IT WAS the early hours of Thursday when a large minibus with blackened windows, plus a police escort, made its way into Crowborough army training camp. It was clear that this arrival had been carefully planned, presumably 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 the first of 540 of male illegal immigrants due to be sent to the 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 learned of the Home Office plan, it has protested relentlessly. All those concerned 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.
The grass-roots organisation Crowborough Shield swiftly raised sufficient funds to instruct lawyers with the aim of instigating a judicial review. The town’s Conservative MP Nusrat Ghani had numerous meetings with Home Office officials. Wealden District Council 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 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 dialogue with all interested parties. That has never happened.
Until hours before the first arrivals, the Home Office still met any inquiry with the terse response that no decision had been made. People in Crowborough knew this to be untrue as for weeks the camp had been undergoing refurbishment. An employment agency had been advertising security and other posts. Last weekend there was a procession of delivery vans and lorries into the site. It was observed that notices had been placed on various buildings indicating 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 24/7 medical facility. In common with most of the country, Crowborough residents find it extremely difficult to get a timely GP appointment. And how many local people would love to have free access to a gym and free travel facilities to surrounding towns?
Even more to the point, Crowborough residents, unlike those of the camp, are having to pay for their own enhanced security measures.
All of this has been put together by Clearsprings Ready Homes, one of the companies which has made vast profits in recent years from its taxpayer-funded contracts to provide asylum housing.
Crowborough representatives were told from the outset that the camp would be used for just 12 months. Huge doubt is being cast over the veracity of this intention.
In the last few days the town has bristled with police. As independent councillor Andrew Wilson remarked, he has seen more police in the last week than in all the previous 11 years he has lived in the town. Crowborough has only a semi-functioning police station and full detention facilities are some distance away.
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 40 per cent of illegal migrants awaiting asylum decisions abscond, that sounds about right. Any implication that an army 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 no longer to 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 in effect slaves – appears not to trouble the Home Office.
On the very day that local people digested the news regarding the first arrivals in the camp, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood spoke to the press. Even by the standards of this incompetent government, her words were shockingly inept. 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 towns and cities which are full of HMOs [houses in multiple occupation] bought up by landlords 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, must 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 identification 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, this sounded like an out-and-out threat.
What on earth does Shabana Mahmood 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 large groups of single unemployed young males behave better outside the camp? Obviously not.
In the meantime, the Home Secretary promises not to rest until our borders are controlled. On that basis a restless time lies ahead as her government is doing nothing whatsoever to achieve her aim. In the last seven days alone 730 ‘irregular migrants’ crossed the Channel in small boats without permission to enter the UK. Notoriously there have been about 70,000 (known) illegal arrivals since Starmer became Prime Minister.
We 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.
It is disorientating and depressing 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. How can the safety of a country’s citizens be guaranteed when every day hundreds of people of unknown background are entering illegally but without hindrance?
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 its will in various ways and it has zero interest in listening to the wishes of the people. As the gulf grows between expectation and delivery, scepticism grows exponentially.
It is now reported that there have been further arrivals at the camp. Meanwhile Crowborough residents are planning to hold their 11th peaceful protest march today. 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 others.
