Findings from stage two of the inquiry into the Grenfell fire which killed 72 people were finally released yesterday – seven years after the tragedy took place.
The report found that every one of these 72 deaths was avoidable and down to “systematic dishonesty”, corruption, and decades of government failure.
Blood is on the hands of the cladding manufacturers who deliberately concealed the reality of their products to line their pockets, the developers willing to cut corners, and the Tories who relaxed regulations – and then proceeded to ignore every warning of the impending deadly consequences that came their way.
The Grenfell report is a damning, harrowing read. But its contents are no surprise for anyone who has been following this scandal. Details started trickling out almost immediately back in 2017, which painted a very clear picture.
Yet survivors and the bereaved remain as far as ever from justice. Little has changed in all this time – as the recent fire at a block of flats in Dagenham, East London, shows.
Criminal neglect
Local community activists, firefighters, and housing activists from across the country – many of whom remain stuck in flats covered in flammable cladding – gathered for a rally outside of Kensington Town Hall in the evening of the inquiry’s release.
One of the speakers, a firefighter from the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), commented that the inquiry was a vindication of what the FBU had been saying for years: that Grenfell was a crime driven by the profit motive, deregulation, and criminal neglect.
Speakers demanded that at the very minimum the 58 recommendations of stage two of the inquiry be implemented in full.
These include introducing a single regulator of the construction industry, a new licensing scheme for contractors, and improved education and training for architects.
And yet even if they were to be implemented fully, a member of the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign remarked, they would still fall short of what is needed to keep people safe.
That they even will be implemented at all is no sure thing. Keir Starmer has merely promised to “carefully consider” these recommendations and ‘respond’ in six months’ time.
Numerous speakers highlighted the continued corruption and negligence taking place in the construction industry; the failure to implement the recommendations from stage one of the inquiry, published in 2019; and the snail’s pace of progress in the removal of dangerous cladding across Britain.
Many others called for prosecutions and arrests, lamenting the fact that the Met Police are pushing back criminal trials to 2027 – a whole ten years after the Grenfell fire! Meanwhile, the corporate criminals who caused this tragedy walk free.
Profits over lives
A comrade from the Revolutionary Communist Party also spoke to the crowd. They firstly pointed out campaigners have had to fight tooth and nail over the past seven years just to get to this stage in the inquiry, with every responsible party trying to pass on the blame.
The comrade also explained how this fight is far from over. The struggle for justice – and for safe homes for the future – is part of the struggle against the entire system, which puts profits over lives.
If the residents – who warned so many times of the fire risks – had power, and if the firefighters who warned of a broken and corrupt construction industry had power, then Grenfell would have never happened.
Instead, power was – and remains – in the hands of inhumane big businesses competing in the race for profits, and with the corrupt politicians paving the way for them to get away with murder.
Towards the end of the rally, several survivors of the Grenfell fire arrived, having returned from hearing the findings of the inquiry beforehand. They vowed to do whatever it took to get justice and change.
Another week, another inquiry, another injustice
Dear comrades,
I have just read the news that yet another inquiry has been released – this time into the Grenfell tragedy.
This adds to a dizzying pile of similar reports into government failings, corporate negligence, and – to borrow a term from Friedrich Engels – social murder.
Only a few months ago in May, we had the release of the findings of an inquiry into the global contaminated blood scandal, which stretches back half a century.
The report details how NHS officials and government ministers were partly responsible for infecting 70,000 people with HIV and hepatitis C around the world, and later for attempting to cover it up.
Then we have the initial report of the Covid inquiry, which has already revealed how the Tory government was woefully underprepared for a public health emergency, having cut the NHS to the bone. During the pandemic, ministerial decisions were directly responsible for thousands more deaths.
And if that wasn’t enough, there’s the ongoing inquiry into the Post Office scandal, where – once again – a cabal of government ministers and private companies pushed the blame for a dodgy IT system onto thousands of subpostmasters, who were accused of theft.
This led to prosecutions, bankruptcies, and families falling apart. Tragically, the pressures of this injustice drove four workers to take their own lives.
Each fresh inquiry feels like yet another punch in the gut for millions of Britons.
Not only do they outline in great detail the endless ways in which the system is failing ordinary people, but they draw attention to the fact that nothing ever gets done about it. The bastards responsible are getting off scot-free.
Sometimes, like in the cases of the Hillsborough Review, the spy cops inquiry, and the Casey Review, the bastards responsible are the police, who claim to uphold justice and protect us!
Whenever these lengthy documents – often written by wealthy retired judges and barristers, by the way – ever do make any suggestions to avert future disasters and injustices, they never amount to more than a few policy tweaks and regulations.
Where wrongdoing is identified, the costs of compensation are loaded onto the public purse, and never onto the big businesses responsible.
It seems like publishing endless inquiries is the only thing the establishment has left to offer ordinary people. Perhaps they hope that the hubbub of headlines and Panorama documentaries might trick people into thinking action is being taken. They are wrong.
The Grenfell inquiry report now stands at a whopping 1,700 pages. Investigations into the disaster have cost the taxpayer £230m, and counting. And still, not a single ounce of justice has been delivered.
We already know who is responsible for these crimes. So save the paperwork – the working class can deliver its own justice.
Maurice Dumighan, Tower Hamlets
