A report on the conference responding to Bert's report above.


Bert asks the pertinent questions

Is the Coalition a helpful instrument in negotiating this minority's points of view? As well as listening to reasonable needs & interests of the more conventional world?

The conference was notable for its contributions from both official government types and Travellers' organisation: articulating the concerns of the latter, explaining the (new) rules of the former. In this response/report, I'll give some background to the conference as I see it, communicate some of the essential information gleaned from the conference, and report my impressions.

For many years, traveller and Gypsy campaigning and support organisations have responded to change. The National Gypsy Education Council, for instance, changed it's name in 1991 to The Gypsy Council for Education, Culture, Welfare and Civil Rights, as it found itself increasingly having to work in all these areas.

The 1994 Criminal Justice Act removed the responsibility of local authorities to establish sites for the Travellers community. Instead, Travellers were urged to find private sites, buy them, and were assured that a level playing field would exist for planning issues. Of course, no such equality prevailed and the Act was simply an act of ethnic and social cleansing. Far more planning applications by Travellers were refused in this period than those by sedentary community. Today, we have the situation where Travellers are evicted from land they own, particularly in areas where the BNP have gained a foothold in local government, but helped by recent police powers of eviction introduced by New Labour. This has led to another critical point in Gypsy politics, much like those of the post-war era and the late 80s/early 90s.

Earlier this century, someone had the idea of forming a coalition of Gypsy/Traveller groups specifically to campaign for change in the law, bringing forward a proposed Bill, The Traveller Law Reform Bill. The Bill is

the product of a process over more than four years of discussion and collaboration by Gypsies and Travellers and their organisations and the statutory and voluntary sectors (including representatives from the police, local authorities, education and health providers, churches, equality organisations, lawyers and planners).
 http://www.travellerslaw.org.uk/About_Us.htm

and proposes

*Every local authority to provide or facilitate the provision of suitable accommodation (temporary and permanent) for Gypsies and Travellers.
*Non Discrimination under an amended Race Relations Act for all Travellers
*Housing Corporation Funding and new housing association powers for Caravan Site Construction.
*Security of tenure on Gypsy caravan sites
*Greater educational opportunities for Travellers
 http://www.gypsy-traveller.org/law/index.htm

The Gypsy & Traveller Law Reform Coalition formed two years ago. It's made up of "all the national Traveller groups" according to the website, including The Gypsy Council, The National Travellers' Action Group, Leeds Justice for Travellers, Friends, Families and Travellers, The Traveller Movement Northern Ireland, The European Committee for Romani Emancipation, The Labour Party Campaign for Travellers' Rights, and the National Association of Health Workers with Travellers. It's an attempt to unify the disparate groups under a common campaign. This was their second annual conference. Tickets were free for Gypsies and Travellers, while community workers and senior management/civil servants paid more on a sliding scale. The conference was jointly organised by the Travellers Advice Team, part of a local community law partnership, which is celebrating it's tenth anniversary.

There was a morning session and a afternoon session, each beginning with an opening plenary session with a number of speakers. I attended the afternoon plenary, where the contrast between conscious Traveller politics and government politics was in sharp relief. A speaker from the Association of Gypsy Women told of how the Association was formed because of a recognition that Gypsy and Traveller women were 'stronger together', and formed because of a desire to take the decisions that affected their lives. Unity was emphasised; she spoke of making links and partnerships with Irish and New Travellers again because we're stronger together!

This was followed by an appearance from a civil servant from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), explaining the governments current attitude to to the 'Traveller question', in particular needs assessment. It seems the ODPM is seeking to create stronger links between the government and the Traveller community while meeting the needs of 'all in the community' in a wider sense. Sounds good, apart from the usual New Labour speak of a mythical 'community' but then mentioned that the ODPM is 'looking at the methodology' by which to achieve this, as if this was a neutral, value-free part of the equation. He mentioned a pilot questionnaire scheme which has been running in some areas. This questionnaire research is being conducted by Gypsies and Travellers, the results fed to regional housing boards, and in turn up to the ODPM. There's an obvious issue in that such a system involves a long chain of communication from Travellers, via the questionnaire, via regional housing and finally to central government with lots of opportunities for Chinese whispers and manipulation of information to suit the needs of the government agencies handling it. In addition, we can ask whether questionnaires alone are appropriate for this work. As any sociologist will tell you, questionnaires are fine for producing information which can be assigned a numerical value and manipulated mathematically, but that they are not reliable if you really want to find out the real needs or opinions of a people in terms of their lived social experience.

There followed a talk by Father Joe Browne of the Irish Traveller Movement, one of the members of the coalition. He approved of the frankness of the discussions going on, arguing that dialogue and debate was crucial if the Coalition was to achieve its aims. He felt active engagement with the government 'and all stakeholders' was crucial also. He felt the movement was gaining strength, and that its purpose was to worry the government - 'worry worry worry' in bigger and bigger numbers until it achieves those aims.

There was also a report form the parallel youth conference from the morning session. The adult making this report emphasised it was important to not see the youth conference as kids playing, but rather as an important contribution to the future from the Traveller activists of the future. She then read out a number of quotes from the youth:

We need more sites.
Schools should be aware of our culture
Need more transit sites
I want to play more sports
It is not good how people treat us...police look down on us.

One activist I chatted to during a smoking break felt this was the 'last great issue' in Britain - indigenous Traveller rights. He felt this was a critical time for the movement, reflecting the last great critical times for the movement; first in the 60s, when post war development last forced Travellers off land, leading to the 1968 Caravan Sites' Act which placed a duty on local authorities to establish sites for the Travellers community, then in the early 90s when this was repealed. He felt that people were getting their act together and the movement was strong, but only had a few years to influence a part-sympathetic Labour government, feeling certain that the Tories would form the next government.

These were the workshops which followed:

Gypsy and Traveller women
What do we want and when do we want it? - accommodation needs assessments fro Gypsies and Travellers
The New Planning System
Community Support Groups
Sharing Good Practice
Site Issues
Supporting Travellers Living on the road

I attended the last on that list; the workshop was based on a panel leading form the front, with all members of it speaking, then contributions from the floor; it became a highly political discussion of the issues generally. A traveller support worker (from the Gypsy Council) spoke passionately about her work trying to help travellers deal with local authorities, and pointed out the wide inconsistencies between local authorities: some merely 'tolerate' travellers and their sites, some actively provide housing, while some authorities simply do not tolerate travellers whatever the circumstances and will harass and evict them whatever the law. In these circumstances the worker said her response to the authority is simply to take them to court.

The first persons to speak in the workshop were from the Traveller Support group of Canterbury. She spoke of her experiences as a road traveller and her difficulties in accessing medical services. There is 'nothing out there to protect us'. Police, when moving road-side travellers on, do so in the small hours of the morning and are usually waiting in the next town to move them on again.

Councils are being very quick to evict, and groups like the Canterbury Support Group are finding it very difficult to step in and represent evictees before the police use the powers available to them, often performing only cursory welfare checks. As an aside, the facilitator mentioned that while Human Rights legislation is not normally admissible in a local court in such cases, a recent case has shown that it can be used as a 'stay' delaying a court case if the circumstances are strong enough to warrant serious human rights concern.

New police powers:
Labour have introduced new police powers which are even more draconian than the previous (1986) powers used to evict travellers. The new powers mean an eviction can be called purely on the basis of one vehicle being on a piece of land; the landowner does not have to have asked the travellers to move and damage to the land does not have to be shown. Under these powers the police can only move travellers to an alternative site chosen by them (in co-operation with the local authority) but in practice the powers are being absurdly used when no suitable sites exist. If the travellers refuse to move, or if they move to an alternative site chosen by them, they are automatically criminalised; in effect trespass has been criminalised by these powers - it's very severe draconian legislation in addition to the existing powers. Police can also use, and do use, sections 61 and 77 of the 1994 Criminal Justice Act to evict.

Things are getting worse, as police in collaboration with local government are actively harassing people. Another speaker from the Canterbury group argued we need to pressure the government to declare a moratorium on all evictions. He recommended more local activism targeting local authorities and the police to win their 'hearts and minds'. The coalition was doing a good job, but there was a need to target local government and the media against ethnic cleansing. The speaker felt it was counter-productive to resist evictions since it doesn't 'win hearts and minds'. This should be the aim, publicising traveller efforts to fight ethnic cleansing worldwide. "It's time to come out of the woods'.

A challenge might be mounted to this view of course; why should outreach be focused on local police commanders and local government, and as an alternative to resisting evictions, rather than on local people? Neighbours. How much more effective would eviction resistance be if local people supported the travellers rather than the bailiffs? Another speaker, maybe picking up on this, pointed out the need for a pro-active (rather than re-active) media campaign in the next four years of Labour power, feeling a Tory win to be inevitable at the next election. Now is the critical time.

A representative of Durham county council spoke next, defending his council's record; he and others like him within the council had tried very hard to convince their 'political masters' to take Traveller's rights into account.

In all it seemed very positive, but lacking a radical perspective.

Audio reports from the traveller demo in London on the 9th April 2005.
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/04/309465.html
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/04/309451.html