The flawed logic behind Brokenshire’s landlord bashing

In what Communities Secretary James Brokenshire described as ‘the biggest change to the private rental sector in a generation’, the government has announced a ban on so-called ‘no-fault evictions’ of tenants by their landlords. ‘By abolishing unfair evictions, every single person living in the private rental sector will be empowered’, Brokenshire claimed. The Prime Minister said that ‘Millions of responsible tenants could still be uprooted by their landlord with little notice, and often little justification […] This important step will not only protect tenants from unethical behaviour, but also give them the long-term certainty and the peace of mind they deserve.’ According to the BBC, this means that ‘Private landlords will no longer be able to evict tenants at short notice without good reason’. Housing charities and tenants’ rights campaigners celebrated it as a huge victory. It sounds great. Who could be in favour of evictions, let alone ‘unfair’ and ‘unjustified’ evictions? Who could be in favour of insecurity, of unfairness, or of unethical landlords? The problem is that what supporters of this ban refer to as ‘evictions’ are not evictions at all.