I was not a fan of the Occupy LSX camped at St Pauls. I had an open mind to begin with and if anything, instinctively lent towards them. On the day Ed Miliband was reported to be in support of them I went down to check out the scene. Let's just say I wasn't impressed.
It was full of mockney Che Guevara types who screamed at everyone and about everything. It was a cul-de-sac of legitimate angst that overflowed with emotion, but was empty of answers. To be brutally honest, it was just middle class vagrancy with no direction or strategy other than fashionable protest.
All last week's eviction saw was that the St Pauls occupation has decamped to the smaller and less famous camp site at Finsbury Square. However, despite the location, tents and hashtag all changing the underlying problem still remains the same: they offer no tangible solutions. On the contrary, I believe the biggest opportunity that provides the semblance of a solution for the evicted occupiers lays in one of its spin offs, which could also have been a missed opportunity.
I was one of the early speakers at the UBS occupation;I avoided speaking at the St Pauls encampment as I felt it wrong to speak at something when, as I mention above, I had grave doubts about its merit. Instead, I felt the action of occupying a derelict UBS property was a positive step towards turning passion into action.
In contrast, to the St Pauls occupation, the UBS occupation was an action that asked questions while providing answers. Although not acutely aware to those occupiers at the time, there is actually an economic case for occupying derelict buildings. Squatters Rights or laws of adverse possession help communities to prevent having valuable properties degrade and disappear in dereliction. Therefore, not helping communities or local economies.
Unlike those at the St Pauls occupation there was a genuine mix of people from varying social backgrounds. I met one young lad who supported Boris Johnson and David Cameron, but felt the UBS occupation had a point and therefore came along. He didn't agree with a lot of the speakers, but agreed even less with a large local building sitting idle.
Similar such people are rare supporters of nominally lefty campaigns; there were quite a few young Liberal and Conservative supporters who contacted me showing support for the Save EMA campaign, its shows when a campaign transcends party political divides that there is a strong argument hidden beneath the keffiyeh.
When I was speaking another member of the local community entered to show support, and raised the case of a local youth club that had been closed. The reaction sparked a discussion of what the empty UBS building could be used for instead. Plans were hatched and some brief sparks followed, but none caught fire.
At present we have vast amounts of property that are being left idle by very rich companies and individuals as bricks and mortar are still a safe economic hedge in uncertain times. And the perfect place to hoard wealth. In addition, it is a buyer's market, and not in the interests of those who can afford not to sell at this point in the market.
There is also a very English tradition of occupying unused land unlike the occupation of a national treasure such as St Pauls. During the English civil war one group called the Diggers made a widely popular movement out of taking over the unused land of royalist gentry and turning it over to the people. In the words of the Diggers the earth was "Common Treasure", and they declared that: "the common and waste Grounds belong to the poor, and that we have a right to the common ground both from the Law of the Land, Reason and Scriptures;"
I mention the Diggers as this was what I feel the potential was and still could be for those occupiers who were evicted from St Pauls. There are lists of empty buildings currently laying vacant in the capital. Take Westminster, there was around 3,500 empty properties laying vacant in 2009. And information for others in Westminster alone is easily found online.
If the UK Occupy movement moved from premise to premise once they were evicted they could spark a proper debate on wealth and income inequality. Nevertheless, this will only happen if the occupiers move from being idle middle class vagrants occupying land being used already. And turn towards a twenty first century version of the Diggers, providing a use to unused land.