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[ed boy]

From what I've heard (but please feel free to consider the press coverage I got this through to be biased), re-housing solutions have been offered.  And rejected.

To clarify, when the solutions were rejected, it was rejected by the travellers (the way you worded that could be interpreted to mean that the government rejected proposed re-housing plans), including another site just a couple hundred metres away.

[micelus]

Damn I get my info wrong. Guess I should read more before saying anything.

[Chattox]

Written by a friend in rebuttal to an argument with someone, but pretty relevant I think. Be warned, towering monolith of text.

The matter at hand is not whether or not the individuals occupying the Dale Farm site are in violation of United Kingdom or English law - we know this to be the case. Irrespective of whatever our opinions of these particular facets of Union and national law and our sentiments on when and how they should be enforced may be, any sane and reasonable person - who has taken the time to educate him or herself about the facts of the matter - can recognise that this "eviction" is entirely unnecessary and a blatant violation of Human rights. You know, those things that are supposed to the basis of the modern laws you cherish so dearly.

Basildon District Council, despite its claims, has repeatedly and persistently - with the consent and assistance of Her Majesty's Government in Westminster - resisted finding a peaceful solution to the problem. The real issue is not necessarily the relocation itself, but the manner in which it is being carried out. I don't pretend to be an expert on the matter either, but a few key things I think must be keept in mind:

(1) The United Nations has condemned and rejected the eviction as being in violation of Human rights legislation at national and international levels. It has insisted the eviction be stopped. The Government has prevented the appropriate UN organisations, despite repeated requests, from sending mediation and guidance teams to help the situation.

(2) The European Commission has, for the last few years, vehemently and repeatedly demanded the cessation of forced mass evictions or deportations of Roma and Traveller persons. This year, the UK Government is actually being ordered - under European law - to draw up evidence that it has a clear and consistent plan for the integration of such individuals into British society by 2022. It is all ready failing miserably in this regard.

(3) The Basildon MP - Angela Smith (Labour) - has been refused, repeatedly, by Basildon Council (Conservative majority) whenever she has offered to intervene and help mediate the situation.

(4) Weeks before the decision to evict was taken, the independent Homes and Communities Agency (an NDPB) advised Basildon Council that it was capable of rehousing all Dale Farm residents in the local area, in legal and affordable housing, within reasonable commuting distance of one another and - crucially - the school the children on the site all attend. This offer was rejected unilaterally by Basildon Council. No other steps have been taken to rehouse the majority of the residents, potentially in violation of European laws and directives.

(5) The Government has refused to publish the Cdl'E report into the legality of the evictions with regards to Human rights, made earlier this year. It is well established that the European Commission is staunchly opposed to such evictions - I'm sure you're all ready familiar with the judgements of the European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship on the matter.

(6) The region's MEP has been denied permission to the visit the site so long as the residents of it - his constituents - are still living there, and when he attempted to do so today to observe the eviction, he was forcefully ejected on the order of Basildon Council, ostensibly on the grounds of safety.

(7) By evicting these individuals and failing to make provisions for their rehousing in the immediate area, Basildon Council is potentially failing to meet its legal obligations to provide essential education and medical services to the former residents of the site, given the extreme difficulty Roma and Traveller individuals often have in accessing these services due to their lack of a permanent address. Without Council support, it is often extremely difficult for these individuals to find legal housing thanks to racial discrimination, if they can even afford such housing.

(8) The majority of the 10 year "effort to find a peaceful solution" took the form of the Council taking it case to various courts to gain approval for eviction. The residents of Dale Farm were denied permission to follow their appeals up and appeal to higher courts, including the ECHR.

There was absolutely no need for this brutal eviction to take place - Basildon Council has NOT met its legal obligations, is potentially itself in violation of the law and, most importantly, has systematically rejected all efforts by third parties to reach a peaceful solution and to make provisions to ensure the safety and security of these persons after they are removed from the site. THAT is absolutely unacceptable. Regardless of what you think of the legality of Dale Farm's existence, the fact of the matter is the people who lived there are European Citizens with rights under British and European law - rights that have been denied in contravention of that law. I remind you that European law is not only binding in the UK - it takes precedence over domestic law in all but a handful of very explicit circumstances.

[Wayward Device]

Also, the council has spent slightly over £80 million over the last decade getting this eviction organised. Needless to say, this has been a gigantic waste of funds as well as a rather unpleasant episode in love/hate relationship we brits have with the traveling community. Incidentally, the census this year was the first time any government has admitted to the existence of travelers, giving them a box to to tick in the ethnic group section.

Oh, one last thing. Traveler's are gypsys. Generally speaking it can cover either "white" or "Irish" travelers, who are the decedents of the first gypsys to, well, travel about in the UK and Romany gypsys, who are mostly from Romania and it's surrounding countries and tend to be slightly darker, as they haven't had generations of interbreeding with us pasty anglo-saxons. Basically, "Traveler" is a politically correct term brought in to replace "fucking gypos" and similar. If you ever meet one, they are most likely to refer to themselves as a gypsy.

[Montague]

Kinda reminds me of the occasional legal struggles with the Rainbow People in the USA over occupancy of national forest land and other public places. With hippies not having permits and officials not wanting to approve them, ect.

Although, as far as I know the US government has never forcefully removed them from anywhere and the Rainbow People actually travel from place to place and don't just set up camp and stay there for decades on end.

Anyways, they are not very similar to the like gypsies in Europe, these people are more like hippies and homeless people getting drunk in the woods or whatever.