Crowborough Sits Tight 

‘Tis the week before Christmas, and Crowborough awaits with bated breath a sign, an announcement, a star in the East. Will some wise men appear or, more likely, will Crowborough only learn its fate when coaches are sighted rolling into its training camp? A camp which only two weeks ago hosted 114 eager young cadets for a highly successful training weekend. Such a training event will not happen in that location for the foreseeable. Poignant, therefore,  to see some of those cadets marching at the head of further protests held for the last two Sundays in Crowborough.

Nothing is deterring Crowborough residents from expressing their dismay regarding the camp plan, and as the weeks pass, their resolution steadies and firms. A concrete manifestation of this is the considerable achievement of the grassroots protest group Crowborough Shield. They have now officially become a Community Interest Group and, having raised sufficient initial money from residents, have launched a legal case against the government.

In stark contrast, the leaders of Wealden last week sent a ‘Please Sir’ letter to Minister of State at the Home Office Alex Norris MP, inviting him ‘to clarify that you have no intention of ruining Christmas for our community…and confirm that no decision will be made before the 5^th January at the very earliest.’  Mr. Norris, who has been notoriously reluctant to communicate anything whatsoever – much less ‘engage with the community’  has, to date, not responded. In the meantime, we learn from the Sunday Mail that a number of migrants currently housed in Folkestone’s Napier Barracks – which is closing – are to be transferred to Crowborough camp this week. Such is the government’s and council’s level of communication, transparency, and respect for those who pay them.

So much for the snivelling pleas of Wealden District Council’s leaders, one of whom is, of course, the Green Party’s deputy leader Rachel Millward. Rachel describes herself as an ex-theologian and created the Birds Eye View film festival.  The Green leader Zack Polanski also has a creative thespian bent: he was involved with a theatre company DifferenceENGINE, morphed from hypnotherapist to LibDem candidate to Green. He chose for himself the name Zack (real name David)  as he liked the character in the children’s novel ‘Goodnight Mr. Tom’.  Rachel failed to endear herself to Crowborough residents when she smirked  her way through the first public meeting in Crowborough about the camp. Perhaps she was just role-playing.

We learnt last week that Zack took himself off to Calais to refill water tanks for immigrants wishing to cross the Channel. Surprising that he wasn’t run out of town by the crime gangs who run the camps. He might have done better to take himself and some water up to our neighbouring town of Tunbridge Wells, which was recently without running water for two weeks and even when restored was subject to a 10- day ‘boil notice’ such was the poor quality of the water. Given that Zack also favours nationalisation of water companies, he might also have attempted to have a word with South East Water’s elusive CEO David Hinton. Throughout the water crisis in Tunbridge Wells, Mr Hinton, who pulls in +/- £500k p.a., has declined to communicate in any way with the media, much less the public. Such is the acquired lack of transparency on the part of those who earn too much.

Both Zack and Rachel might turn their attention to a matter closer to home, given that they support a wealth tax. The Crowborough camp will be run by Clear Springs, which provides accommodation for asylum seekers. Since 2019, the company has made swiftly accelerating profits of £187 million: its founder Graham King is now a billionaire, and he’s zooming up the Sunday Times rich list. Lucky Mr, King has contracts with the government ‘til 2029.  His wealth is, of course, built on the back of the ongoing influx of illegal migrants – which Rachel and Zack favour. Rachel likes the idea as there’s a quantity of doctors and surgeons amongst them, while Zack favours having an endless supply of people to attend to his personal needs in his dotage.  That’s equality for you.

In his ‘Comment’ column on the current political parties in Monday’s Times, Matthew Parris dismisses the Greens as being ‘away with the fairies’. That’s as may be, but when you’ve got one of them running your council, I’m afraid it’s no fairy tale.

In the last days, we’ve heard from NATO’s Mark Rutte that Russia could attack a western country in the next five years and we should be on a war footing. The question of whether the British people would fight for their country was subsequently debated on popular media stations. Largely due to the disdain and loathing which many feel for the current government and ruling elite, the response was not in the affirmative.

Here in Crowborough, we are in no doubt as to our loyalty.  We are engaged in a battle and yes, it’s versus an incompetent, mendacious government and against all those who would wreck our safety and security by depositing hundreds of unvetted foreign men in our town.  We do feel a strong form of patriotism.  A patriotism which expresses itself in love and care for where we are, who we are, and what we represent. We wish to protect that, and if that makes our own government our enemy, then so be it. Crowborough will not give up without a fight.

Madeleine Gillies is a Crowborough resident with a career in language teaching in the UK and abroad.

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(Photograph: Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

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