BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws

26 Nov 19 - 01:04 PM (#4021206)
Subject: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Jack Campin

This looks pretty grim. Site is a pro-Corbyn PR outfit but there is probably something in it.

Tory manifesto footnote

---

26 Nov 19 - 04:20 PM (#4021239)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Bonzo3legs

Excellent news, can't come soon enough.

---

26 Nov 19 - 04:42 PM (#4021245)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: David Carter (UK)

Trouble is that this will go down well with a surprising number of unthinking people, you have already flushed one out, so to speak.

---

26 Nov 19 - 04:56 PM (#4021247)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Steve Shaw

Ignore Bonzo the Clown. Daft as a brush.

---

27 Nov 19 - 03:26 AM (#4021279)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Dave the Gnome

...and not as useful

---

27 Nov 19 - 03:50 AM (#4021285)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Thompson

Is Britain now able to make laws targeted at specific groups of people?

And if someone parks in my driveway, can I get their car confiscated and crushed?

---

27 Nov 19 - 09:24 AM (#4021343)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Iains

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-announces-plans-to-tackle-illegal-traveller-sites

---

27 Nov 19 - 11:52 AM (#4021371)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Nigel Parsons

Some complained that the Conservative manifesto was a little on the short side. It can be read (in minutes) here: Conservative Manifesto
The matter referred to in the initial post is actually from Feb 2019 (long before anyone knew there would be a General Election) and can be found here: Government announces plans to tackle illegal traveller sites

---

27 Nov 19 - 02:35 PM (#4021388)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: David Carter (UK)

Yes Thompson, it can, and has been doing so (originally in the form of England) for over a millenium. England is fundamentally not a tolerant country.

---

27 Nov 19 - 04:21 PM (#4021415)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Raedwulf

DtG - Has this been empirically tested? I think it should be arranged that it be shoved, hairy-end down, down a Domestosed/Toilet-ducked (other brands are available) toilet & repeatedly twisted around, so as to properly test the cleaning properties.

Whut? ;-)

---

29 Nov 19 - 01:32 PM (#4021652)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: leeneia

This is the heart of the matter on the page that Jack linked:

"...give the police new powers to arrest and seize the property and vehicles of trespassers who set up unauthorised encampments, in order to protect our communities..."

Let me see. If I were a farmer, and strangers set up their camp on my land without my permission, I'd want to be able to do something about it. Particularly, if, as I have read, they deposit trash and human waste on the site.

Do they or don't they?

---

29 Nov 19 - 03:58 PM (#4021675)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Dave the Gnome

Raedwulf's questions remind me of a better term than daft as a brush.

He's Harpic.

Clean round the bend.

---

29 Nov 19 - 06:54 PM (#4021688)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Steve Shaw

We used to call the bog brush the Bowie, as, when held aloft, it somewhat resembled one of the great man's early haircuts. Hence the exchange "I'm off to have a quick dump." "Fine, but just don't do what you always do and leave bits of dead otter on the Bowie..."

---

30 Nov 19 - 03:58 PM (#4021748)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Steve Shaw

In the immortal words of John Seymour, hardly a leftie, nobody made the land.

---

30 Nov 19 - 04:36 PM (#4021751)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Iains

In the immortal words of John Seymour, hardly a leftie, nobody made the land.
and just what point is lefty shaw trying to make? Ownership of land is vested with either individuals or the state. With that ownership comes a responsibility to clean up after flytipping..

I think we can rest assured that if you had several tons of contaminated waste dumped on your property you would be the first to start squealing when faced with the cleanup bill

---

30 Nov 19 - 05:20 PM (#4021753)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: The Sandman

fly tipping is done by all sorts of different people many of whom are not travellers, i had someone dump some soiled nappies with other rubbish on my land the culprit was not a traveller

---

30 Nov 19 - 06:47 PM (#4021758)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Bonzo3legs

You only have to see the disgusting mess left by these hideous people who think they have the right to force entry on to private land.

---

30 Nov 19 - 06:59 PM (#4021760)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Steve Shaw

Well perhaps we should re-examine the concept of "private land." John Seymour was just as right-wing as you, Bonzo, but he still told us that nobody ever made the land.

A verse from Woody in "This Land Is Your Land":

As I went walking I saw a sign there,
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing.
That side was made for you and me.

---

30 Nov 19 - 09:53 PM (#4021764)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Iains

Perhaps shaw would like to test his peculiar ideas by entry to area 51.
I suspect the concept of ownership and trespass would be demonstrated quite forcibly, and sufficient to penetrate the pinky bubble of delusion he inhabits. Or perhaps he would like to take a hike through Chernobyl or Fukushima. Does a biohazard or radiation sigh become meaningless simply because a person has ignored it and is looking at the back of the sign.
There are some who insist on qualifying for a Darwin Award and humanity is more resilient as a result!

---

01 Dec 19 - 04:53 AM (#4021786)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Jack Campin

The point of the proposed law is that it also removes the landowner's rights. They are no longer given the option of tolerating travellers on their property - it's entirely up to the police.

---

01 Dec 19 - 05:00 AM (#4021788)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: The Sandman

jack, that is interesting, and certainly undemocratic, so if for example a traveller had a bit of money and owned considerable land he would not be allowed to have travellers on his land.

---

01 Dec 19 - 05:09 AM (#4021790)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Backwoodsman

My experience of travellers is that, if land is fenced or access is otherwise prevented, they will not break the fence or other barriers - presumably because that would make them guilty of criminal damage or some such, and removing them would thus be made easier. Rather than ‘force entry on to private land’, they will seek open areas, without fences or barriers preventing entry.

So Bonzo’s nonsense about them ‘thinking they have the right to force entry on to private land’ is just that - nonsense.

If a land owner is either too bone-idle, or too tight-arsed, to fence his property, he really is in no position to complain when individuals or groups of individuals with no permanent home make short-term use of the land.

---

01 Dec 19 - 06:04 AM (#4021793)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Steve Shaw

If a landowner is making legitimate use of the land in law, for example by building houses, keeping farm animals or growing crops, he or she has the right to carry out that out without hindrance. Hindrance can be by physically occupying parts of the land in encampments or by dumping rubbish. Presumably, building sites and farmed animals will be clearly fenced, and land used for crops will either contain the crops or look like it's been ploughed ready for planting. It would clearly be wrong under the law for travellers to intrude on that land. But there are other circumstances in which we should tread much more carefully; land that isn't being put to use which isn't fenced for example. There have been notorious cases of large corporations buying up land (Tesco for example) and leaving it derelict for years, and there are brownfield sites that have been empty for years. I think that many people who get all self-righteous about "private land," etc, are far more concerned about travellers living near them, unfortunately for them a far harder argument to make than the "private land" one. And I'm not living smugly in a traveller-free state. My parents and their neighbours recently got very uppity about travellers encamped nearby and blamed them for all local ills. Round here we have up-in-arm farmers accusing "pikeys" for all manner of petty theft and threatening behaviour. I must say, I've yet to see it.

---

01 Dec 19 - 06:23 AM (#4021794)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Backwoodsman

The company I worked for for the final 13 years of my working life (and my wife is still a senior manager there) own four-acre, undeveloped field alongside, but separate from, their factory-site. They used to let it for a peppercorn rent to a local farmer, who grew crops on it. That was a deliberate ploy in order to deter travellers, and it worked - in the five or six years it was let to the farmer, we had no traveller-camps, even though they camped on other, uncultivated areas on the same industrial estate.

When the farmer gave up his lease on the land, we were approached by several people from the local, official traveller’s site, who asked for permission to graze their horses there. We agreed, fenced and gated the field and, since that time, various travellers have brought horses to the field for periods of grazing FOC. It works very well, the piece of land is secure, no travellers have made any attempt to camp on the land, they are courteous to the company’s staff and treat company- and employee-owned property with respect.

Sometimes, you have to think a bit further, and perceive them as more than just “Fucking dirty, criminal gypsies”.

---

01 Dec 19 - 06:34 AM (#4021795)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Iains

They are no longer given the option of tolerating travellers on their property
It is not a question of tolerance it is a question of having a planning consent for change of use. Ownership of land does not grant unfettered rights.

A lawless minority of travellers alienate the majority.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4263458/Pupils-told-stay-home-travellers-invade-school.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5803229/Travellers-dump-hundreds-tons-building-waste-garbage-M1-underpass.html

---

01 Dec 19 - 06:45 AM (#4021796)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Steve Shaw

There's is a strong undercurrent of quasi-racism, or real racism, in many a discussion about travellers. The Daily Mail is a strong promoter of such undercurrents. Always pays to read such rags with intelligence and scepticism at all times. Their pieces on these topics never shed light.

---

01 Dec 19 - 08:41 AM (#4021802)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Iains

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/14/uk-politicians-accused-of-racist-rhetoric-against-travellers
UK politicians accused of racist rhetoric against Travellers
MPs and councillors have branded group illiterate and violent over past two years
Fact:
1)According to one survey, cited by Ofsted (2003), 33% of Traveller pupils were gaining Level 2 in English at the end of Key Stage 1 (ages 6-7), as against a national average of 84% to 86%, whereas at Key Stage 3 (ages 11-14), 16% of Traveller pupils gained a Level 5 plus at English, compared to a national average of 64%
2)A 2007 presentation by Roberts and colleagues on the health of Gypsies and Travellers in Wrexham reported that 61 per cent of married English Gypsy women and 81 per cent of married Irish Traveller women interviewed for the study had experienced direct domestic abuse. Nevertheless, no further information is available on whether the methods of identifying or recruiting women may have influenced these figures. Lord Avebury's (2003) review of local authority homelessness strategies noted that three local authorities referred to high levels of domestic violence, based on information provided at homelessness application interviews, but no further information or statistics were provided.
They are illiterate, they are violent! irrefutable statistics. What is racist about that?
To this can be added higher levels of illness, suicide, premature death and infant mortality.
The statistics are readily available and can be easily checked.


In Ealing, a Conservative councillor, Joanna Dabrowska, launched a petition in December 2018 calling on the council to adopt a borough-wide injunction. Dabrowska wrote in a blog that there was currently “one rule for Travellers, one rule for the rest of us,”

In response to a request for comment, Dabrowska said:

“I would like to ask everyone and anyone: why do some people feel encamping without authority, flytipping, antisocial behaviour etc on public land is acceptable?”

---

01 Dec 19 - 08:48 PM (#4021884)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Steve Shaw

Whilst I never want to engage with you as I regard you as a confounded idiot of the highest order, I just wish to say that the above post confirms, once and for all, that you harbour the most detestable and intolerant racist views that I've ever seen expressed on this forum.

---

02 Dec 19 - 03:27 AM (#4021893)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Iains

Well rest assured Shaw, despite you inhabiting a permanent lefty bubble of delusion,I still hold you in the deepest contempt.
and do not call me a racist you drivelling idiot.

---

02 Dec 19 - 04:50 AM (#4021900)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Iains

The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s first-ever report on equality and human rights progress for England The report includes findings on the experiences of Gypsies, Travellers and Roma in relation to: •education•work and standard of living •health•prisons, and •stigmatising treatment.


https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/is-england-fairer-2016-most-disadvantaged-groups-gypsies-travellers-roma

---

02 Dec 19 - 05:16 AM (#4021902)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Steve Shaw

When I started teaching in east London I swore to myself that I would never let a racist remark pass in my classroom. This is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind:

"They are illiterate, they are violent!" They, these people, etc, broadbrush and wholesale, unconditional. Absolute trademark of racist hate speech.

I could suggest that you stop digging. I'm done with you here, so any further response will be ignored.

---

02 Dec 19 - 05:17 AM (#4021903)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: The Sandman

[They are illiterate, they are violent!] generalisations again ,now can you prove that the majority of fly tipping is done by settled people or travellers

---

02 Dec 19 - 06:12 AM (#4021906)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Iains

They are illiterate, they are violent!] generalisations again
But backed by irrefutable statistics

can you prove that the majority of fly tipping is done by settled people or travellers

What part of "A lawless minority of travellers alienate the majority." is beyond your comprehension?
If you are unable to closely follow an argument perhaps you should not contribute.

---

02 Dec 19 - 07:47 AM (#4021917)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Dave the Gnome

A lawless minority of travellers alienate the majority yet a lawless minority of permanently housed people do not tar all house dwellers as thieves and fly-tippers. I wonder why that is?

Rhetorical question before anyone answers.

Steve, in reply to your Woody quoete earlier. I think we can bring the same sentiment to this side of the pond with

The sin of property, we do disdain
No man has the right to buy and sell the earth for private gain

Or even bring it up north with

No man has he right to own mountains
Any more than the deep ocean bed

I'm sure everyone knows the songs :-)

---

02 Dec 19 - 10:56 AM (#4021937)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: The Sandman

iains i asked you a question answer it

---

02 Dec 19 - 12:09 PM (#4021946)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Backwoodsman

Don’t hold your breath, Dick.

---

02 Dec 19 - 02:54 PM (#4021969)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Iains

now can you prove that the majority of fly tipping is done by settled people or travellers

Why would I want to prove what I have not stated?

Flytipping is a major problem everywhere but there are plenty of documented illegal traveller sites that had massive clean up bills after the caravans were removed.

I stated no case to suggest one group or another created the majority of the problem. Perhaps if you learnt to understand the written word your ripostes may be less provocative.
But to demonstrate cause and effect in a few known cases:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/10235839/Council-sends-traveller-clean-up-bill-to-police-commissioner.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5582919/Travellers-leave-site-covered-rubbish-taxpayers-65-000-bill-clear-mess.html
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/4079988/travellers-dump-mountain-of-rubbish-including-fridges-and-bath-tubs-leaving-landowners-wit
https://www.cheshire-live.co.uk/sport/football/chester-fc-left-hefty-bill-16495463
How many more examples would you like?

Would you like remedial reading classes?

---

02 Dec 19 - 07:04 PM (#4021991)
Subject: RE: BS: Proposed anti-Traveller laws
From: Steve Shaw

What you didn't state you insinuated. You do it by quoting right-wing "sources." You can't speak articulately for yourself, ever, so you rely on tabloid scum and a criminal blogger to do it for you. I hope that makes you feel just great. At least it saves you from making an effort. The rest of us can see right through you. You are on your own here with your racist rhetoric and I really hope you are enjoying the cold draught. That is precisely how racists like you operate. You made a blanket statement about all travellers being illiterate and violent (oh yes you did, and you even said that the evidence was irrefutable). Detestable, dishonest and totally untrue.

I can't stand racists, and, even though I'm sworn to ignore your egregious rubbish here, I'm calling you out. Gotta be done, even though I'm having to hold my nose. You're a disgusting blight on this decent forum.

---