Kent Tenants Evicted While Immigrants Move In

First published on Liberty GB's European Election website

by Enza Ferreri


Landlord to evict British families on benefits to make room for Eastern European migrants, headlines the Mirror.

The landlord in question is Fergus Wilson, who owns over 1,000 properties around the Ashford area, in central Kent. He explains that he has issued eviction notices to all of his 200 tenants who depend on welfare to cover their rent.

The reason is very simple: in the last two years, while none of his tenants who work has defaulted, more than half of those on housing benefits have. Many of the evicted tenants will be replaced by Eastern European immigrants with jobs, whom he describes as “a good category of tenant who don’t default on the rent."

Mr Wilson is the rule rather than the exception. The National Landlords Association says that as many as 4 out of 5 of its members won't even consider renting to anyone on benefits.

What happened is that rent prices have gone up due to increased demand for accommodation caused by immigration-fuelled population explosion, while housing benefits have been reduced by the Coalition that needs to find a way to stop the economic blackhole created by the past Labour government from expanding and swallowing up the whole country.

Mr Wilson is right when at the end of the short video he says that the fundamental problem is that there are too many people and not enough houses.

We don't want to apportion blame to anyone here, except the previous and current governments who have allowed this situation to develop. People tend to act on individual self-interest, be they the immigrants who leave their countries looking for a better life and work hard for it, the landlords who operate for profit, or the benefit claimants who find ways to make ends meet and stop paying rent.

It's just the role of those in power to protect the borders and the population of the country who elected them for that purpose. Families and pensioners who were born and bred in Britain becoming homeless because of unregulated and out-of-control immigration is a sufficiently good reason to withdraw votes from the Labour, who are the most responsible for the immigration disaster, and the Coalition partners Tories and LibDems, who haven't done even remotely enough to reverse it.

Liberty GB is the only credible party in the 22 May European Elections which does not compromise on immigration and on putting the interests of British people first.