Get a new job if you don’t like it, UK charity boss tells besieged Calais truckers
A BRITISH charity boss in Calais has sparked outrage by claiming lorry drivers who complain about violent attacks by migrants should simply change jobs.
Clare Moseley, the founder of Care4Calais, said it was ‘not the end of the world’ if truckers were forced to quit through intimidation and fear because they still had a ‘safe future’.
Haulage bosses and MPs branded her comments ‘absolutely outrageous’ and accused her of being an ‘apologist for aggression’. The UK haulage industry is worth £74.5billion a year and ensures food and goods get to supermarket shelves.
Some 90 per cent of goods delivered between Europe and Britain are carried by truck. HGV drivers have warned that their lives are being put at risk by a rising tide of aggression from refugees desperate to reach Britain. Drivers say they are facing unprecedented levels of violence, running a daily gauntlet of attacks involving knives, hammers, iron bars, baseball bats and even guns as they pass through the port.
But in a documentary about conditions and security at the notorious Calais camp, former City accountant Mrs Moseley – who left her husband and family just four months ago to volunteer in the shanty town called The Jungle – said truckers should stop moaning or quit.
She told the BBC’s Inside Out: ‘You don’t come here if you have got any choice whatsoever, and you most certainly do not come here for a handout of food or a secondhand pair of jeans.
‘Truck drivers have a safe future. If they have to change their jobs it is not the end of the world.’ Her remarks provoked an angry response as haulage chiefs – already facing a shortfall of 50,000 drivers – said any impact on the movement of goods would have a devastating effect on the economy.
Richard Burnett, the Road Haulage Association chief executive, said her comments were ‘at best naive’. He added: ‘We understand that the improvements at the camp are being made on humanitarian grounds. Surely, the 9,000 HGV drivers who cross the Channel on a daily basis are also entitled to humanitarian treatment?
‘The cab of a truck is an HGV driver’s “home” for their journey. Why are we allowing that home to be put at risk? If drivers who don’t like it leave the industry for another job, the future for the UK economy looks very bleak indeed.’
James Hookham, of the Freight Transport Association, said: ‘Truck operators and their drivers Under fire: Clare Moseley are again in the firing line – sometimes literally. No one has a right to threaten, intimidate or physically attack drivers and other innocent bystanders.
‘This must be the primary concern of French and British governments before someone gets seriously injured, or even killed.’ Toby Ovens, owner of hauliers Broughton Transport, said: ‘These people would be the first to complain if they went to their supermarket and the goods they wanted to buy weren’t on the shelves.
‘ I doubt she has ever been threatened with a hammer or had stones pelted at her windscreen causing thousands of pounds worth of damage. She is effectively being an apologist for violence, threats and aggression.’
Tory MP Andrew Bridgen, treasurer of the All-Party Parliamen- tary Group on the freight industry, said: ‘This is an outrageous thing to say. Truck drivers are the backbone of the British economy.
‘They deserve to carry out their work without any intimidation or threats. How can someone who claims to run a charity make remarks which excuse appalling violence and illegal behaviour against people who are legitimately carrying out their jobs?’
Up to 7,000 migrants are cur- rently holed up in The Jungle, using it as a springboard for illegal entry to the UK. Some are fleeing humanitarian disasters, but others are economic migrants attracted by jobs, benefits and free accommodation.
Every day would-be asylum seekers living in the squalid makeshift camp attempt to stow away on lorries, trains and ferries to sneak over the English Channel.
Mrs Moseley, 45 – a former accountant with City firms Ernst & Young and Deloitte – made a spur- of-the-moment decision in September to become a volunteer in Calais.
She left her husband, family and her design business back in England and travelled to the besieged port city where she set up her charity Care4Calais. Her team distributes donations of food, clothes, bedding and camping equipment to the migrants.
Last night Care4Calais issued a statement apologising for Mrs Moseley’s comments, saying: ‘Care4Calais supports all Road Haulage Association members’ right to continue driving through Calais port. We apologise to anyone offended by comments taken from the interview.’
‘An apologist for aggression’ ‘An outrageous thing to say’