The Metropolis

Next time someone tells you they are conservative, in favour of a small state, of personal freedom, of liberty, ask them their views on Dale Farm

Josh Hall | Thursday 20 October, 2011 15:01

Two columns of riot police, shields in position, carrying ladders and armed with tasers, cresting a hill under cover of darkness. A single, stark, sandblasted house in the background; the inhabitants, one imagines, peering out of the windows in confusion and fear.

It is one of the most terrifying, heartrending photographs of Britain that I have ever seen. It is so acutely awful because it so precisely depicts the true face of the police, and of the state; a face that wears a smile in office and a helmet in action.

It is clear that the violent eviction of Dale Farm will be amongst the events that define this government. It will seem extraordinary to our children and grandchildren; an unfamiliar brutality of the sort that fills history books. The sort of event that will ensure this period is associated with savagery, with proto-fascistic tendencies, with institutional disregard for human rights and the rule of law.

Dale Farm has become a shibboleth. It is possible, it seems, to discern many of a person’s real beliefs by asking what they think about the community. For all their horror, yesterday’s events have proven to be a useful divining tool through which the right’s most odious hypocrites can be identified. Next time someone tells you they are conservative, in favour of a small state, of personal freedom, of liberty, ask them their views on Dale Farm. Ask them how they feel about the state making 82 families homeless because a local council refused to grant permission to transform a scrapyard into a thriving community. Ask them how they feel about police beating a resident so badly that she cannot move her legs. Ask them how they feel about the same police destroying undisputed property in order to get to the settlement. Ask them how they feel about tasers being used to enforce planning regulations, and riot officers being used to enforce civil court orders.

The residents of Dale Farm have suffered intolerably, for no other reason than that they choose to live their lives differently. Not aggressively, not dangerously, not in a manner that is threatening: just differently. Their persecution leaves an indelible stain on our national conscience.

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