As Dan Quayle said, “Diversity is our strength. From The Guardian:

‘A time bomb’: how social tensions are rising in a corner of northern England Roma and British Pakistani communities are increasingly divided over problems of crime, litter and antisocial behaviour Helen Pidd, Sat 3 Nov 2018 11.00 EDT It was an unusually heavy response to a fight in a school canteen: a police helicopter, police dog and 15 police vehicles all rushed to Fir Vale Academy in Page Hall, Sheffield, one Tuesday in late September. … the fight had begun when a Roma girl pulled off the headscarf of a Muslim classmate. … Five years ago, David Blunkett, serving his final years as an MP, warned that Page Hall, a multicultural district of Sheffield which had become one of the city’s most deprived areas after the decline of the steel industry, was a “boiling pot” waiting to spill over. Describing tensions between the more established Pakistani community and an influx of Slovakian Roma people

Roma = Gypsy

, whom he said needed to make more of an effort to fit in, he told BBC Radio Sheffield: “We have to change the behaviour and the culture of the incoming community, the Roma community, because there’s going to be an explosion otherwise. We all know that.”

Good luck with that. My impression is that Gypsies consider acting like Gypsies to be a blast. It’s what they do.

Though they wouldn’t say so publicly, officials from communities all over the country with a sudden high concentration of Roma residents recognised the tensions Blunkett described. In Rotherham, Doncaster, Derby, Peterborough, Glasgow and Luton, the local authorities continue to grapple with the challenges brought by their new Roma residents since EU expansion into eastern Europe in the 2000s. Many fear that Brexit will result in the loss of funding from the EU through the European Social Fund, undoing any progress that has been made. The last, most scientific, attempt at estimating the UK’s Roma population, by Salford University in 2013, put it at just under 200,000. That has almost certainly ballooned. As EU citizens, mostly from Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Romania, Roma do not have to register on arrival. … Six miles north-east of Page Hall is Eastwood, a suburb of Rotherham.

Where have we heard that name before?

Ever since she was elected to represent the town in 2012, Sarah Champion MP has been receiving complaints about litter, fly-tipping and antisocial behaviour, blamed on Roma arrivals. For a long time, the complaints came from white British and British Pakistani people who had bought their homes before EU enlargement, said the Labour MP. “There are people who put all their savings into their homes and find how they are worth less than they paid for them. They are stuck. They can’t leave the area. It’s a nightmare,” she said. A two-bed terrace on Milton Road, one of the most fly-tipped streets, sold in 2015 for £38,000. Four years previously it had been bought for £59,950. Most recently, postal workers said they were so frightened delivering in Eastwood after being mugged for their parcels that they no longer went out alone. “They are terrified because of the level of intimidation,’” said Champion. She went out on a round with two postal workers: “If I wasn’t with two post people, I would have been running away. I was really shocked how bad it was.” But as their English improves, the Roma want to defend themselves. Recently, Champion went to a meeting of about 40 Eastwood Roma residents, who said they felt intimidated and victimised in their own homes, let alone the streets. “They talked of bullying and degradation, and they were saying that it was the Pakistanis who were doing it,” said the MP. She said the “disreputable” landlords renting to Roma were almost exclusively Pakistanis, happy to take high rents for substandard properties, secure that the Roma would not complain. … Angry Fir Vale parents – most Pakistanis, no Roma – shouted at a panel of wincing white council workers about “them”. Their new Roma neighbours. “David Blunkett was right!” yelled one man. “This is a ticking time bomb. If it goes off, you’re going to need the army.” They refused to see the hijab incident as an isolated scrap between teenage girls. “This is not just a school issue… This is ready to blow up. Bang,” warned one man. “We’ve lived here 35, 40 years and you expect us to sit silently,” said another, claiming that he had 60 cousins ready to provide back-up for what he said could be “a riot like you’ve never seen before in your life”. … In Rotherham last week, the Observer met a small group of young Roma women at the Clifton Learning Partnership, which helps Roma settle into UK life. Like their compatriots in Page Hall, they are fed up with being blamed for every piece of litter on Eastwood’s streets, every dumped mattress, every late-night party. “It’s all our fault, all Roma fault, like always, everywhere,” despaired one 27-year-old, who came to Eastwood nine years ago and didn’t want to be named.

Everywhere the poor Roma go, the locals come up with the exact same conspiracy theories about their behavior. Steve Bannon must be behind these stereotypes.

“Because we live here, where there is a big population of Roma, they say we are doing all this mess… All other communities are perfectly brilliant,” she said, with deep sarcasm. … Two years ago Rotherham council started to pay a street cleaner to litter pick in Eastwood from 6am to 2pm, five days a week. “When I leave, it’s spotless. The next day it looks a mess,” she said.

Fortunately, Rotherham doesn’t have any other social problems to deal with.



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