Yesterday (11/9/11) Britain's Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) with the help of Bedfordshire Police raided a caravan park in Leighton Buzzard in order to free 24 men who were being held as slaves and arrest 5 under the 2010 Slavery and Servitude Act. Although there is no evidence that this is anything other then people being held in cheap accommodation on a public caravan park the story is being reported by the BBC as "Slaves freed from Traveller site."
With the eviction of the Dale Farm Traveller site scheduled to begin next Monday (19/9/11) it would be all to easy to dismiss this police operation as an anti-Traveller smear campaign. However the full motivation behind it is far more sinister then that.
Firstly it is an anti-traveller smear campaign but one so obvious that it was designed to provoke people like me to leap to the defence of the Dale Farm residents. This would involve explaining the differences between Britain's Traveller evictions and France's recent Traveller evictions which would please France and improve relations between Britain and France over Libya. Secondly it was an opportunity to bombard the Americans with controversial phrases like "Travellers," "Gypsies," "Slaves," "SOCA," "Alcoholics" and "Institutionalised" on the tenth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks.
So if you remember nothing else about this story remember that it was 2010 - last year - when Britain finally made slavery illegal.
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