ONE OF THE first of our services the Tories lined up for destruction was libraries. To your average Tory, too rich to need a public library, it was easy to spread the ‘no-one uses libraries anymore’ lie. However, those less well-off know that libraries play a massive part in the lives of the community, young and old. It is a place where those of us without private school educations can develop and nurture a love of reading. But all over the country, resistance has been seemingly futile, and dozens of libraries have been closed. However, at least one community is showing us all how to hit back and keep hitting the books. In 2011, Barnet Council took the unpopular decision to close the Friern Barnet library; immediately, a campaign group was set up, protesting outside and inside council sessions and spreading the word. When the library closure went ahead anyway, (with pro-closure councillor Judith Beckman admitting “I don’t know where the library is”), locals refused to give up, mounting round the clock pickets of the library. And when council vans turned up to remove the books, locals used a phone tree call-out and soon dozens of people were blocking the entrance, keeping the books where they belong. Since then, the group has been deadlocked in negotiations with Barnet Council, who are offering a replacement ‘library’ in a small room miles from the original building. Locals refused, and so the stand-off continued.
That is until a small group of squatters entered the library, immediately re-opening it with a collection of donated books, and were welcomed with open arms. Today, the library remains open four days a week, staffed by local volunteers, and is as well used as before the shut down. The library squatters, and the residents of Barnet, have set an example for us all. The government has never been interested in the average person and has been quite happy to rob us of the things we want and need, hiding behind banner of ‘deficit reduction’. Protesting has a time and a place, but like the residents of Barnet, if we want to win back our public services, we need to stop asking nicely and rip our libraries, schools, hospitals and workplaces back from the hands of sell-out politicians and run them by ourselves, for ourselves.
