THE LEADER of Harlow Labour has alleged that the Harlow MP Robert Halfon has used the arrival of travellers in the town park to “promote his disingenuous and misleading nonsense”.

Councillor Chris Vince said: “Yet again Harlow’s MP is using the arrival of travellers in our town to promote his disingenuous and misleading nonsense.

“He implies that he ‘worked hard’ to bring about the injunction held by Harlow Council which prevented traveller encampments for a number of years. The truth is that it was the Labour administration that sought and achieved the granting of that injunction.

“Halfon then blames the Labour administration for failing to renew the injunction when it expired. He knows full well that there was compelling legal advice that a renewal would not be granted by the courts. Labour chose not to waste taxpayers money pursuing a hopeless case. Had they spent the money and still not got the renewal he’d be complaining about them ignoring the legal advice.
If it’s so easy to get an injunction why has the current Conservative administration not done so? They’ve had two years!

Harlow Labour group fully support the work of the Community Safety Team and the Police in engaging with the travellers to seek a swift resolution to the situation but we will not stay silent and tolerate blatant lies from an elected representative who should know better.

It should come as no surprise that Halfon is playing shameful games using the disgraced methods of Trump & Johnson, he notably failed to turn up and vote to condemn Johnson for his lies to Parliament, the Queen and the British people.

Travellers deserve access to clean and safe sites to use when passing through the area. The failure to provide these in adequate numbers is the cause of the current situation.

In his comments Halfon makes claims about increased police numbers in Essex whilst failing to mention it was the Conservative Government in which he serves that decimated their numbers in the first place. They also cut, and have failed to recover, police staff numbers with many of these new officers doing non police roles.

“If he has nothing truthful or decent to say it’s time he left the stage. Britain needs a general election to rid the country of this chaotic, vicious and shameful government where the promised ‘integrity, professionalism and accountability’ is nothing but a pipe dream!”