All that Mr. Howard has been doing is jumping onto the anti-Gypsy bandwagon but then again we, the Gypsies of the UK, do not really expect anything different from either party. He has seen that he may be able to make election capital out of joining the anti-Gypsy feeling that has been stirred by the media, The Sun and some other rags, as one certainly cannot call them newspapers, in the forefront.
I did not realize that the Rt. Hon. Michael Howard, MP, had changed from the leader of the British Conservative Party to become the leader of the Nazi Party. The BNP could not have done better than Mr. Howard in the way he criminalized all Gypsies in this country with his words. This certainly should teach all of us Gypsies finally that no politician will ever take our side in anything per se.
Mr. Howard states that Gypsies should use the planning laws like every one else. But let me ask how often, compared to Gohjas applying, do Gypsies ever get planning consent to build their own site or just a even a bungalow or small housing development. Very, very seldom if ever, while in the same place a Gohjo developer get permission for a housing development that is for Gohjas. It is one law for all the Gohjas and one, much harsher, for us Gyppos. In fact we have laws specifically made against us. Even is Gypsies, legally, buy a residential caravan site previously used all year round by retired folks) and then they pull their trailers on they get evicted because the council claims that it is a “change of use”. Now I always thought, and so did they, that a trailer park is a trailer park is a trailer park, whether it is used by Gohjas or Gypsies. It is so in any other country of the world but, apparently, not so in the UK when it concerns Gypsies.
The real problem is that no politician cares for the Gypsies, legal or not, because Gypsies and our cause no not win many votes – on the contrary. It is as simple as that.
© Veshengro, March 2005
