Almost 8 years ago, on 14 June 2017, a fire broke out in the Grenfell Tower apartment block. This tragedy took the lives of 72 men, women and children, the youngest of whom was the 6 month old Leena Belkadi who died in her mother’s arms while she was attempting to escape the inferno that swept the building.
These deaths were not due to a freak and unpreventable accident but were due to the reckless policies of the capitalist UK government that outsourced the construction of this housing block to private companies. These private companies cut corners in order to save on costs. These cost saving cuts end up costing lives.
One such company was the Cavan based Kingspan. An inquiry after the tragedy found that Kingspan had shown a “complete disregard for fire safety” and that the Irish firm had exhibited, “deeply entrenched and persistent dishonesty… in pursuit of commercial gain”.
Kingspan installed K15 insulation into the apartment building that they knew was not suitable to prevent the spread of fire in a building of Grenfell’s size. This resulted in the unobstructed spread of the blaze once the PE ACM cladding was ignited.
The blame for lives lost due to this tragedy and the families destroyed and broken apart should be placed solely at the feet of the capitalist regime and its private partners. Their blood is on the hands of every prime minister who crossed the threshold of Number 10 from the building’s completion until its demise in 2017.
In another blow it has taken nearly 8 years for those victims to receive any compensation for the deaths of their family, of their brother and sisters and mothers and fathers. A sum that is £9,000 lower than the compensation for the firefighters and emergency workers who responded to the fire who received £175,000 in compensation. An amount which the survivors and relatives of the victims referred to as “insulting”.
Now the Red Tory Labour government has stated they wish to tear down Grenfell. To demolish it and wipe its memory from the British consciousness after its 8th anniversary. This was told to Grenfell United, the survivors’ group in a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner. The group have stated that the ignoring of their wishes to keep the building up until those responsible had been brought to justice was “disgraceful and unforgiveable”.
Currently the shadow of Grenfell looms over London as an monument to the corruption of capitalism, to its greed for wealth and its apathy for human life. The British state wish to see it torn down, swept into the dustbin of history so that the working class forget how their government failed them, how monopoly capitalists used them to line their pockets with no regard for who they would trample underfoot.
Emblazoned in a stark white at the peak of the remains of the tower are the words “Grenfell, forever in our hearts”. Capitalists want to expunge it from our hearts and wipe it from our minds, to bring us back to a peaceful ignorance of the abuses of private capital. But we must condemn this and fight it in every way possible – we must struggle so that Grenfell stands.
Let Grenfell stand as a monument and tragic reminder to the corruption of the capitalist system and the state which upholds it until all who are responsible are brought to justice!