Colchester, February 1: Our first call in Colchester is to Grattan Puxon, the indefatigable supporter of the Dale Farm Travellers, who lives just opposite our hotel.

Grattan, who is a young 70 year-old, makes his way into Dale Farm by train and bus at least once a week to give advice and raise morale. He is also behind many of the Travellers’ most innovative non-violent tactics.

Today, he is holding a thick sheaf of written complaints by locals who are protesting a possible plan to relocate the Travellers at a nearby site known as Pitsea. The complaints have been sent on to Grattan by the Basildon Council, which has ordered the 86 Traveller families evicted from Dale Farm because they do not have planning permission.

The council is also opposed to rehousing them in Pitsea or anywhere else within its jurisdiction. By sending over these complaints, it is registering the fact that the Travellers will be as unwelcome at Pitsea as they are at Dale Farm. It’s intended to intimidate.

This has been the story of the past four years, and every time the council takes this bullying approach Grattan responds by thinking strategically. He’s currently focused on the fact that past evictions by Constant & Co, the company contracted to clear out Dale Farm, have been so violent. In the view of many, this has left the Basildon Council very vulnerable. You simply don’t pull down a house while old women are inside, and send a bunch of kids out into the streets. The Israelis might, but the British don’t.

Oh yes they do, replies Grattan – Look at Hove Fields and other past evictions! He’s been hammering away at this for some time, and has gradually won over important local allies (including the local fire services) who’ve grown scared at the prospect of a mass eviction. Eventually, the Basildon Council agreed to attend a series of meetings in March and April to discuss how an eviction might be carried out in accordance with health and safety regulations. That’s a victory of sorts for the Travellers, and provides a bit more breathing space from eviction. But it also makes an eviction seem inevitable.

Realizing that Britons get hot under the collar about refugees, Grattan has also been predicting a “humanitarian crisis” if the 86 Dale Farm families are kicked out. He came up with the name of a British aid agency that provides emergency housing in far-off lands, and suggested that it might contribute tents to a “Tent City” in the field next to Dale Farm if and when the 86 families are evicted.

Unfortunately, the agency in question – one of those “neutral” aid outfits that operate from a beauty spot in southern England – took fright. The idea was then picked up in the Basildon Echo by Jon Austin, who gave it his usual alarmist twist. On occasions like this, Jon seems to plays cat to Grattan’s mouse – and vice versa. Jon’s piece was enough to put the Tent City onto the back burner for the time being.

But Grattan had planted the idea and Dale Farm was associated with all of those ghastly images of Sudanese refugees. Right now he is pushing another emotive button and casting the looming eviction in terms of homelessness. The well-known British agency Shelter seems interested. Shelter would be a significant ally.

Having worked in several humanitarian emergencies around the world, I see some limitations in Grattan’s strategy. By treating Cambodia, Rwanda, and Bosnia as “humanitarian,” and pouring in relief aid, the international community avoided the fact that these crises were political. This prolonged the wars and killed a lot more people. “Humanitarian” crises are always political, and Dale Farm is no exception.

But for now, Grattan is focused on the likely impact of evicting widows, pregnant women, deaf kids, cancer patients and the like. And why not? As long as the Basildon Council refuses to consider an alternative solution, it’s not so far-fetched. This would be the largest eviction ever in the UK. Unlikely as it seems, we could be facing a humanitarian crisis in the vales of England.