With many of Britain’s relatively deprived inner-city areas and left-behind districts being treated as dumping grounds for the illegal Channel migrants, the harmful effects of the small-boats emergency are now being felt in England’s traditional market towns.
In the Essex market town of Epping, which has a population in the region of 12,000, small-boat migrants were rehomed in the three-star Bell Hotel.
Situated on the town’s High Road, it is situated just half a mile away from a Church of England co-educational school – Epping St John’s School.
What could possibly go wrong?
Hadush Kebatu, a 38-year-old from Ethiopia, stands accused of propositioning a schoolgirl in Epping town centre on July 7 – just eight days after he arrived in the UK via a boat.
He is alleged to have attempted to kiss the schoolgirl as she ate a pizza near Epping High Street. Kebatu had also been accused of trying to kiss a woman near a fish and chip shop in the town centre, telling her she was “pretty” while putting his hand on her leg.
The local protests in Epping have been portrayed by some as ‘far-right’ demonstrations. While there may well be radical troublemakers among the protestors, this deflects attention away from the fact that there are parents in Epping who are concerned over the threat posed by small-boat migrants to women and girls in the town – with good reason.
This includes mothers who are concerned over the safety of their own daughters in their usually sedate and peaceful town.
To caricature the population of Epping as far-right extremists is nothing more than the demonisation of provincial English communities who simply value stability and security.
At most, the majority are ‘small-c’ conservatives who are quietly traditional and sceptical over significant social change (especially as a fair number are cockneys who left demographically-transformed parts of the East End).
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| The mothers of Epping are standing up for women everywhere. We must not betray them - Rakib EhsanWhile those responsible for acts of violence at demonstrations should meet the full force of the law, it would be a huge mistake for metropolitan progressive liberals to dismiss the Epping protests as far-right reactionary activism.
The model of parent-led localised revolts against the unquestionably corrosive impact of the ongoing small-boats emergency on the safety of young women and girls is a form of protest which could be replicated in other parts of the country with considerable success.
Indeed, two Tory MPs - Neil Hudson (Epping Forest) and Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar), along with Chris Whitbread (the leader of Epping Forest District Council), have called for the Bell Hotel to be closed.
To rehome illegal Channel migrants – largely single unattached males originating from world regions such as the Horn of Africa – in hotels which are near schools where a significant proportion of the pupil population are teenage girls, only goes to show that the UK Government is failing to make robust risk assessments in terms of child protection and welfare.
This is now taking place under a Labour Government which pledged to halve violence against women and girls in a decade.
It is especially absurd to rehome small-boat migrants in smaller-sized English market towns.Can any Whitehall official seriously claim that towns like Epping in Essex and Diss in Norfolk have the demographic character, cultural infrastructure, and social amenities to be considered ‘suitable’ locations for small-boat migrant rehoming processes?
None of this is remotely sensible when it comes to social cohesion and public safety.
Unless the UK Government addresses the British public’s legitimate concerns over the threat illegal migration poses to the safety of its female citizens – including schoolgirls – then it will be faced with parent-led uprisings across the country. The mothers of Epping have set the tone.