IN A gesture to assuage mounting public and political disquiet at the use of costly hotel accommodation to house illegal immigrants, Starmer’s government last week announced with some fanfare that military bases would be used instead. Camps in Crowborough and Inverness were identified for initial placements.
Crowborough Army training camp abuts Ashdown Forest, ten square miles of tranquil open heathland, a former royal hunting ground and a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The camp was established by the War Office during the First World War and was used in WWII to prepare troops for the Normandy landing. For years it has been used for local cadets. In the far distance can be seen the South Downs which border the Sussex coastline and in parts overhang the English Channel.
Next to the camp lies Crowborough, a mild mellow Sussex town to the south of Tunbridge Wells and best known for having been the final home of Arthur Conan Doyle. It is a largely residential town of substantial family homes with seven primary schools and one large secondary school.
Last week a bombshell hit the town when it was ‘leaked’ via social media – rather than any official statement – that Crowborough Army training camp had been requisitioned by the Home Office to house 600 illegal migrants and that they would arrive some time this month. Given the information vacuum, residents were gratified when Sussex Weald Reform swiftly organised a public meeting in a large community centre. Such was the attendance at the admirably apolitical meeting that two sittings had to be held. In the meantime the Sussex Weald Conservative MP Nus Ghani expressed outrage that she had not been advised of the plan; there has been acerbic communication between Ms Ghani and the LibDem and Green leaders of Wealden District Council re who knew what when. Ms Ghani – who neither resides in nor has an office in the constituency – holds the lofty position of Madam Deputy Speaker of the House and therefore it was left to Mims Davies and Dr Kieran Mullan, Conservative MPs from adjoining constituencies, to raise questions in the House. In the face of fierce protest by the local electorate (and concern for their positions), all parties are now expressing opposition to the plan – though the Green council leader exhorted the populace to ‘Let not fear and lies divide us’ and a local chap has instructed us to ‘be more thoughtful’ lest Tommy Robinson and his pals hijack the situation. After all, if you express dismay at such a plan you have to be far right, don’t you?
What has emerged is that Wealden District Council will be paid per asylum seeker and that Clearsprings – one of the triumvirate of companies making £millions from providing and servicing asylum housing – will be running the camp with the Home Office, claiming that the contract with the MoD will be for just 12 months.
In the meantime, Crowborough residents are faced with the prospect of 600 males of mixed ethnicity being dropped into their midst. Some of the less thoughtful have surmised that the immigrants will be contained behind barbed wire with dogs prowling the area. But of course they will be free to roam 24/7 and avail themselves of the pleasures of Crowborough – which has just one small High Street and one fast-food outlet. Alternatively their free bus passes may encourage them to travel down to nicely diverse Brighton. The HO blurb indicates that the camp will be alcohol-free. Drugs are not mentioned.
Meanwhile residents feel impotent in the face of decisions made by official bodies, and as such Crowborough presents a microcosm of our country. Even as the 600 migrants are transported to the camp from Manston arrival-and-processing centre, given fair weather, another 600+ will arrive across the Channel. Where will they go? As the HO scours the country for other facilities to requisition, hotels will still be filled, more HMOs will be acquired and communities like this Sussex country town will be browbeaten by officialdom into accepting the unacceptable. Once a facility preparing troops to defend our country, Crowborough camp will now prepare a large number of foreign individuals of unknown provenance and intention for life amongst us. The irony of this situation is self-evident but in the meantime, the influx will continue unabated and more and more of our country will be placed in a comparable situation.
The only hope is that word spreads amongst the criminal gang fraternity and their clients that, rather being sent to a 4* city hotel, illegal arrivals may be sent to a camp next to a small town. Hopefully this will provoke them to protest via a human rights lawyer on arrival at Manston and claim that such a green and pleasant location would be bad for their mental health.
