@Biosoc 468356 wrote:
From what I gather the squat party crews in Brighton are very tight-knit and aren’t fans of getting new people involved. I know a couple of people who say they know people who put parties on but can’t pass out any info about them. The one’s I’ve been to are just by chance mainly, meeting friends who were en route and such. One of my mates went to a party in a squat a couple of years back and by pure chance now rents the house it was help in, she said for ages that she could swear she’d been there before before it clicked that she k holed in the kitchen, haha.
thats understandable TBH as its near London and as well as (or more so!) than feds gangs can fuck things up big time. To them if they get a event locked off by the feds its as much a laugh to them as taking it over. also in comparison to Ipswich the whole squatting thing is really contentious as there are still more “middle class kids” doing it.
In my town the only squatters are genuinely poor foreigners and they live in buildings with half the walls missing, the locals actually pity them and get them food and stuff and don’t grass them up to UKBA (ironically some want to get deported but because their country is now in EU and they haven’t done any bad crimes UKBA won’t spend the money to do so. plus there are human rights issues about what happens to them “back home”.
UKBA do visit them with feds at 6am and search them every so often for drugs etc just to shake them up a bit). but these chaps (mostly from PL, LT, LV etc) won’t touch anyone elses building even when there’s empty flats with less security than folk think down the road, as in their countrys the rentaguards can get away with force against like just kicking shit out of them and dumping them out in -20 celsius weather which is good as putting a bullet in their heads and not quite as bait. Feds there can shoot a homeless if they can make up a good enough reason for doing so. Many foreign squatters don’t know that this isn’t normally allowed in England so they are careful and unless you look for them you won’t find them.
Also here if anyone squats a private house or even half decent industrial premises (irrespective of what country they are from) feds swoop on them within minutes, happened to my mates a few years ago. here was a few squats in this town called Stowmarket 20 miles away but the places got trashed and people got traced and charged for burglary, criminal damage and their drug dealers also caught.
Feds even said “we’ve got access to files on every young person who is genuinely homeless” – I happen to work in IT for the social care sector and checked their claims and they weren’t bluffing. (there’s not so many youths in Suffolk and locals come from close knit familys so the authorities have the resources to watch both them and the foreigners”).
So squattings not a easy option at all in this region compared to other areas. To be fair though the authorities here do try and help young peopel who get homeless and/or are addicted to drugs slightly more than in SE England but its on the authorities terms, they are expected to sort themselves out and get work/education, not party, and many other young people here are OK with following the system and don’t try and buck it and judge others what do more harshly.
Its why a lot of young people who like hedonism leave EA for places like Bristol or Brighton but once you’re down the rabbit hole its hard to get back,,,
