All’s Fair In Love And War?

When Canal & River Trust (CRT) come up with a new policy or strategy, they have a favourite word to cover up the subtext: fairness. Safety Zones – fairness; extortionate pre-bookable moorings – fairness; converting casual moorings into restricted time visitor moorings – fairness; the licence surcharge for itinerant boaters – fairness. But who loses out each time? Who is targeted? Which part of the boating community is further marginalised whenever CRT talks about fairness? It is, of course, boaters without a home mooring.

But the subtext doesn’t stop with CRT. NBTA members & volunteers speak to a lot of people; members of other boating organisations, boaters and the public on the towpath when we are leafleting and delivering newsletters, people at our public events and of course at events like Cavalcade where we engage with the public and aim to undermine CRT’s spin that they are some kind of beneficent society. And sometimes we are asked “what is your solution?”.

Boaters recently got together to clear up litter in Tottenham

What are we supposed to do to come up with this “solution”? Stop campaigning against the “Safety” Zones? Stop campaigning against the removal and monetisation of casual moorings? Stop campaigning against the licence surcharge?

Stop campaigning for the interests of parents who need to send their children to school, or people with physical and mental health issues who need adjustments to their expected cruising plans?

The fact is that these “what is your solution” questions are very rarely made in good faith. They are an attempt to deflect away from CRT’s attacks on our community and down a cul de sac where they can blame us for not coming up with the answers, framed within an acceptance of CRT’s claims that we are the problem. For these people, when they talk about a solution, they mean a solution to us, itinerant boaters.

So what could our reply be when we are asked about solutions? CRT need to stop blaming us; to stop marginalising us; to stop discriminating against us, and then, and only then, can we talk about the bigger picture.

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