English landowners have stolen our rights. It is time to reclaim them | George Monbiot

Landed power, built on theft, slavery and colonial looting, crushes our freedoms. A new campaign seeks to decolonise the countrysideBoris Johnson's attack on English planning laws is both very new and very old. It is new because it scraps the system for deciding how land should be used, replacing it with something closer to the US model. It is old because it represents yet another transfer of power from the rest of us to the lords of the land, a process that has been happening, with occasional reversals, since 1066.A power that in 1947 was secured for the public - the democratic right to influence the building that affects our lives - is now being retrieved by building companies, developers and the people who profit most from development, the landowners. This is part of England's long tradition of enclosure: seizing a common good and giving it to the rich and powerful. Democracy is replaced with the power of money. Continue reading...