Tag Archives: politics

News

The surcharge campaign has a strategy!

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The campaign against the surcharge (the charge for not having a home mooring) started with a massive influx of people joining, and the campaign set up many working groups to facilitate the large range of strategies and tactics people put forward. After a while, it became obvious to most that there were too many strategies and tactics compared to the number of people actively doing things. Therefore, the campaign decided to agree on a set of strategies and tactics.

After much discussion, we, inside the campaign, have decided on a strategy to stop the surcharge. The strategy is twofold: while we are trying to make inroads with finding allies within Parliament (lobbying MPs, Lords etc) to be against the surcharge; we will also be using our leverage to take on CRT’s public image by protest leafleting at the very events and places CRT is trying to improve its image.

The reason why leafleting at CRT stalls works is that it undermines CRT’s public image. The whole premise of CRT’s existence is based on its “charity doing charitable work” public image, and of course, its donations are linked to how people view it. This is why it spends millions of pounds on PR events and social media, etc. CRT has written to NBTA twice now asking, then demanding, we stop leafleting at their stalls. It has obviously been having a serious effect on CRT, and there is no way CRT can stop us. Leafleting at CRT stalls will stop when CRT stops the surcharge; it is our leverage, its the reason CRT will stop the surcharge because CRT needs their public image more than it needs it charge the surcharge. Get involved to be part of the actions that will stop the surcharge. Email stopboatlicencediscrimination@gmail.com to be involved. 

With strategy of lobbying MPs, if successful, rather than fighting CRT time and time again over never-ending iterations of their attrition of our community, we might just possibly see government seeking to regulate CRT excesses on our behalf. Long shot. But if it works it will save us many, many more battles.

Our first ‘Drop in Session’ back in November was just a start. Our second session was planned for February 11th but has morphed to a meeting with Andrew Cooper MP, who we met at the first session, so that he might understand our case more fully, then to advise our next parliamentary steps.

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The Campaign for the Energy Grant

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As we head into winter, the cost of living on a boat increases massively for many of us, with paying for coal, gas, or diesel to heat our homes. Some of us may forage for free wood to burn. However, this option is now threatened when moored within ‘clean air zones’ due to bans on burning foraged wood.

In the last few years the cost of fuels to heat our homes has dramatically risen. In some cases costs have doubled. But it hasn’t just been boat dwellers that have felt the cost of heating homes exponentially rise. The whole of the UK has seen a great increase in the cost of heating and energy in general. In 2022 in response to this crisis, the government decided to pay £400 towards energy costs for most homeowners. At first however, many households, including boat dwellers, were left out.

Along with non-NBTA members, and other Traveller organisations, we lobbied different MPs across the country. We also lobbied CRT to get them to put pressure on the government. NBTA also met several times with the civil servants, responsible for the Energy Bills Support scheme, including with the deputy director-general of the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy.

Many of us sent emails to CRT demanding they do something as well. Then CRT started to talk to the government and made at least one press release stating that boats without home moorings should also get the grant.

Into the summer of 2023 we continued with our campaign including boats with banners and also handing a petition into 10 Downing St. Along with all this, a few boaters without home moorings on CRT waterways started legal action for discrimination against the government on the basis of being left out of the scheme. Two weeks after the solicitor put the papers into court, the government announced that they would pay both energy grants worth £600 to each boat licenced on CRT waterways without a home mooring.

Although we should have got the grant from the beginning, with a campaign, political and legal pressure, we won. This shows that whilst it’s never guaranteed, sometimes our collective effort can have a huge payoff.

NBTA London needs your support to carry on our work. Please get in touch here if you would like to volunteer with us. Alternatively your donations are vital to us supporting boaters with their legal case work, campaign banners and other printed material as well as events. You can help us with your donations online here

News

Easter Regatta in the face of the Surcharge

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Hundreds of boaters and supporters alike turned out for this demonstration of community, solidarity and resistance to CRTs plans to dispossess us from our homes on the water. Before we arrived, Paddington Basin was empty, but at the Boaters’ Easter Regatta we’ve demonstrated exactly what boaters mean to the waterways by filling it with life, celebration and a sense of community. 

We sincerely hope that CRT will sit down with boaters, drop clearly discriminatory policies like this licence surcharge and ensure that our contribution to the waterways is acknowledged, and way of life respected. However, if they do not, boaters will continue to resist their plans fiercely by making it less desirable to make boats without home moorings pay more.

To make it less desirable for CRT to continue with the ‘surcharge’, we need to hit CRT where it hurts. This means undermining its public image and its income.

To damage CRT’s income, the best way we have at our disposal is a licence strike. However, for a licence strike we need relatively large numbers to have an impact. It is on the cards but we don’t have the numbers yet. Please sign up by clicking the link to express your interest in helping to make it happen: http://tinyurl.com/licencestrike

Other than finances, the other thing CRT prizes highly is its public image. It’s not just that CRT’s donations are linked to how people view it. In addition to that, the whole premise of CRT’s existence is based on its public image: that it is a charity doing charitable good. This is why it spends millions of pounds on PR events and social media etc. But as long as CRT continues with its plan to charge boats for not having a home mooring, we will work tirelessly to undermine its public image. Most of us don’t want to be undermining CRT. However, since this is one of the best tactics for leverage we have, we must!

Therefore, we ask that people who are opposed to this discriminatory licence fee increase to join us in leafleting against CRT, at the very events and stalls where CRT are trying to improve its public image. Some of us have already had great success and amazing public support in such actions at CRT events. Until CRT backs down, let’s use our leverage, let’s attend its events and stalls and let the public know what CRT is really about. Email stopboatlicencediscrimination@gmail.com to be involved in this.

CRT has wanted us gone for a long time now, but we’re still here – our lives may be nomadic, but events like the Boaters’ Easter Regatta show our community is here to stay.