The Battle of the Beanfield, 18 yrs on

[tliouk]

The battle of beanfield, 18 yrs on 
author: tash

18 years on and some still remember. 

A small, albeit one sided, battle took place on June 1st 1985 between 
what the then, Tory media called "New Age travellers" and the 
enforcers of "law and order" in the vicinity of the 
Hampshire/Wiltshire border, close to the ancient stones of a national 
treasure - Stonehenge. 

The details make very uncomfortable reading, even more so when read 
today, 18 years later, and sit ill at ease with the idea that 
the "ordinary people" have liberty in their own land, free from 
Government repression just because of their non-conformist beliefs. 

When elected to Government the BNP is going to be tough on crime, but 
we also have a very clear idea about the definition of "crime". 

Real crime as opposed to repression 

Since 1973 when we had the misfortune to be shackled to the (then) 
Common Market, which has evolved into today's EU, over 100,000 new 
pieces of legislation have been incorporated into the UK law books! 
Almost every aspect of daily life is subject to criminalisation. With 
each new law that is passed, thousands of new criminals are instantly 
created. 

A BNP Government will not only reverse such intrusive legislation, 
but will also ensure that the most basic of liberties are upheld and 
also the many that have been lost are returned to the people. For the 
past 30 years or so, many basic freedoms, which had previously been 
sacred to dozens of generations of our ancestors, have become subject 
to the same unwelcome and unnecessary scrutiny of the bureaucrats in 
Whitehall and Brussels. 

The "Battle of the Bean Field" which this story is about to relate 
would never have happened under a BNP Government. It was a small 
victory for the repressive regime of Thatcher with its eyes towards 
the big Global business donors to the Tory Party. It was also a huge 
blow to the very people who valued the real things that makes Life 
worth living: personal liberty, freedom of belief, humans as stewards 
of the countryside, choice of how to live, where to live, and how to 
raise one's offspring. 

Here is a summary of what occurred June 1st 1985: 

A convoy of over 100 buses and other vehicles carrying mostly young, 
professional British couples who had made a conscious choice to bring 
up their children in an alternative lifestyle made its way through 
Hampshire. Those young couples had decided that their children would 
be free from the psychological bonds of the TV channels, State 
schooling and the very real physical chains of monetary debt. They 
were halted at the Hampshire/Wiltshire border by lines of Police. 

Discussions which took place over the next few hours between the 
convoy leaders and senior Policemen broke down in the early evening. 

Within minutes of the ending of the meeting, over 1,600 Policemen and 
(allegedly) British soldiers in Police uniform attacked the vehicle 
convoy. 

"All of us were shocked by what we saw: police tactics which seemed 
to break new grounds in the scale and intensity of its violence. We 
saw police throw hammers, stones and other missiles through the 
windscreens of advancing vehicles; a woman dragged away by the hair; 
young men beaten over the head with truncheons as they tried to 
surrender; police using sledgehammers to smash up the interiors of 
the hippies' coaches." 

Even the ITV news crew said on camera at the event: 

"What we - the ITN camera crew and myself as a reporter - have seen 
in the last 30 minutes here in this field has been some of the most 
brutal police treatment of people that I've witnessed in my entire 
career as a journalist. The number of people who have been hit by 
policemen, who have been clubbed whilst holding babies in their arms 
in coaches around this field, is yet to be counted...There must 
surely be an enquiry after what has happened today". 



Paramedics attend to a victim of Thatcher's Police brutality in 
1985 . 






Also Lord Cardigan, a prominent member of the Conservative Party and 
wealthy landowner in Hampshire, whose land many of the convoy had set 
out from, said of the events: 

"I hadn't realised that anybody that appeared to be supporting 
elements that stood against the establishment would be savaged by 
establishment newspapers. Now one thinks about it, nothing could be 
more natural. I hadn't realised that I would be considered a class 
traitor; if I see a policeman truncheoning a woman I feel I'm 
entitled to say that it is not a good thing you should be doing. I 
went along, saw an episode in British history and reported what I 
saw." 

A Government as hideous as the Thatcher regime which sent in the 
uniformed forces of law and order to smash the "different" homes of 
young professional couples who choose to do something with their 
lives, other than watch five hours of television a day, who refused 
to sign up to credit and store cards they couldn't afford and who 
refused to send their children to schools which would curtail, not 
encourage their emotional and physical development, is a Government 
that should have been openly and vehemently opposed, not tacitly 
supported! 

More information about the misuse of the Police Force by the 
Government of the day to smash this kind of low level dissent can be 
found at: 

Stonehenge and the `Battle of the Beanfield': 
http://tash.gn.apc.org/sh_bean.htm