Zack Polanski humiliates Labour over its ground rent U-turn

Zack Polanski has landed himself in a Twitter spat with Labour’s David Pinto-Duschinsky, the MP for Hendon. The Green leader called out Labour’s pathetic flip-flopping on abolishing leaseholds.

Labour previously pledged to abolish leaseholds altogether. However, the party recently announced that it would cap the charge at a ‘mere’ £250.

Given the PLP’s spineless U-turn, it’s unsurprising that the war of words isn’t going in Pinto-Duschinsky’s favour. 

The boring part

First, a quick recap for those of us who don’t keep up with the thrilling minutiae of the UK housing market.

(Stay with me, please — I promise there’s dunks).

Across England and Wales, there are currently around 5 million leasehold properties. Flats make up at least 70% of that number.

As things currently stand, a property’s freeholder owns both the building and the land it’s built on. By contrast, leaseholders pay for the right to live on that land for a given period of time. That fee is called ‘ground rent’. After the lease expires, the freeholder resumes ownership of the property.

On January 27, Keir Starmer announced that Labour will cap ground rent for leaseholders at £250 per year. The party also plans to ban the sale of new leasehold flats.

Yet another U-turn — Zack Polanski unimpressed

However, as the Canary’s HG pointed out, Starmer conveniently forgot to mention that the 2024 Labour manifesto stated:

Labour will act where the Conservatives have failed and finally bring the feudal leasehold system to an end.

As HG wrote at the time:

Labour literally promised to end leasehold. Whilst we shouldn’t be surprised that Starmer has made yet another U-turn, a £250 cap is a shitshow when it should be zero. And yes, after 40 years, it will change to ‘peppercorn’, or zero. But why in 40 years and not now?

As Zack Polanski pointed out, Labour hardly look like they’re on the renters’ side here:

Likewise, Labour have also neglected to do anything to stop renters being hit with out-of-control service charges. Notionally, these are variable fees that landlords charge for improvements, insurance, repairs, maintenance, or management costs etc.

As such, there’s nothing stopping landlords from simply hiking their service charges to make up for lost ground rent. In some areas of the country, leaseholders are already paying service charges of up to £16,000 a year.

Take the L, buddy

Fortunately for us at the Canary, Labour can never take a loss without digging themselves deeper. Enter the honourable member for Hendon:

Anyone else getting bored of the fucking ‘hypnotist’ bit? These people have one joke, seriously.

If your party isn’t in the pockets of landlords and their cronies, then abolishing ground rent is the plan. You simply don’t have to worry about appeasing leeches for taking away one of their methods of sucking money from the hands of renters.

Zack Polanski — ‘Replace Labour, abolish leasehold’

So, Polanski quickly pointed out that he has a plan. It happens to be exactly the same as Labour’s stated plan back in 2024 — ‘abolish leasehold’:

Oh yes, sorry — “Replace Labour, Abolish Leasehold”. Labour is apparently already working on keeping itself out of power in the next election, so Polanski’s following the PLP on two counts there.

Labour’s pathetic attempt at ‘abolishing’ leasehold is a fig leaf, and nothing more. The party promised to end this feudal system, but wound up siding with the landlords after all. £250 ground rent is a far cry from zero, and renters have no protection from jacked-up, retaliatory service charges.

Zack Polanski is advocating for real change. That simply doesn’t compute for a Labour party that’s forgotten what it’s like to be on the side of the people.

Featured image via the Independent