Dale Farm

Finding myself an exile from my native London, in what is pretty much the very centre of England, it felt rather strange that yesterday a couple of people asked me what I thought about the Dale Farm situation. Now this isn't what I would call a 'Church' issue in that the Church is not obviously involved in the situation but of course, it is very much a 'Church' problem in that it is an area of pastoral and moral concern.

My view was that what the people occupying the site had done was illegal and that the Council had every right to apply for and, if the application was upheld, ask those living on the site to vacate it. The problem is that there are a number of factors involved here:

People - public morality - lawfulness (and lawlessness) - public money.

My view was that surely there must be a packet of land somewhere near that could have been set-up to accomodate the residents of Dale Farm and that developing and moving the residents to this must be cheaper than the cost of paying the salaries of the british legal profession.

I was (and still am) under the impression that the threat of cost, poor publicity, manipulation of the legal elements and violence were all brought together by the residents (along with the so called 'protesters' who bring their violence and civil disobedience under the guise of supporting the residents) to scare Basildon Council off from clearing the site.

This view was confirmed by a resident of the site on this morning's Radio Four News programme who told listeners that by the time they'd finished clearing the site, the violence and their response would herald a new era of Gypsy and Traveller rights as no Council would dare to go up against them again!

I am sorry, but the threat of violence must never be allowed to overthrow the rule of law and such thinking must be dealt with fairly and with the minimum of violence, but the rule of law cannot be thrown aside because of fear. It is a great shame that common sense (on all sides) has not prevailed, but now there is no option left available to either side and we can do is pray that some commonsense and a minimum of force used (or required) will prevail and that those vulnerable residents are engaged with properly.

Pax