Ethnic Cleansing in Essex?

In the 1960s, Romany Gypsy and Irish Traveler families bought a plot of land near Wickford in Essex, a small town 30 miles east of Greater London. Back then, that plot of land was a mess—an abandoned scrap yard next to a disused Ministry of Defence building full of rusting cars leaking puddles of toxic battery acid. Now, more gypsies and travelers live at Dale Farm than anywhere else in the UK. The 1,000 or so gypsies living in Wickford are settled, but half of them have just been told to GTFO. The council plans to fund their eviction with 28 million dollars of taxpayer money.

The dispute centers around another plot of land next to Dale Farm, a slice of Green Belt that the gypsy families bought from Basildon council a decade ago. Basically, the two sides are arguing about a toilet block that was built without planning permission. Any argument about a toilet block is going to be a tedious one, but given that pretty soon a gang of bailiffs and police will be descending upon Dale Farm to try to make 90 angry gypsy families homeless, I thought it was worth going down to meet the travelers and see what was up.

The barricades of scaffolding the travelers have put up around the site are adorned with colorful banners that say things like "WE WON'T GO," "WE <3 DALE FARM," and "NO ETHNIC CLEANSING." "Ethnic cleansing" might seem a bit strong considering Basildon council haven't announced plans to kill anyone yet, but who gives a shit? While the authorities are trying to get the travelers off the Green Belt land, they're selling more of it to rich developers. You don't have to live in a caravan to see why that sucks.

The people of Dale Farm lost their appeal against the eviction two weeks ago (August 31st). Currently, the bailiffs are scheduled to arrive on the 19th of September. Fortunately, their plight has not gone unnoticed. When I arrived, I was given a guided tour around the "illegal" part of the settlement by a guy named Jake, one of the Solidarity protesters who has moved in alongside the gypsies. They live in tents on-site, and Jake told me about how they've been helping the gypsies fill out homelessness applications and construct anti-bailiff defenses from old tires and barbed wire. In each corner of the site were sentry towers, manned constantly by Solidarity workers. The Solidarity guys also put up these natty compost toilets.

The gypsies and travelers are well aware of what many outsiders think of them, so some areas of the camp are completely off-limits (the Daily Mail journalist I was given the tour with wasn't happy about this). The tabloids have labeled Dale Farm a hostile place, but I think they must have turned up at the wrong gigantic gypsy camp. The mood was a little tense, but there was nothing like the atmosphere my taxi driver hinted at earlier, when he told me about the time he was taken hostage in his own car by seven guys as he drove past the camp during a gypsy wedding. He also said BT won't go near the site without a police escort and that the site residents have terrorized the rest of the neighborhood for years, but at a public demo march through the center of Basildon later that day, locals showed up to deliver speeches supporting the people from Dale Farm.

One explained that before the gypsies moved in, local gangs used the scrap yard as a hiding place for drugs and guns. Another said that the kids from the local estates cause more problems than the travelers. When it was their turn to speak, the women from the traveling community explained that they don't want to cut ahead of the 6,000 people in the area who are already waiting on social housing. Not that the council seem prepared to offer them much. So far 20 of the 90 families have been shown houses, but they've all been shown the same one, and that one is a bedsit. The bailiffs are due to arrive in a week.

Cathleen, one of the camp seniors, told the crowd that the gypsies wouldn't want to live in houses anyway. She said that they're proud of their traditions and should be entitled to live in caravans if they want to.

As the protest was winding down, I was invited back on Saturday to attend another, much larger demo march. At 1 PM, around 500 travelers, locals, and Solidarity campaigners gathered and marched through the town from Wickford rail station to Dale Farm, flanked by police and chanting "Hey! Ho! Tony Ball has got to go."

Tony Ball is the head of the local council. When I asked Cathleen what she would say to him if he was in the march, she said, "I'd ask him if he'd like to swap lives, if he'd like travelers to turn up at his home and turf him out onto the road to live in a caravan with limited electricity, poor sanitation, and sometimes no water. I'd like to see if he'd still evict us then."

It took about an hour to reach Dale Farm. On the way, we stopped at the local primary school that would have to close if the traveling families left, since its classes are full of gypsy children. This weird looking MEP named Richard Howitt showed up to hold kids and pose for the media. He gave a speech later, as did reps from anti-fascist groups, Amnesty International, and the Gypsy Council of Great Britain.

The speeches got everyone riled up, but when I looked at the travelers many of them seemed sad and weary. I guess many of them must have found themselves in this situation before. No matter how well-attended and reported the march was, the bailiffs would still be coming on the 19th to kick them out of their own land. Ultimately, the week was just the calm before the storm, and it'll be the gypsies who have to fight back when the bailiffs come calling. The Solidarity campaigners have said they will hold non-violent, direct action protests against the eviction, but some of the residents have claimed they will defend their homes by any means necessary. Some have even said they'll burn their homes before they're bulldozed. The gypsies might not stand much of a chance on paper, but if I were a bailiff, I'd expect a hell of a bonus before I even thought about attempting to clear this place.