{"id":4621,"date":"2021-06-22T20:41:10","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T20:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/?p=4621"},"modified":"2021-06-22T20:42:53","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T20:42:53","slug":"the-police-bill-new-threat-or-just-lazy-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/archives\/4621","title":{"rendered":"The Police Bill \u2013 new threat or just lazy racism?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Johnny Eastleigh<\/strong> looks at 500 years of attempts by parliament to create outlaws of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller population<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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People from northern India began to arrive in England during the 15th century but were presumed to have come from Egypt \u2013 and were therefore described as \u2018Egyptian\u2019, which became corrupted to \u2018Gypsy\u2019. As this Act demonstrates, they were viewed with suspicion and hostility. Source: http:\/\/www.nationalarchives.gov.uk\/pathways\/citizenship\/citizen_subject\/docs\/egyptians.htm<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s no news to any of us anymore that Romany people were targets of the Egyptians Act 1530. The Act went through a couple of changes over the centuries, but the core threat stayed the same \u2013 anyone in England found to be Romany was punished with death by execution. It sounds extreme, but it\u2019s a matter of history \u2013 you can find a copy of the Act and records of some of its victims with a quick Google search. What\u2019s a little harder to find is the advice of the Privy Council in 1559, which ordered that lawmen specifically \u2018target their heads of family and their chiefs\u2019. This plan was cooked up to better terrorise grieving wives and children into obedience. The idea that was by losing their husbands or heads of family, those remaining would be forced to live \u2018normally\u2019. Since we\u2019re all still around today, we can assume those wives and children were made of much stronger stuff than the Privy Council gave them credit for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 1743, the government had finally realised we weren\u2019t so easily controlled. They upped their game. They introduced the Justices Commitment Act which, like the Egyptians Act, punished people for the sole act of being Romany. By this time they had likely included Irish Travellers, who had by then begun migrating to England. Unlike the Egyptians Act, this time it was enough to just look, act or seem<\/em> like a Romany or Traveller to be prosecuted. So keen were they to control these ethnic groups that even being mistaken for one was grounds for prosecution \u2013 can you imagine being so afraid of such a small group of people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t successful. The Turnpike Road Act had to be introduced in 1822 (if you\u2019ve ever wondered where the old slur comes from, \u2018turnpiker\u2019 is one of the leading theories). This Act forbade Romany and Traveller people from stopping on the turnpikes \u2013 it seems like they had at least learned by now that execution wasn\u2019t effective, because the punishment in this Act was instead a very dear fine. The Egyptians Act was finally repealed in 1856, after more than 325 years of defiance, failure and frustration for those who thought it was the solution to their \u2018Gypsy problem\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following 1900s were one long steady stream of Acts that specifically tried to control or knuckle under Romany and Traveller people, and scrape back some pride after 400 years\u2019 of failed attempts. The forest compounds of Hampshire in the 1920s, their deconstruction in the \u201840s and \u201850s, the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960 and the Caravan Sites Act 1968, which forbade the building of private sites, and the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act which removed the responsibility of local authorities to provide sites themselves. By removing private site provision and absolving themselves of responsibility to build any new ones, they seemed to think they could finally pull a fast one. \u201994 was nearly thirty years ago now \u2013 yet we\u2019re here stronger, more mobilised and more united than ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems like our entire history in this country has been one long list of legislation. Since we\u2019ve been here, not a century has passed since at least one piece of legislation was passed that we might consider nowadays as a human rights violation. Eventually, you have to wonder if the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill 2021 is all that new or inventive \u2013 or if it\u2019s just the latest link in an old stumpchain that could never hold any horses in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That question remains open. Where the Police Powers Bill will end, if we don\u2019t stand up to it, is an open question too \u2013 this time the tactic is to make our traditional ways of life outright illegal. It\u2019s the most blatant attack on Romany and Traveller communities since they were hanging men on sight. If history has taught us anything, though, it\u2019s that they\u2019ve tried their damnedest and their hardest \u2013 and they haven\u2019t managed to beat us yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first demo of our \u2018summer of discontent\u2019 will be held in\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parliament Square, July 7th<\/sup>, 1 PM.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

http:\/\/drive2survive.org.uk\/2021\/06\/22\/the-police-bill-new-threat-or-just-lazy-racism<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Johnny Eastleigh looks at 500 years of attempts by parliament to create outlaws of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller population It\u2019s no news to any of us anymore that Romany people were targets of the Egyptians Act 1530. The Act went … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[662,221,303,185,95,222],"class_list":["post-4621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1","tag-egyptians-act-1530","tag-gypsy","tag-killthebill","tag-law","tag-police","tag-travellers-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4621"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4624,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4621\/revisions\/4624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanlodge.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}