Young People and the Dale Farm Evictees

Katharine Terrell, St Hilda's College, Oxford University Final year German student

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Young people are currently all over the headlines, whether they are ‘reengaging with politics’ by taking part in student demos or behaving like ‘mindless thugs’ in looting and rioting. Commentators point out that the latter is closely linked to social exclusion: these young people have fewer life chances than their peers at university and some compassion could go a long way towards understanding them.

But some socially-excluded young people haven’t been in the newspaper headlines, yet have been misrepresented in Channel 4 documentaries. The young people I’m referring to are Irish Travellers. In recent news, over eighty Traveller families are soon to be forcefully evicted from their home on Dale Farm in Crays Hill, Essex.  Some families have lived on the site for over thirty years, their children attend local schools, and they are part of the village community. You might have seen Dale Farm on the ‘Big Fat Gypsy Weddings’ documentary – but the reality is no fairytale.

Although the Travellers own the land, some have been repeatedly denied planning permission for extra pitches (a common obstacle for Travellers, according to the Commission for Racial Equality). The reason they have been denied planning permission is because the disused scrapyard that they are on is classified as ‘green belt’ land. A local resident, Len Gridley, has voiced the real reason and says that “no-one wants them [here]”.  Some people object to Travellers ‘on their doorstep’ because of the negative stereotypes associated with them. But there are not enough pitches for all of their caravans and when families do settle and are causing no harm, they are forced to move on. The Council is spending £15 million to remove a community whose history tells of continual hatred and discrimination.

Irish Travellers, recognised as an ethnic minority, have systematically had their way of life taken away as councils remove their pitches which results in them being made homeless.  They are forced to live on grass verges, in car parks or in ‘bricks and mortar’, which is as culturally inappropriate as making a non-Traveller family move out of their house and onto a caravan site.  Far from being worried about university tuition fees, only a quarter of Traveller children will get 5 A*-C grades at GCSE.  The young people on Dale Farm have had the stability of attending the same school for years but now this will be taken away.  One mother said, “the best part of [living here is] the children going to school and seeing they could learn to read and write”.

There is recognition that low education, poor health and crime within minority ethnic communities are complex problems, yet discrimination towards Travellers remains acceptable.  Only the EDL would say that they don’t want [X ethnic minority] in their town. Some activists are even calling the eviction ‘ethnic cleansing’. Both the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and Amnesty International had called for a halt to the eviction. And many other activists, from Bishops to Rabbis, had offered their support in recognition of a shared history of oppression.  One called it ‘a human rights issue that […] may need to ‘trump’ the planning law’.

When we look at students in the UK today, they are worrying about tuition fees and the job market. Those involved in direct action in the recent student protests were (rightfully) angry but many had experienced the privilege of higher education. In comparison, the young people of Dale Farm just want to stay in school. They’re unlikely to be represented by any student unions or bodies that we assume should represent such oppressed groups. They’ll lose their homes and their schooling and it’s probable that higher education will be a distant dream.

I hope that we can recognise the common thread of young people being let down here. The system that denies Traveller children their homes and schooling is the same system that puts higher education out of reach to so many children from care backgrounds, low incomes and ethnic minorities.  Angry young people can hardly be a surprise to politicians and parents, as we are asked to show respect for ignorant and discriminatory authorities who do not care about our future.  But we must care about each other’s future.  So I call for young people to be angry not just about the university debts of future generations but also about the oppression of any young people. If we stand strong together now, we have a better chance to collectively make change that benefits everyone.