More Dale farm

The reason that the overwhelming majority of people are pleased to see the eviction go ahead is not because they are prejudiced against travellers but because they are prejudiced against people who don't recognise the rule of law.

Their female spokesperson for the travellers was happy enough with the judicial process when the High Court allowed a stay of execution a few weeks back. When they exhausted their legal remedies, they showed their true colours: erecting barricades, stock-piling weapons, hurling bricks in the faces of law enforcement personnel, whingeing when those same personnel used taser to defend themselves, and encouraging anarchists to help them with their dirty work.
And as for the £18 million which the eviction might cost. This is not money which Basildon Council has squandered; it's money they would like to have spent on other much needed public services but couldn't because they had to uphold the law. The travellers themselves, by their refusal to negotiate and refusal to obey the law, have forced the Council spend this money. I have the greatest sympathy for the long suffering residents of Crays Hill, the tax payers of Basildon and any other community forced to endure the scourge of lawless anti-social travellers and the cost of their removal.
If travellers want rights, they must first recognise the existence of obligations, first and foremost the obligation to obey the law. Then maybe those who voted so overwhelmingly in the poll for their eviction to go ahead, may start to accord them the same respect given to other minority groups.