It was the middle of the night when a large minibus with blackened windows, together with a police escort, made its way down the driveway to Crowborough army training camp. It was clear that this arrival had been carefully planned to protect the interests of those in the minibus and of their ‘handlers’ – in this case our government.
The 27 men in the minibus were in fact illegal migrants – the first to be sent to this army training camp. As with anything which is long-awaited or lengthy in gestation – good or ill – nothing quite prepares for the eventuality.
Ever since the small Sussex town of Crowborough learnt that the Home Office wished to place 540 male illegal migrants in its local army training camp, it has fought and protested relentlessly. All those concerned with protesting have not only had to fight the proposal in principle, but also to battle with the Home Office to get any sort of response to the numerous questions posed and legal approaches put forward by the various interested parties.
Crowborough’s grass roots organisation Crowborough Shield swiftly raised sufficient funds to instruct lawyers with the ultimate aim of instigating a judicial review. Crowborough’s Conservative MP Nusrat Ghani had numerous meetings with Home Office officials. Wealden’s District Council also sought belatedly to raise environmental and planning issues.
All were met with stonewalling, with lapsed deadlines for information and, in the end, with downright lies. As the weeks passed, it became evident that the Home Office was wilfully withholding information and deliberately impeding any legal intervention. Repeated requests for risk assessments – particularly relating to the location of the camp next to a small town – were never responded to and there was an ongoing information vacuum. All planning constraints were overridden by use of Class Q planning regulation.
At the beginning of the process the Home Office director of asylum accommodation apologised for the lack of previous engagement, and indicated there would be ongoing dialogue with all interested parties. That has never happened.
Up until hours before the first arrivals in the camp, the Home Office still met any enquiry with the terse response that no decision had been made. People in Crowborough knew this to be patently untrue as for weeks the camp had been undergoing refurbishment. Weeks previously an employment agency had been advertising security and other posts at the camp. Then, last weekend, there had been an ongoing procession of delivery vans and lorries into the site. It was observed that notices had been placed on various buildings in the camp indicating that there is a medical centre, a gym and a meeting point for transport.
In all the media publicity that followed the news of the first arrivals in the camp, there was predictable public outrage at the fact that there would be a bespoke 24/7 medical facility. In common with most of the country, local residents find it incredibly difficult to get a timely GP appointment. As for the gym, how many local people would love to have free access to a gym or have free on tap travel facilities to surrounding towns?
Even more to the point, how many Crowborough residents, most particularly those who live in the detached properties immediately adjacent to the camp, would relish having 24/7 security? Unlike the residents of the camp, they have been constrained to pay for their own enhanced security measures.
All of this has been put together by Clear Springs, one of the companies which has made vast profits in recent years due to its taxpayer funded contracts to provide asylum housing.
Crowborough representatives were told from the outset that use of the camp would be for just twelve months. Huge doubt is currently being cast over the veracity of this intention, and there are considerable fears that the Home Office has also lied in this connection.
In the last few days the town has bristled with police. As local independent councillor Andrew Wilson remarked, he has seen more police in the last week than in all the previous eleven years he has lived in the town. Crowborough only has a semi-functioning police station, and full detention facilities are only available at some distance.
It was reported that within 24 hours of their arrival at the camp, three migrants had already left. Given that it has been indicated that c. 40% of illegal migrants awaiting asylum decisions abscond, that sounds about right. Any implication that an army training camp might provide a more controlled environment is completely contradicted by the fact that the residents will be free to come and go at any time of the day or night.
As explained by the Director of asylum accommodation at the outset of the process, once ‘asylum seekers’ have disappeared and failed to respond to contact from Home Office officials for just seven days, they are deemed to no longer require accommodation or assistance.
The fact that a majority of such absconders will either be people who are unlikely to be granted asylum and/or who have been trafficked by crime gangs – and are effectively modern day slaves – appears not to trouble the Home Office.
On the very same day that local people digested the news regarding the first arrivals in the camp, the Home Secretary spoke to the press. Even by the standards of this inept incompetent government, her words were incredibly inappropriate. She said:
‘Illegal migration has been placing immense pressure on communities.
That is why we are removing the incentives that draw illegal migrants to Britain, closing asylum hotels that are blighting communities.
Crowborough is just the start. I will bring forward site after site until every asylum hotel is closed and returned to local communities.
I will not rest until order and control to our borders is restored.’
Where to begin? The first sentence is correct. Uncontrolled immigration is indeed placing huge pressure on communities. In fact, it’s causing societal havoc. Ask anybody who lives in run down northern villages, towns and cities which are full of HMOs bought up by landlords with multiple properties in order to take on lucrative contracts with the Home Office.
Ms Mahmood continues that closing asylum hotels will remove the incentives that draw illegal migrants here. Yes, migrants may enjoy free stays in hotels – particularly if they’re simultaneously working illegally – but they are not the reason they come here. They come here because they can. They come because once they land on our coast and say they want to claim asylum, they are ushered in. They, together with their identity documents, will have travelled through a number of safe countries where they either chose not to claim asylum or were refused. The fact that they jettison any form of personal identity before arriving in the UK is the clearest possible indicator that if their true identity and provenance were known, this could potentially inhibit their asylum claim.
Ms Mahmood’s third assertion – delivered with a degree of relish – that ‘Crowborough is just the start’ should send chills down the spines of people throughout the UK. Far from mollifying, far from placating, this sounded like an out -and-out threat rather than any sort of solution to the problem.
Crowborough camp will have the second highest concentration of illegal migrants after Wethersfield. What on earth does she think the use of Crowborough camp will do to the local community? Will there be something magical about the fact that the migrants are in a different kind of environment from a hotel? Will extra large groups of single unemployed young males behave better outside the camp? Obviously not. The simplest grasp of probability theory would indicate that the higher the number of people in one place, the greater the probability of various things occurring.
In the meantime, the Home Secretary promises not to rest until our borders are controlled. On that basis, a restless time lies ahead for the Home Secretary as her government is doing nothing whatsoever to achieve her aim.
In the last seven days alone, 730 ‘irregular migrants’ crossed the English Channel in small boats without permission to enter the UK. Today the weather is fair, so it may be a bumper day… Notoriously there have been c.70,000 illegal arrivals since Starmer became Prime Minister.
We therefore have the perfect storm in Crowborough. Not only are we faced with a situation that cannot be viewed with any positivity whatsoever, we are also engaged in a battle with our own government. As the weeks have passed, it has become horribly evident to all those fighting the camp plan that the Home Office has no intention of engaging with the community or of honouring its promises in any way whatsoever.
It is disorientating and destructive to realise that the country’s government – an entity whose prime responsibility is that of protecting and ensuring the safety of its citizens – shows every sign of reneging on that responsibility. Maintaining open borders clearly endangers the concept of national security. How can the safety of a country’s citizens be guaranteed when hundreds of people of unknown background are entering daily – illegally – but without hindrance?
This government shows no sign of either wanting to or knowing how to control our borders. To then inflict the results of this inability or lack of desire on its citizens is unacceptable. It is not the fault of the residents of Crowborough or anywhere else that the government is failing to fulfil its primary duty.
Such behaviour may be partly the result of systemic incompetence, but it goes beyond that. The government is clearly determined to impose their will in various ways and they have zero interest in listening to the wishes of the people. As the gulf grows between expectation and delivery, people’s scepticism grows exponentially.
It is now reported that there have been further arrivals at the camp. Meanwhile Crowborough is planning to hold its eleventh peaceful protest march this Sunday. It is thought that this will be a particularly well attended one and will attract several thousands of people. Since the enhanced media attention we have gained considerable public support – including from well-known political figures. It is deeply ironic that our own government fails to share in that support and that, on the contrary, it seems determined to cause untold disruption and dismay in our quiet peaceful town and that of others. Questions regarding its motivations are bound to be asked.
Madeleine Gillies is a Crowborough resident with a career in language teaching in the UK and abroad.
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‘The government is clearly determined to impose their will in various ways and they have zero interest in listening to the wishes of the people’. A truer sentence was never spoken.
‘fought and protested relentlessly’. That’s where Crowborough (and other blighted places plus no doubt those about to blighted in the near future) went/will go wrong. Relentlessly protesting does no good whatsoever the definition of fought (as in fight) must have surely changed?
Starmer must die in agony ASAP.