If a friend of mine had called me to tell me that she was homeless, because the police had evicted her, my first instinct would be to not believe her. After all, as a landlord myself, I know that the police have no legal jurisdiction over civil issues. I also know that landlords, even with only a verbal licence agreement, have to give formal notice that is reasonable, regardless of if you are a lodger or tenant. (A tenant is someone who lives in a property they don’t share with their landlord; whereas, a lodger is someone who resides in a property in which the landlord also lives in.)
I mean, honestly, even sitting tenants have rights and as a landlord, it’s one of the worst situations you could possibly find yourself in because of how difficult it is to evict tenants if they refuse to leave. So, when I witnessed the police evict a dear friend of mine the day after Bojo Jojo became Prime Minister, I couldn’t help but think that it was a sign of what we should expect as black people living in Brexit Britain – a country with leaders that hide their racism behind this insidious thinly veiled narrative that leaving the EU means taking back control. That control includes borders and legislation, such as the Human Rights Act, which many have used as an example of the way Britain is being “held back” from “self-determination”.