Friday 2 September 2011

Dale Farm Latest.

Dale Farm is a 400 strong gypsy/traveller site in Essex, UK which the local council and central government are trying to evict on very weak legal grounds. The eviction order came into force at midnight on Thursday (1/9/11) and water and electricity supplies to the site were immediately cut off. Today (2/9/11) road access to the site was also cut off. However there seems to have been no attempts so far to start the actual eviction.

Tomorrow the English Defence League (EDL) are threatening to hold their largest ever demonstration in near by east London. Anti-fascist groups have promised to meet them with an equally large counter demonstration. Both of these marches have been banned by the police/Home Office. So there is a possibility that the EDL march could be used as a distraction to cover the start of the Dale Farm eviction.

However Baslidon council who are in charge of the eviction have promised the Dale Farm residents that they will be informed, in writing, of exactly when the eviction is going to take place. Personally I don't think a promise from Basildon council is worth very much at all at this point but I don't think they're in a great rush to start the eviction. Instead they're going to try to leave the effective siege of the site in place for a while in the hope wearing down the residents and breaking their will to fight back. After all this waiting and not knowing when the eviction will start gets very frustrating and tiring after a while.

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