Dale Farm and Racism

Most of the commentary from those supporting the illegal Traveller site at Dale Farm has included some accusation of racism. The implied, or sometimes explicit statement is that Basildon Council and the settled community are motivated not by a desire to see fairness and equality under the law but by some pathological hatred of Travellers. That Basildon has the largest number of legal Traveller pitches per hectare in England seems to make no odds, we still must be a bunch of racists.

Well, here is my experience: people who casually bandy around accusations that question the motives of others usually do it because of something within themselves. Accusing others of corruption in the first instance and without any evidence for example is a good indication that the accuser would be in the market for a brown envelope if the opportunity arose. Such people cannot conceive that others would not behave in that way, because that is what they themselves are like.

So, on to the people who bandy about accusations of racism, my experience with them is that is because they themselves nurture some deep-seated hatred and so assume everyone else must as well. On the activist left, hatred is usually reserved for the settled middle-class, who are detested because they obey the law and refuse to share is some world-revolutionary view. In the Dale Farm situation the settled community in Cray's Hill doesn't even register with the protesters on the site, because, frankly, they hate them and everything that they stand for. So, one community is lauded and the other ignored and treated with contempt, except to be labelled as racists of course.

Well folks I have a disappointment for you. Most people live their lives without hate and think that those who palpably burn with it are kind of sad. My advice to the people who equate the Dale Farm clearance with ethnic cleansing is first to read a history book or two and try to actually understand what the term means and secondly to have a bit of a think about your world view.

If you find yourself burning with hatred for any group then you are badly in need of a change, or a religious experience, or something.

John Baron MP criticises Dale Farm court ruling

John Baron MP criticises Dale Farm court ruling

MP expects Basildon Council to overturn decision on Friday

Having been on the Dale Farm site yesterday with Cllr Tony Ball and Council officials, John Baron MP has described as “bizarre” the court ruling which prevented the bailiffs from proceeding with the site clearance yesterday afternoon.

John said:

The ruling is bizarre. How can there have been a fair hearing if the Council was unable to be represented? The highest courts in the land have declared Basildon Council right. It is therefore unfortunate that this local judge has fallen for this delaying tactic and added to the cost of the operation. I am confident that the Council will overturn this rogue decision on Friday.

The Council will then proceed with this site clearance. My hope is that it can be achieved peacefully through negotiation. However, this site will be cleared - one way or the other - on behalf of the law abiding majority.

We all accept that minorities have human rights. But all too often in this country we tend to forget that the majority have human rights too, and these include an expectation that the law will be applied fairly and equitably across all of society.

Dale Farm - Clearance starts tomorrow

Tomorrow is the day that we have all worked so hard to avoid: the start of the Dale Farm clearance. After ten years of legal battles and pleas that the Irish Traveller occupiers of the illegal pitches there should leave of their own accord, Basildon Council is having to forcibly clear the site.

I suppose the question is how has it come to this? How can it be that an ordinary English local Council is having to spend a fortune on evicting a community numbering in the hundreds and which includes young children and the elderly? There are a whole range of reasons, but if I had to pick just one then I think it would be the non-Travellers that have attached themselves to the Dale Farm saga down the years. We have had the whole spectrum, from lawyers paid from legal aid who were determined to push a weak legal case as far as it would go in the various courts, to 'activists' deliberately sabotaging confidential negotiations. Various academics and UN 'advisors' have dipped in and out claiming spurious and often simply bogus legal points and most have questioned Basildon Council's motives in the most abusive terms, as if that helps when any deal to help the Traveller community would ultimately have to be done with the Council. Our local Labour Councillors did not help, deciding that the moral high ground demanded that they not support any direct action against Dale Farm. God knows what they were saying to the former Labour government, who were in power for most of the dispute. We certainly had no help from them.

Now as we reach the end-game the cavalcade has continued. Vanessa Redgrave, more UN 'advisors' and a range of protesters at the site itself. Against that background and the time all of these interventions have taken we have now come to a forced clearance. I believe that if it had just been between Basildon Council and the Travellers then we would have sorted things out by now. With all of the various do-gooders and hangers-on then we had no chance.

I hope that it all goes peacefully tomorrow, but I worry that the malign influence of outsiders on the Dale Farm situation has not yet finished.