Romanians And Crime – Some Facts

When Nigel “Thirsty” Farage was asked by LBC Host James O’Brien yesterday “What about if a group of German children [moved in next door]? What's the difference [between them and Romanians]?”, the response was a throwback to the late 60s and folks claiming that “Enoch was right”. “You know what the difference is … We want an immigration system based on controlling not only quantity but quality as well”.

What's f***ing wrong with demonising Romanians, c***?!? Er, with the greatest of respect, Mr Jay

By inference, Romanians are of a lesser quality to Germans, and presumably to those supposedly indigenous British that those out there on the far right love to talk about. Mr Thirsty was also alluding to all the scare stories that have been put about by the likes of the Daily Mail, giving the impression not only that Romanians commit disproportionally more crime, but also that they and Roma are interchangeable.

That latter suggestion is, to no surprise at all, cheerfully, casually and very deliberately racist, but hey ho, it’s the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre and his obedient attack doggies we’re talking about here. The frighteners got started with stories like “Rolling in it: Romanian gangs behind nine in ten cashpoint robberies rake in £30m a year” back in March 2012.

With full EU freedom of movement for Romanian nationals approaching, “Cashpoint card snatches treble: Romanian crime gangs responsible for 92% of thefts from cash machines, police believe” followed in June last year, with “Romanians arrested at seven times rate of Britons: 800 held in London last month” in December. As Sir Sean nearly said, I think we got the point.

But now, the Romanian ambassador to the UK has looked at the figures. Ion Jinga (for it is he) observed: “The Daily Mail claims that ‘For every 1000 Romanians in London, 183 are arrested’. As the number of Romanians arrested is 800, it is supposed that the total Romanian community in London is around 4,300 persons... In fact, there are more than 60,000 people”.

He went on “So, in reality, for every 1,000 Romanians in London, only 13 were arrested, which - according to the figures presented by Daily Mail (‘26 Britons per 1000 are arrested in London’) - is half of the arrest rate for Britons”. Plus one person could have been arrested more than once, and an arrest does not equal wrongdoing. Jinga also touched on the bank card fraud suggestions.

“According to a recent statement of the Dedicated Cheque and Plastic Crime Unit in London: ‘The latest annual figures show that, in 2012, the top five countries for fraudulent activity on UK issued cards were USA, France, Luxembourg, Italy and Ireland’. Romanians are not mentioned on this top list”. The Mail kicks Farage for his crass racism, but they put the stories out there for UKIP to feed on.

If we’re going to call Farage out for bigotry, let’s be consistent and include Dacre.