By Ben Morris

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Voice 21 and Sandwell MBC.

Travellers seem to be the only group of people it is still considered perfectly fine to discriminate against in this country. To hear the tales of the long story of discrimination, you should probably book a week off work and make yourself comfortable. Something the ex-residents of Dale Farm now cannot do.

Dale Farm has stood since the 70′s as a legal travellers site. When the site filled, they purchased further land beside it. This land may have been classed as green-belt land, yes. However, what Basildon council failed to note was the fact that they themselves used the land as a scrapyard for abandoned or broken cars. The residents of Dale Farm paid for all of the removal and the clean-up work so they could make the place ultimately cleaner and then extend their residences. Not that Basildon council are particularly bothered about green-belt land having sold lots of it to property developers in the past. Below is an image showing two pictures. One, the use of the “green-belt” land as the council’s personal fly-tip and another the cleaner, greener homes of Dale Farm’s travellers.

On top of this, the building work is only illegal as far as the council is concerned, because the council say so. The legality of the matter is at the council’s discretion. To call it illegal hides the fact that the council have decided it is illegal. In what is a blatant case of double standards and discrimination, it is often failed to point out that even without the planning permission, they do still own the land. The hypocrisy of Basildon council is not enough, in my view, to justify the 86 families made homeless. Children that have grown up there, watching their world be literally ripped apart by heavy-handed riot police and bailiffs is not justice, but genocide.

The council would rather spend £18 million ripping down a travellers site, forced into extension by the lack of legal traveller sites in Britain than it would to pump money into the areas they are cutting, such as the £505,000 from disabled services, and other local services in Basildon. I imagine if they had enough room to live legally, then the extension would not have been a necessity, but there have never been enough traveller sites to move into legally.

This entire story ended recently, as the eviction order was finally given by the court and despite being assured that the site would be secured peacefully, riot police broke in, cut the electricity and tasered the travellers. Amid stand-off’s with activists and disgusting police force, who also set about demolishing perfectly legal buildings like it was their business to, teary travellers decided enough was enough and to leave like they had lived, peacefully.

Hypocritical Basildon council partook in a shameful show of ethnic cleansing and the village cheered them on. This is not the kind of country I feel proud to be a part of.