Private security guards in stab vests are now patrolling Braintree, Chelmsford and Colchester. They were not deployed in response to a demonstrated rise in crime or antisocial behaviour. They are there because asylum seekers from the Wethersfield accommodation centre travel into those towns.
The guards are part of Operation Vanguard, a three-month initiative created by Reform-led Essex County Council. They have no police enforcement powers. Their presence may be highly visible, but their practical role appears to consist largely of observing, reassuring and passing criminal matters to the police - the public service already responsible for patrolling these areas and responding to crime.
What evidence turned the presence of asylum seekers into a security problem requiring its own uniformed response?
That is where Operation Vanguard becomes more than a strange local spending decision. It offers an early glimpse of what can happen when a party that has built support by amplifying fear and division takes control of the institutions and budgets needed to turn its political story into public policy.
Reform warned people that asylum seekers made their communities unsafe. Reform won power in Essex. Reform then spent council money putting private security on the streets in response to the presence of asylum seekers.
The fear came first. The policy followed.
A security operation in search of the crime
Residents are entitled to feel safe. Allegations of harassment or criminal behaviour should be taken seriously, investigated properly and dealt with according to the evidence. Nobody should have a genuine concern waved away because the politics around immigration are difficult.
But the evidence in Essex tells a different story to the one Reform has been pushing.
Essex Police says that crime in Braintree, Chelmsford and Colchester is lower than it was three years ago, when Wethersfield began receiving asylum seekers in Essex.
Most revealing of all is Essex County Council’s own decision report. It records the Home Office position that there is no evidence of Wethersfield having an impact on crime levels.
The report acknowledges only anecdotal evidence that the presence of asylum seekers creates “a fear and perception of a risk of crime”.
That distinction is crucial. The council had no demonstrated increase in crime to answer. It had public fear, a perceived risk and the presence of a particular group of people. On that basis, public money was released and private guards were deployed.
Council leader Peter Harris has openly acknowledged that the council is acting before any such increase: “We cannot and will not wait for an increase in antisocial behaviour and crime before acting.”
That may sound reassuring until you consider what it concedes. Operation Vanguard was not introduced in response to an established increase in crime or antisocial behaviour. It was introduced in anticipation of one, with that anticipated risk attached to a particular group of people.
When political rhetoric acquires a budget
Operation Vanguard follows years of Reform presenting immigration as a source of danger and disorder.
The party has repeatedly made immigration the explanation for insecurity, declining services and a country that feels less orderly. It has encouraged voters to see the presence of asylum seekers as evidence of danger before any individual has done anything wrong.
That rhetoric has consequences even when a party is outside government. It can shape what people fear, what they notice and whom they blame. Once the party takes control of a public institution, it gains something more powerful: the ability to make the institution behave as though its claims have already been proved.
Essex County Council can commission services, award contracts and place an official-looking security presence in public spaces. A political message that once appeared on campaign leaflets can now be expressed through council policy and paid for by the public.
The council says the guards are there to reassure the public and will not target any demographic. Yet Operation Vanguard was created specifically because asylum seekers from Wethersfield travel into these town centres, with patrols concentrated around the places where they are dropped off.
Whatever the stated intention, that sends a clear message: their presence is a security concern. A policy introduced in response to public fear now gives that fear the visibility and authority of the council, making division more likely rather than easing it.
A prototype worth watching
Six security guards in three Essex towns do not amount to a new national policing system. Operation Vanguard may end after three months having achieved little beyond photographs, headlines and a six-figure bill.
It would be a mistake to ignore it for that reason.
Reform now controls several councils. Other administrations will be watching what earns favourable coverage, satisfies supporters and makes the party appear to be doing what established institutions supposedly will not. A scheme does not need to work particularly well to be copied if its real value is political theatre.
Operation Vanguard therefore deserves to be understood as an early marker. It shows how a politics built on suspicion can travel from election campaigning into government.
There are plenty of serious questions about asylum accommodation, integration, local services and the way residents are informed about decisions made in Whitehall. Governments should answer them honestly. Leaving people with poor information and legitimate frustrations creates exactly the space in which division thrives.
A council committed to making its communities safer would start with evidence, work through accountable public institutions and target conduct rather than identity. Essex has instead commissioned a visible security response to a threat it has not demonstrated.
Reform spent years telling people whom to fear. In Essex, it now has the power to spend their money acting as though that fear is fact.
I'm assuming that the money spent on rent-a-cops in stab vests *could* have been spent on police in police departments to actually do policing?
If I were an Essex Council Tax payer, I would be extremely angry at this waste of public money; but when will people learn that voting for Farage and his pals will have consequences. Start with Brexit and follow the trail; the trail that leads to a right-wing dictatorship if people remain complacent.