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Madeleine Gillies
Madeleine Gillies is a Crowborough resident with a career in language teaching in the UK and abroad.
As is the wont in Crowborough, on Sunday a peaceful protest was held to express ongoing dismay at the placement of up to 540 illegal migrants in an open camp adjacent to the town. This was the 31st such protest and every single one has been entirely peaceful with zero arrests and zero abusive or inciteful messages or behaviour.
The anger of those who protest is directed most specifically at the Home Office, which in the last year has consistently lied about its intentions regarding the camp. Recently we have learned that officials intend to use it until 2030 when they previously stated it was a temporary arrangement for a year. Behaving in an autocratic manner, they have persistently declined to engage with local councils, much less representatives of local resident and business groups.
The Home Office has recently revealed that it has no idea how many failed asylum seekers are in the country. This is no surprise as camp residents are free to leave whenever they please – and a significant number do just that. In other words, they disappear as rapidly as possible into the black economy without waiting around to make asylum claims which may fail. No wonder the government asserts that asylum claim numbers have fallen.
The last Crowborough march came at the end of a week in which the country learned of the most appalling and egregious treatment and death of Henry Nowak. It seems incontrovertible that this was the direct result of the casual incompetence of police officers who were so steeped in DEI that they were blinded to the reality of the situation. The political class and mainstream media reacted by weaponising a partial quote from Henry’s father that his death should not be politicised or promote division: in issuing such statements they did of course do both of those things. This was a now familiar response from Starmer and his ilk. Starting with Southport and every subsequent atrocity, the prime minister’s authoritarian, emotionally sterile principles prevail and he seeks to shut down the voices of those who wish to respond with perfectly reasonable anger.
The local march proceeds along the town’s High Street. In recent weeks we have been faced by a small cohort of people – many not from Crowborough – who hold placards with messages communicating sentiments of love and unity and exhorting kindness to migrants and refugees.
The clear purpose of such sentiments is to oppose any criticism of the camp and to infer moral superiority. The fact that such saccharine virtue-signalling entails tacit acceptance of all the contraindications of allowing quantities of undocumented males to be imported seems to be beyond their reasoning powers. They appear to be oblivious to the considerable wealth being accumulated by the crime gangs and those who provide migrant accommodation – in this case Clear Springs – or the impact on local services, much less the safety or economic welfare of local residents.
At our protest last Sunday we wished to pay our respects to Henry and his bereaved family. In accordance with that sentiment, the leader of our march enjoined those who oppose our marches to forget political or ethical differences and join us in clapping for Henry. (We also held a minute’s silence at the end of the march.) The ‘opposition’ were holding placards which amongst other messages exhorting love said – and I quote: “We are one”, “Love unity”, “We have more in common than the things that divide us”, “Unity is back”.
What happened then was foolish and deeply unpleasant. The proponents of unity and love not only declined to join us in a tribute to Henry – they could have simply stayed silent – but rather they all turned their backs on the hundreds of marchers who were clapping. It felt abusive and offensive and in that action they indicated all too clearly that their instincts are the polar opposite of those they claim to espouse. Far from wishing unity in this small gesture, far from being prepared to lay aside differences, far from behaving in an appropriate manner, their hostility and sheer nastiness rose to the surface. They have always presented as lacking in any commonsense or intellectual curiosity but this was far worse. These virtue-signallers displayed a core of nastiness.
It is reported that ‘right-wing’ politicians from Poland, Japan, France and Spain, not to speak of the US, have decried the death of Henry and commented on the cultural reasons for the tragedy. It has clearly become convenient and comfortable for our own government and associated elites to offload any culpability and deflect responsibility by shutting down debate. It’s therefore reasonable to assume that the playbook for our local #BeKind brigade instructed its followers to associate overt concerns regarding Henry’s death with the far right, ergo those who march in opposition to the camp. Yes, it’s all disturbingly simplistic and unerringly devoid of insight or integrity.
In some horrible way this aligned with the police’s treatment of Henry. Such is the level of moral collapse induced by DEI in all its manifestations that those who promote it and those who blindly and supinely follow it feel justified in treating those who they perceive to be ‘heretics’ with inhumanity and disdain.
I certainly felt pure cold rage at the manner in which Henry died – a rage which was reignited when faced with the silent backs of a group of people who, by clear inference, were behaving in a divisive offensive way, but who claim kindness and unity and brandish their fake moral superiority. By their action they encapsulated the hypocrisy of a government and ruling elite who wish to shut down entirely justified expressions of anger and infinite sorrow about the death of a young man – and other young people before him – who perished so needlessly.
This article was originally published by the Daily Sceptic.
