Earlier this week, the SKWAWKBOX covered the ‘debate‘ that took place in the House of Commons on Monday, in which one MP after another – primarily Tories but with a handful of Labour – including many from the West Midlands, made generalised slurs against the Gypsy Traveller community. The Romanichal is the community’s own name for itself.
It was a spectacle that brought shame on the MPs involved – only a small number stood up to object to the ‘othering’ and to defend a community that has suffered hideous bigotry and persecution for hundreds of years, including proscription for centuries in Britain. But it seems that the shame was not enough for some.
The Birmingham Mail has carried news of government discussions to ban all groups of Travellers from the entire West Midlands if they make ‘illegal encampments’:
The sub-heading of the article states:
Government to meet West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner to discuss tough measures against minority of anti-social Travellers.
However, a knowledge of the facts makes this decision look more like NIMBY-pleasing racism than a targeted action against criminals.
First of all, the article makes clear that MPs and others are complaining that local councils can already ban Travellers – but are complaining that they can’t force them far enough away.
Secondly and more importantly, as the SKWAWKBOX’s interviews with Roma leaders have shown, the entire system is set up to force Travellers to camp illegally. Legal sites are in extremely short supply – and the only proof of Traveller status that the law accepts for planning application purposes requires illegality. Roma campaigner Richard Bennett explained this to the SKWAWKBOX:
Under the law, to get planning permission just to put concrete slabs for hard standing on a piece of land you own, you have to prove you’re Travellers – and do you know the only proof the law accepts? Proof of evictions – so the law locks Travellers into a cycle where their only chance of getting planning permission to live according to their culture [as opposed to forsaking it and just living in a house] is to camp illegally and be evicted.
This means a Traveller family wishing to maintain a lifestyle in keeping with their culture must camp illegally in order to have even a chance of obtaining planning permission just to lay a concrete slab to create hard-standing for a caravan.
And even then, it’s an extremely slim chance – eighty-one percent of Traveller planning applications are refused and of the remaining nineteen percent over ninety-nine percent are only approved on appeal.
A system set up to criminalise and ‘other’ an ethnic group and – if the government accommodates the wishes of NIMBY racists – to ban them from an entire region.
That sounds like apartheid – just try substituting any other ethnic group for Travellers and see how it looks.
Read here for a detailed account by a Roma campaigner of the frankly awful daily realities faced by the Traveller community and here for an example of Tory bigotry against Travellers and its human cost.
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The figures you quote seem confusing. Did you mean the remaining 19% are _rejected_ on appeal? Otherwise who is appealing approved planning permission?
81% fail. 19% are approved eventually. Below 0.1% of those are approved first time – over 99% of those finally approved are only approved on appeal.
This is not NIMBYism. This is a cold hard fact. These camps are a cancer to local communities. Demand for sites cannot possibly ever be satisfied
That’s an extreme comment. Apparently, a single square mile would be enough to house all the Travellers in the country.
These MPs, both Tory and Labour are throwbacks to a time of ignorance and their bigotry brings shame upon themselves and their own communities. How depressing to see their malformed, personal prejudices given such a large and influential platform.
This is how hatred is spread or gains new footholds and you can see why reactionary attitudes to anything ‘different’ are becoming more and more embedded.
This is Trump-esque irrational hatred and has absolutely no place in modern society. It’s like our own mini-Palestine being set up and we need some stronger and better-educated Labour voices in the West Midlands……….. quickly.
I live in the west mids, do you know which MPs are purporting these measures
It hasn’t been published. However, the W Mids MPs in the debate will almost certainly be backing it. You’d need to read the debate transcript and to see the full selection of MPs speaking: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2017-10-09/debates/E1DC6872-5335-41CC-A5DE-991D06FE9B3E/GypsiesAndTravellersAndLocalCommunities
I watched some of the debate and there seemed to be confusion between Romany and traveller people.
Also people seem to be unaware that travellers join the English police force eg. Surrey has 7 traveller* officers and Englsh traveller* officers have their own staff association.
* Were or are still travellers?