which they live, it does seem to be the case that councils at least have it in mind to start buying empty houses so that they (or possibly ultimately the Home Office) can use them to house asylum seekers.
So in broad brush strokes the tale that springs to mind on reading the story’s headline – that immigrants are being in some sense prioritised for housing and that citizens who are property owners are being forced to give it up on their behalf – has a grain of truth to it. And in this regard there is something deeply disingenuous about the way in which the leader of North Northamptonshire framed the issue when asked for comment by the Telegraph, as cited in its story:
Compulsory Purchase Orders… are not utilised to ‘oust’ current owners from their properties, they are a tool used as a very last resort to bring empty properties, which are a valuable and much need housing resource, back into use.
The ‘empty property initiative letters’ were sent out in a bid to assist empty property owners bring their property back into use.
This makes it sound as though the council is just running the scheme as a public service project to help out little old ladies who happen to own extra homes they wish to sell and haven’t heard of the concept of an estate agent. And it carefully cloaks what is really going on: if a house is standing empty and unsold then presumptively that has to be put down to the choice of the owner. Why would you not sell an empty house you own? Well, maybe you plan to do something with it. Maybe you’ve inherited it and haven’t made up your mind whether to sell it or to keep it in the family. Or maybe you’re waiting for it to increase in value so you can sell it for more money in five or 10 years’ time. And why on earth shouldn’t you, since you own it?
What we are talking about, then, is not something as dramatic as homeowners being forced to sell the very houses they live in, but the difference between that scenario and the one that could be unfolding is only one of degree, not of kind. It remains the case that in the U.K., in 2024, your right to property counts for basically nothing if the state is determined to take a house that you own from you so that it can be put “back into use”. The state will decide what the best use of your property is, and whatever you had in mind will have to disappear in a puff of smoke. If you want to make God laugh, tell North Northamptonshire Council your plans.
Some of the reporting of the story revealed an important misunderstanding on this point. Ross Clark, for example (a journalist for whom I have a very high regard), in a piece he later wrote for the Telegraph raised the question as to why human rights lawyers had had nothing to say about the affair and about the protection of the right to property in general. As he put it, “I thought that private property rights were supposed to be defended by humans rights laws.”
As I have explained elsewhere, however, that defence is really only notional. The right to property, such as it exists in the U.K., is found in Article 1 of Protocol 1 (A1P1) to the European Convention on Human Rights (with emphasis added):
1. Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law.
2. The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of a state to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties.
You will of course have noticed that this is tantamount to saying that there is no fundamental right to property in the U.K., because all that needs to happen is for the State to decide it would be in the public interest to take a person’s property away, and it can do it “subject to the conditions provided for by law” – i.e., if there is legislation allowing it to do so (which there is – the most recent being the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004). And in this, of course, the U.K. is no outlier. Wherever you are sitting, it is almost certainly the case that the state can also take away your property on the basis of a law of ‘eminent domain’ or similar, provided it pays you a fair market price and has some vaguely plausible account as to how doing so is for the greater good.
This all brings to mind one of the key texts to which my articles continually refer: Leo Strauss’s On Tyranny. Here, Strauss makes clear to us firstly that it is entirely appropriate to refer to this governing style as tyrannical, and secondly what it consequences are.
Although ‘tyranny’ conjures in the mind images of brutal authoritarianism or capricious cruelty, Strauss, in a masterful interpretation of Xenophon’s Hiero (purportedly a book of advice to tyrants), shows us that its essence is really the desire that an illegitimate ruler has to provide justification for his own status. A tyrant quintessentially ascends to the throne through extra-constitutional means, and therefore he cannot point to law (or democratic legitimacy) in order to keep his status. Instead, counterintuitively, in order to prevent himself being overthrown by the population, he needs to try to make them love and depend upon him. This means that a wise tyrant is driven to come up with reasons as to why his rule is actually more practically beneficial than any alternative. (Whether it actually is more beneficial being much less important than it being plausibly described as such.)
This, Strauss tells us, has particular implications for property. The wise tyrant “would consider his [entire] fatherland his private property which he would naturally administer according to his own discretion”. Why? Because if the population have strong property rights, they cannot be made dependent on the tyrant – they for the most part can get by perfectly well on their own, thankyouverymuch. If they are to be made dependent, they cannot then be permitted to have property rights as such. Instead, they can only be permitted to enjoy property on sufferance, as a kind of gift or prize that is doled out by the tyrant. What the tyrant wants is for ownership to be contingent on his whim and his purported largesse, so that his beneficence can be made clear.
And this also has implications for law. Tyranny, Strauss tells us, “would become morally possible if the identification of ‘just’ and ‘legal’ were not absolutely correct”. What does this strange comment mean? It means that tyranny comes into existence, and derives its justification from, gaps between accounts of justice and law. Wherever somebody is in a position to make an argument that it is necessary to transcend or ignore (or even violate) law in order to properly realise justice, we are in the place where tyranny comes into being. The history of political extremism since the French Revolution is of course a litany of examples of this great insight, whether we think of Robespierre himself (the provincial lawyer who decreed that courts should no longer apply law, but revolutionary spirit in achieving a more complete form of justice); the Bolsheviks (whose legal theory was predicated on the ultimate disappearance of law itself); Pol Pot’s Democratic Kampuchea (which abolished law almost entirely and governed through the people’s will to justice), and countless others like them. But the rationale is by no means the preserve of the genocidaire; it is, rather, a temptation which is ever present when thoughts of political leaders turn to justifications as to why the law is an inconvenient quibble which it would be nice to be able to circumvent. Well, what if the law were an ass, and justice better achieved by ignoring it?
We do not live under a tyranny, in the sense that we live in a constitutional democracy where the commitment to the rule of law remains, at least on the face of it, relatively strong. But the value of Strauss’s insight is that it demonstrates to us the means by which such a constitutional democratic framework can be corrupted. To put the matter crudely, if you begin to govern in the fashion of a tyrant, then, like the child who keeps pulling faces until the wind changes, sooner or later you won’t be able to stop. And by then the distinction between constitutional democracy and tyranny will have ceased to matter. You’ll just be a good old fashioned tyrant in everything but name.
It is within this context that we need to think about the compulsory purchase of property. A tyrant, remember, wants to imagine his whole ‘fatherland’ as his own to manage at his discretion, and he wants to govern in such a way as to trivialise or transcend legal rules in order to demonstrate commitment to a purer or better form of justice. And he wants to do this self-consciously to present himself as good and necessary, and to reduce the population to a state of dependence. One way he might do this is to dream up a bogus ‘right to property’ that effectively achieves the opposite to what that phrase would on its face appear to mean, and to use ‘the public interest’ as a justification for re-allocating property to people more readily conceivable as a dependent class. This would be entirely consistent with his worldview, in which all property is ultimately conceived of as being within his gift to distribute as he sees fit. And it would be entirely consistent with his aim, which is to justify his position on the basis of its basic necessity to a population largely comprising dependents.
To repeat: we still live in a constitutional democracy. But we see before us the myriad means by which its corruption into tyranny could take place. One should not get too excited – we’re not there yet, and may never be so. But we should be very concerned about the blitheness with which our governing classes adopt an essentially tyrannical attitude to property and law.
Dr. David McGrogan is an Associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School. He is the author of the News From Uncibal Substack where this article first appeared.
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How did such a letter come about even in error? Someone must have spent time on it and considered the wording. Did it get checked by a legal team?
Oh the letter was very carefully drafted and every word was meant: they just made an error by sending it to the wrong house/owner.
And when this happens for real and people speak out, the usual useful idiots will no doubt respond with: “That’s a conspiracy theory, the letter was sent in error, I saw it in the papers.”
You forgot to mention another reason why a property owner might keep it empty. Perhaps they are waiting for the local planning department to process a planning application – that can take a very long time.
The bigger issue is that ownership implies the right to use an asset as one wants. With Gove introducing rules that guarantee tenants can thumb their noses at landlords many more will chose to keep them empty. Similarly, many AirBNB owners will likely hold their assets unoccupied following Gove’s Whitehall run approvals scheme.
Looking back to Gove’s announcement and this case, one can readily imagine that use as an AirBNB (or holiday let) will be routinely denied so local councils can compulsorily buy them for illegal immigrants to use. That will really upset Tory voters in some of the more fashionable holiday areas: seeing moderately well off holiday makers, who spend in shops, pubs and restaurants, replaced with Channel crossers and others who cannot earn enough so the tax payers subsidise them.
How long before there are ghettos in Southwold, Aldborough and throughout Norfolk and the west country. Oh, how pleased the Tories will be by their social successes.
Another reason can be that the property was subject to Compulsory Purchase for a project that has actually folded (for the time being). No CPO, and not much market the other way either when that happens.
And another reason could be that they are temporarily working abroad (could be a two or three year contract) and want a home here to return to …. which hasn’t been trashed by tenants.
“We do not live under a tyranny, in the sense that we live in a constitutional democracy where the commitment to the rule of law remains, at least on the face of it, relatively strong.”
‘at least on the face of it’ is the operative phrase here. There have been numerous examples in recent years of the UK authorities trampling all over the rule of law without so much as a murmur of protest from the obedient populace.
Spot on. Apparently we lived through 3 years of Rona fascist tyranny. Lost on the writer of this article.
Unfortunately a lot of people think that the response to the scamdemic was a knee jerk reaction to something not prepared for. When I explain to people that the Government had in place, for over a decade, a National Flu Plan along with the extensive planning requirements of the Civil Contingencies Act, I just get the dead stare…
I have been pointing out repeatedly and for months now that ‘the rule of law’ has become a fiction. Similarly ‘legally binding’ which will garland the Pandemic Preparedness Treaty. If it suits the government of the day and its corrupt judges then it’s the rule of law or legally binding but only as it suits.
This is very similar to Germany with the AfD. A democratic party with over 20% popular support will be made illegal because it is a threat to ‘democracy.’ And of course this will be wholly within the ‘rule of law.’
A YouTube video I posted (I think) last night of an English man who was being threatened by a female plod because he was protesting against a pro-Palestine march in London. When he advised plod he was within his rights she informed him he was contravening free speech and his actions were anti- democratic. Honestly you couldn’t make this shit up.
“We do not live under a tyranny, in the sense that we live in a constitutional democracy where the commitment to the rule of law remains, at least on the face of it, relatively strong.”
This paragraph is certainly open to challenge.
This is very similar to Germany with the AfD. A democratic party with over 20% popular support will be made illegal because it is a threat to ‘democracy.’
The AfD will most certainly not be made illegal because there are exactly zero grounds for that and everyone knows this. This is all preaching to choir to shore up one’s supporters and public intimidation to threaten those who may consider voting for the AfD away from actually doing so. Think of donating to them? Well, you know that the BfV has access to all your banking information and that Nancy Faeser will make it available to her buddys from the violent Antifa and to gangs of foreign criminals as well. Sure you don’t want to think again? Wouldn’t live much better if these people didn’t knew you are their enemy?
That’s already bad enough for a so-called democracy and conjures up images of the late Roman republic were gangs of thugs associated with different political parties (informal parties, as the modern abomination hadn’t been invented at that time) roamed the streets and no one would dare to go out unless he could afford armed guards protecting him.
King Charles owns lots of properties with lots of rooms, as do the rest of his family, perhaps the Government would like to use those for ilegal immigrants, likwise MP’smost have a constituency home and another home, why not use those? I suspect many of the Lords have more than 1 home, likwise the Primeminister has Chequers as well as number 10.
All of these funded by the tax payer, so off you go boys, give them up, after all its those very people who are encouraging the migrants to come here.
KC3 has lots of land and time he gave up some acres for an illegals super city of high rise flats to clear out the hotels. Maybe we could even get the young men trained to build the homes themselves.
Scotland would love their biggest new City near Balmoral and am sure all the wokies will be rushing up to service it with better healthcare than anywhere else in the U.K.
The Greek tyrant is basically the same as the modern dictator (which only faintly resembles its origin as regular kind of public office of the Roman republic) or autocrat: Someone who rules a state by virtue of himself, ie, because he acquired the power to do in some unique, irregular way. There’s absolutey no reason why a tyrant would aspire to be genuinely loved by the people he governs by making them his beneficiaries. Many of them are entirely happy with the traditional oderint dum metuant¹ stance.
It’s also worth mentioning here that property is something artificially created by the state by virtue of codifying and enforcing property handling practices beyond It’s yours if you have the means to take it and keep it. Property rights are thus limited to what the state did actually codify about property handling practices. If these include compulsory purchase (or even expropriation without any compensation), that’s just that. A political decision some body entitled to make political decisions made. Whoever disagrees with these might seek to change them. But his ideas of proper property handling practices are just as abitrary as the already codified ones.
¹ Reportedly, a favorite saying of the Roman emperor Caligula (Latin for Small boot), Let them hate [me], provided they fear [me].
Was the letter sent in error?
Was the council just trying it on to see what they could get away with?
What would be worse, living next to an empty, even derelict, property or living next to a property full of illegal immigrants, all males of fighting age?
Do will live in in tyranny?
If an Iranian gets arrested for holding a sign saying Hamas is a terrorist organisation, that’s tyranny.
Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes.
What hasn’t been said is that if your property is registered with Land Registry ie with the Crown, then the Title Deed you have is basically a permission to use the property. The Title is ultimately owned by the Crown. It’s how we ‘own’ cars – you’re the registered keeper not owner of your vehicle.
The only way to fully own your property is to have purchased it with Allodial Title, which is only possible if you have no mortgage as charges can only be placed against a property which is registered.
This is the mechanism by which ‘you will own nothing’ will come about. It’s a mechanism of control.
Holding your assets in a private trust ie one which is not registered with the state is the only means of keeping those assets away from the state. Not easy to achieve if you’re a wage slave with a mortgage.
US Twitter is awash with 3rd Amendment posts.
Why?
Simultaneous talking points are illegal immigrants (especially young men) need to be housed.
Military have a recruitment shortage and are seeking to relax entry requirements esp. re. nationality.
Hotels no longer have capacity for continuous high levels of migration.
It stands to reason that eventually houses, (second home owners will be hit first) will be requisitioned by the state.
Best move out of Cornwall now…
Property rights in England are supposedly first class in a global sense but this story underlines a process that must have started with the de-emphasis / near abandonment of property crime as a concept much less a priority by police who facilitate a parallel social ‘welfare system’ along with insurers by providing ‘crime’ reports (should be called random confiscation receipts).
we will soon and suddenly realise how valuable was individual liberty generally and were strong property rights in every respect including even the pettiest theft for these things were the foundation of our wealthy past and their creeping absence bodes very ill indeed!
“We do not live under a tyranny….”
Yes we do. Compared to others, current and in history, it’s a relatively benign tyranny at the moment. But it’s still a tyranny and it is getting worse.
Evidence:
If it looks and smells like a tyranny, then it is a tyranny.
This country is getting to feel more like the former East Germany with every month that passes.
In East Germany half the population ended up spying on the other half for the state.
This was encouraged in the Covid lockdown and indeed taken up with righteous enthusiasm by members of the public.
Do people really want to be free? To have free use of their private property, people must be concerned that others have free use of theirs.
What is the next step in this legitimisation of the tyranny of public or the common good?
If you are a single person living in a five bedroom property bequeathed to you by your parents there are four empty bedrooms. How is this in the public good? You don’t need four bedrooms. How is this in the public good when there are homeless people living in shop doorways?
It is not just property ownership that gives the peasant power to refuse the baron. If the family is a structure which allows parents to convey their own beliefs and morality to their children, it is one that is an obstacle to the state which wants to promote different values.
It should be obvious that such a family that is stronger than the state has already been effectively dismantled by many measures. We are not yet anywhere near the tyranny of the common good?
People have been conditioned to expect the government to ‘deliver’. The government ‘has the backs’ of the farmers and will ‘deliver’ for them. Delivering services makes the government necessary and creates a rentier class.
They are imposing global Communitarianism.
I am expecting the pressure to start on those with spare bedrooms under the next (Labour) Government.
It will start with inducements to take a lodger/s. Then pressure to take one/some.
Next, if you resist, they will penalise you financially (they’ll start by removing the 25% discount on your Council Tax if you live alone in a property with more than one bedroom).
Finally, they will sequester housing you “don’t need” so it can be allocated to those “more deserving.”
It worked so well in Soviet Russia.
This from back in July 2023. May be fake, maybe not but…
I hadn’t seen that, but I’m not surprised. It’s the obvious next step.
Rumour has it that its source is Conservative Central Office, Election 2024 Action Unit.
Will royalty, the wealthy, MPs, senior police and public sector managers be exempted?
Yes and anyone living in the Home Counties
In the public interest is a pernicious claim and its ubiquity is remarkable. This phrase is repeatedly used as a fig leaf for law or regulation breaches by overpaid and over promoted executives responsible for or paid from the public purse. Unless the public is consulted no one can know what it considers to be in its interest, so it is also meaningless. If property ownership is only a frail or illusory construct, so are we who do not actually exist without a birth certificate. Somehow humans have to organize themselves but we have been complacent and are now ripe for harvesting. Well presented points, but Dr McGrogan’s closing optimism is misplaced.