Boston has experience of Europe. Credit: Jack Taylor/Getty Images
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On the sultry evening of 28 July, at around 6.20pm, two young girls were playing with a hula hoop and a toy pram in the centre of Boston, Lincolnshire. A woman in an upstairs flat smiled to see the nine-year-old Lilia Valutyte running around outside, shrieking with laughter as she played hide and seek with her younger sibling. Then somehow, from somewhere, in a few superheated seconds, there came the flash of a knife, and little Lilia lay dying in the street, bleeding to death on Fountain Lane.
This terrible crime electrified Lincolnshire, and gave rise to horrified headlines across the country. Floral tributes festooned Fountain Lane, and locals filed into St Botolph’s church below its magnificent early 16th century landmark tower to light candles and cry. While parishioners uttered heartfelt, inadequate platitudes, shopkeepers closed for the day, passers-by shook their heads, and a local man started a fundraiser for the family which has already attracted nearly £6,000. As a Lincolnshire Police Chief Superintendent said, people in Boston were “struggling to comprehend the incomprehensible”.
This is an awful new low in the town’s criminal annals, but it is not the first time, nor even the second, that Bostonians have struggled with the incomprehensible.
In December 2020, the body of 12-year-old Roberts Buncis was found in the woodland of nearby Fishtoft, a village previously noted only for being the attempted departure point of future Pilgrim Fathers. Roberts had suffered more than 70 knife wounds, in an attack so frenzied that the tip of a knife was embedded in his skull. An attempt had been made to remove his head and hand. His killer, Marcel Grzeszcz, then 14, had enticed Roberts to the wood under the pretext of giving him drugs to sell. It was, said another investigator, “one of the worst and saddest cases” his force had ever handled.
Four years earlier, in 2016, Boston had been called “murder capital of England” by the national press, reflecting statistics on murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to murder that outdid London or Manchester — there were 10 such cases, in a borough with a population of around 65,000, the equivalent to 15 per 100,000 people. Knife crime, imaginatively linked with inner cities, has become inexorably associated with an intimate red-brick fishing port in one of England’s least assuming areas.
Lilia’s killing resulted in a swift arrest — of Lithuanian national Deividas Skebas, 22, who has now been charged with her murder. He is a fruit picker, despite being from what a former girlfriend described as an “upper-class” background.
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SubscribeThe British people never wanted mass immigration and yet we are demonized for having the temerity to suggest a reduction in the number of arrivals. I’d rather live in a ‘staid’ and ‘boring’ English town than experience the wonders of multicultural ‘enrichment.’
Between terror attacks, attempted terror attacks, demographic displacement on an unprecedented scale, rising crime, mass gang rape, and the horrid obtrusiveness of the cacophonous babble of every language except English heard on public transport, my people are in a situation nearly as dire as military defeat as far as I’m concerned.
I liked the historical anecdote in this piece.
https://theheritagesite.substack.com/
All true, but you now have control now…so why doesn’t the current UK GOV control migration?
Because people like you start to scream and shout about the cost of their dinner parties
No but OK
But people like you vote…right? 80 seat majority..so what is the GOV you elected doing?
It is weird that you blame people like “me” despite the fact that you elected “them”!
You don’t know how I vote do you? I have Bennite tendencies and would happily hang you by your own entrails.
Because I disagree with you?
No. Because you are a punk.
See my previous post as to why so many remainers are still in power.
Because they do not want to. GDP is all. These people have no meaningful affinity with the British nation and live lives insulated from its adverse consequences.
You voted for them.
“Fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me”
Using your logic, it sounds like you would have blamed George Washington for slavery in the U.S.
No, GW is one of my favorite presidents (T-Rex, Ike the other 2).
People vote, UK in 2022 is not USA in 1776.
writing as an outsider i observe that they have much the same problem with voting as we do here in the states; politicians tell us what they are going to do what we want them to do and when they get into office they disregard most of it. trump was the only one who actually attempted to change things but he didn’t do any mass firings of bureaucrats to enable him to actually accomplish the needed changes. i thought johnson would be the equivalent but he turned into harry markle instead; covid and his wife defeated him.
Boris is a chamelon interested only in Boris. The thing is many of us knew that, and though he was a Europhile at heart, his interests lay in pleasing the UK majority, who were all Brexiteers. Unfortunately he was also hamstrung by the Remain Parliament who had tied his hands in the negotiations. We should have walked away with no deal. As for Covid, I suspect he, like many Governments in the West was told this virus probably escaped from a Wuhan lab AND no one knew whether it was a bio-weapon or one of the US funded ‘enhanced functionality’ experiments.
Sadly very few actually looked at the classic Petri-dish – the Diamond Princess and so failed to realise it wasn’t the new black death no matter what lab it got out of.
Not really, if you look at the alternatives, the fear of having them in power means that the many put up with what we have. One day, however, we may get so fed up with both we actually all decide to vote for The Reform Party and give them a chance. My only fear is they want PR, and I don’t. FPTP is wonderful because it means we can do what we did to Major’s Government, and maybe would have done to Blair’s had he not seen it coming and jumped ship so Brown calmed us down. Mind you the 2007 crash & Cameron made a lot of people worry, so supporting the Lib-Dems. The irony there is we got a taste of what PR would deliver, and all those Lib-Dem voters who actually got what they wanted (only voters to do so) ie their party held the balance of power, suddenly discovered that coalitions never deliver the things you voted for but only those acceptable to both sides. They then trashed the Lib-Dems next time around.
It’s far too late and would in fact mean mass deportation on a scale not seen since WWII.
Because most of them were remainers who only got Brexit done in the most haphazard manner because they knew they’d join the 80 who got kicked out to produce that majority IF they didn’t.
But the fact is that they voted for it time after time because for at least 25 years, all the main parties have been committed to mass immigration.
But people are never responsible for their vote.
Hardly surprising when they invariably vote X and get Y.
British democracy for you.
People are sovereign (they are also responsible).
Sophistry and debating points – your stock in trade – oh, laced with sneers, hallmark of the left. You know full well that, as with Brexit, all the parties are stitched up by the establishment on these issues, offering the voters a Hobson’s Choice. Hence the people are sovereign in name only and not at all responsible for the mess which the left – through the infiltration and distortion of institutional life – has deposited upon them. I can’t help suspecting therefore that it is the sneering which is closest to your heart, a visceral disdain for the British public which expresses itself in gleeful deceit – see “debating points and sophistry”; by rejoicing in your power to rile them and by actually contributing to the moral impoverishment of their society by supporting ugly, retrograde left policy.
what is your actual point or practical plan?
LOL
I didn’t know that I have that kind of power!
Sure, blame me.
You voted didn’t you? So you should take some blame. 😉 PS IF you are a Labour Party supporter, you should take most of the blame. The only reason the non-conservative Tories get in is because the Labour party are f’ing useless, summed up by the fact they can’t define a woman.
Sadly, as you well know, thanks to the most deplorable state education system in the ‘known world’, very few of the great British demos can even spell sovereign, let alone comprehend it.
Oh I know that, but with universal suffrage what can we do?
Bring in some sort of property qualification.
Everyone has ONE vote, but if say you own a 900 acre farm then that get another 10 votes. Equitable really.
In the early days of the Roman Republic you weren’t even allowed to join the army unless you owned some property. The logic being ‘ why on earth would you fight if you had nothing to defend’?
An idea which I believe has merit is that you can either vote in whatever national or local elections/referenda take place in a given year or as many reality TV shows as you wish. You must state your preference each year, but can make your mind up again the following year. This offers a genuine choice.
We already have a def-facto qualification. Anyone who votes Labour gets nothing. Though unfortunately, we haven’t a conservative party yet to ensure anyone who votes Tory also gets nothing.
bring back Grammar schools 😉
What other party would you vote for to reduce immigration?
Perhaps somewhat counterintuitively the most recent immigrants don’t really like the newer immigrants much either, it’s not limited to white Brits by any means, so perhaps Labour are missing a trick here.
UKIP/Reform
If people believe in what you believe than they should easily win.
Personally I prefer the Continental populist parties partly because they are more competent but more importantly they are Intellectually Honest – something UKIP under Farage never was.
You suggest voting UKIP/Reform to reduce immigration.
Reminder of results of Westminster elections of May 2015:
SNP, votes 1,454,000, MPs: 56
UKIP, votes 3,881,000, MPs: 1.
So voting (say) UKIP helps the electorate how, exactly?
If more people vote UKIP/Reform it should win. If they don’t…why complain about the main parties?!
I agree with your first point, but don’t see how it affects your second. I see no reason why I can’t even complain about the party I do vote for, Reform or not. IF one has to agree with every line in a manifesto there would be 70 million parties.
Why ‘intellectually’? Honesty doesn’t need a qualification as far as I’m concerned.
Labour will always want, and enable, unlimited immigration.
SDP.
LOL – have you ever read a manifesto? You vote on the most drastic promises, usually in order to avoid them.
Our system of so called Parliamentary democracy is a farce, and a 17th century anachronism.
The election of a tiny oligarchy on the ‘lustrum’ principal in the 21st century is no way forward, and we should look to Switzerland for inspiration. It maybe ‘boring’ but you can’t have everything.
You are not Switzerland.
I do have a ‘hut’ there.
Lucky man.
God’s antechamber to heaven as Buckley used to say.
Indeed, but even here in ‘paradise’ the Police habitually carry guns, which is completely unnecessary.
all one needs to know about Switzerland is that no one knows nor cares who is PM.. and, that works?!
So what? We are Sovereign, we could have whatever electoral system we want. Come Dancing etc seems to be able to conduct a nationwide poll weekly 😉
Yes but the alternatives to the two main parties have been electorally unviable. And several governments’ have been elected on a promise of reducing immigration. They have just ignored the popular will. The main parties are heavily financed and any new party starts at an immense deficit.
Because people don’t vote for them.
Again – results of Westminster elections of May 2015: UKIP, votes 3,881,000, MPs: 1.
People do vote for them, but …
Not enough.
If I apply your math (PR) how many more seats should LibDems have?
Correct me if I am wrong but historically LD would be the most beneficiary of PR system?
Adam, there are “staid and boring” English towns that are free from the failures of rampant multi-ethnicism (the woke like to call it multicultural, but they really don’t mean the differing cultures of Dundee, Cornwall, Anglesea and Kent – they mean a person’s colour or exotic ethnicity, originating from outside the UK). Curiously quite a few of these towns are in Lincolnshire! I noticed from Wikipedia today that Lincolnshire is 98.5% white, which is extraordinary, but there are a lot of people moving here from all parts of the UK, partly because there is still a pervasive sense of Englishness and predominant English culture and activities.
Spot on! Not once in the past 70 odd years were ‘we’ ever asked “Do you want mass immigration, multiculturalism, and the destruction of your wonderful civilisation “?
It has been diktat from Quislingron/Westminster for eons; Time for a change before Armageddon is upon us.
And yet there are five million people in Britain, including many in Lincolnshire and adjacent counties, living on benefits. There wouldn’t be a need for foreign workers if there was a proper clampdown on benefits as a lifestyle choice, together with a more flexible system that allowed for casual work.
I grew up in vegetable country. Gangs of women went picking in the fields. The farmers picked them up in lorries from council estates in small towns. Tough, tanned hard-working women in woollen headscarves and sacking pinafores, ironically like peasants from the Steppes. Now their granddaughters, on the same estates, can barely waddle to the school to take their children for their free breakfast.
I take your word on it.
But the party of “hard work” and “personal responsibility” is in power with 80 seat majority. So it can crack down on those Welfare Queens.
and the Blob would be up in arms and they kept the Tavistock going for years despite the child abuse! It’s a long road, things like this gradually eat away at the foundations, and parties commit suicide. Curiously they also resuscitate each other. I wait with interest to see if Boris & his Covid debacle has resuscitated Labour in the former Red Wall.
Sure seems like a case for the return of slavery.
The Netherlands and France both have proud and successful agricultural traditions, they are both in the Schengen zone, yet they don’t have the extreme concentration of problems that we see in Boston. Drive through the place and you will see it has become unlike any town in Lincolnshire.
I suspect it is that we have Europe’s most competitive and over-crowded supermarket environment with a race to the bottom for prices that impacts farmers and what they can afford to pay. Make no mistake, the supermarkets by and large dictate the prices the farmers get paid. Does that happen in any other business area that our daily lives depend on?
It could be that the early and growing Public appetite for centralising our food distribution to supermarkets, is the cause. It has certainly put paid to greengrocers (in Britain) and proper farmers markets (that you see on the continent). Effectively it was the vanguard for the growth of national chains that sucked the profits out of towns by killing off the majority of independent, locally owned businesses. Who were the people who built our market towns, the houses, the squares and municipal buildings – way before Councils as we know them even existed – but the independent shopkeepers, traders, farmers and merchants in and around them.
What has happened to Boston is extreme, but it is emblematic of what has and will become of English towns, lest they have a very well-to-do local population that can afford to pay more for their goods.
Now we are hearing sensible debate- lets look at our addiction to supermarkets
However I would also agree with the view expressed here that it has always been a harsh job; born in Lincolnshire – I managed to avoid the land jobs in my youth, instead doing the catering and cleaning stuff. My bro on his first day picking caulis in Boston fields got taken to the middle of the field by a group of hard women, stripped of his clothes and left there as part of his induction!
You are joking aren’t you? Dutch farmers are in open conflict with the Government and as for France, powerful Chambers of Commerce restrain competition in town centres whilst the huge supermarket chains dominate from their sites on the periferique – where the signs of social distress and racial tension are all too apparent. Heavily subsidised rural France might seem idyllic to the tourist but the underlying national reality is much less so. The electoral advance of first Macron and then Le Penn is surely a clear sign that all is not well in La Belle France. Britain certainly has its problems but France has more.
Too many people still think the riots at the Champions League Final in Paris where the result of the two sets of fans, rather than both being set upon by the lawless inhabitants of the Banlieus.
While it is different locally, it is the same in America. The almighty dollar rules. Publicly owned corporations are destroying small private owned businesses. At the same time government and corporations collaborate out of their own self interest, to dictate what they deem to be best for “the little people”, which they don’t give a damn about. Problem: the large majority of people getting screwed have more in common than divides them, if only they can focus on that and unite politically, and recognize that the people in power (both government & corporate) are playing them like a fiddle to keep them divided to maintain their grip on centralized power. Solution: the majority needs to identify those things they have in common that unify them and fight as if their lives depend on it to take back control of their own government. Sounds familiar? MEGA, like MAGA, only Boston style! Stop complaining, and start playing offense, it is the only way to win. And keep the faith, the true source of freedom without fear. Do it for all those innocent kids, and for all those who gave their lives for the opportunity you have today. It is why we are here.
” In 2016, Boston delivered a 75% pro-Brexit vote, earning it opprobrium as ”Britain’s most Eurosceptic town”. “
Not from me. Well done Boston. And Sunderland. And all the other forgotten places who had refused to forget that they had once been successful and not lost their pride and a dream that they might yet be successful again. Never forget the shameful Mathew Parris article in The Times in which he wrote off the Clacton’s of this country.
But he doesn’t live in those places does he?
Parrish must have taken his cue from the Unherd comments section, Jeremy Smith is usually slagging off the voters of Skegness and Blackpool.
There’s more to this than what’s being reported.
The alleged killer and parents of the girl are Lithuanian. This must be more than a coincidence and is the “Elephant in the Room”.
It’s not only Boston which suffers from immigrant crime. You only need to look at the nationality (and ethnicity) of those in UK jails – the Poles are there in the largest numbers, followed by all other Eastern European countries.
The UK is seen as ‘soft on crime’ and over 90% of all violent street crime is committed by immigrant minorities.
David Blunkett lost his job as Home Secretary in 2004 when he disclosed these figures.
Immigrants are a broad category. Most (not all) of the Poles I know (well) are exemplary Catholics and lovely with it. Lithuanians (at the gym) are big, friendly and polite. Russians are either lovely, witty and clever or Mr Putin imitators. Roma, sorry. I have never met a nice one yet, but I am waiting. As a group, Eastern Europeans surprise me with their decency and courage. But they do drink a lot and, yes, they can be very very violent with it.
I’d still like to know if the culprit has any history of drug use.
“In 2016, Boston delivered a 75% pro-Brexit vote, earning it opprobrium as ”Britain’s most Eurosceptic town”.”
*In 2016, Boston delivered a 75% pro-Brexit vote, earning it respect as ”Britain’s most Eurosceptic town”.
The most racist town/county has the most immigrants. Can no one join up the dots?
define racism please?
That’s a good one and I wish more people thought it through. In this context I was referring to it as noted in the article. Google says prejudiced or antagonistic towards people on account of their colour or whatever. Believing you are superior to another on the same basis. Personally I think it is perfectly natural to be loyal to your own race. Though it is evident that the more they interbreed the less that is possible. Secondly I would judge people more by their actions than their nationality, i.e. is my/the community’s life enhanced or worsened by what they bring to the table. Thirdly the table is already full.
It isn’t just Boston. A few days ago a teenage boy was stabbed and killed in Somerset by another boy. A while ago there was a documentary about another boy who had been stabbed. He had been lured to his death by two girls and killed by another boy because of a dispute on a social media platform. His school friends were interviewed and they all seemed obsessed with knives. I use Instagram only to look at photos posted by a friend and recently I get feeds about knives which I reported. Isn’t it any surprise when violence is an accepted part of entertainment and video games.
I live in Wisbech and we have had the same experience. I did teaching English in the local centre until a Russian manager made life there impossible. We, too, have had the same experience as Boston and now different people are coming in – including a lot of Roma.
Wisbech? I used to deliver labels there as a Student (overnight express to the fruit factories). Living in Liverpool I thought Wisbech a wonderfully quiet backwater in those days!
Lots of blame flying around here.
My (all too frequent) response to stories like this is ‘thanks again Tony’
It does anoy me when people say British people don’t want to work the fields in Boston. They don’t seem to have the complete facts.
My son applied for a job to work, picking vegetables on the fields. In his interview he was asked “Do you speak Polish or Lithuanian?”. He replied that he dosent and they then said they couldn’t employ him as he is the minority.
I was furious at the time as many people state the British youth are lazy and don’t want to work the land. This is not entirely true, they are just not able to work the land as told they are the minority and don’t speak Lithuanian or Polish.
What are they to do?
Absolutely shocking, if a black person applied and were told the same thing could you imagine the outcry ?
It is abundantly clear that it is high time for “knife control” legislation in Boston! If it weren’t for those horrible knives, think of the children that could be saved.
And those racist and hate-filled locals need to embrace their new neighbors. But make damn sure those new neighbors don’t wind up in my village!
Did the author visit Boston and talk to local people? It doesn’t read like he did; it looks more like an armchair Wikipedia job with lots of declarations and not much evidence.
Perhaps you should read it again.
I grew up near Boston and nothing in this essay seems false to me. But I’m surprised Derek Turner did not mention that exploitation of agricultural labourers has a long history in this area. I remember an old man telling me of his despair aged 13 of being set to hoe in a field from 6 in the morning until late in the day. And of his pride that in later life he had never been reduced, however desperate his circumstances, to working for a gang master. Gang masters were still much feared in the early 20th century and returned courtesy of the EU from 2001. Mass immigration hasn’t done Boston many favours.
UK governs its affairs – why didn’t UK GOV crack down on Gang Masters?
I bet you think HMG invented the concept of the Privatisation of State Monopolies rather than following (sadly far more conscientiously than our fellow EU members) EU directives on Competition?
Hello, “V”, and thank you. I do know Boston very well, and try to talk to lots of people whenever there, of differing perspectives. (I was there just a few hours before that poor little girl was killed.) I’m afraid editorial constraints don’t always allow for properly detailed or nuanced discussions! I’d certainly agree that the lives of farm-workers have always been hellish, and exploitation is unfortunately omnipresent in human history, long predating postwar immigration – although that injection of cheaper, easy-to-find labour had the unfortunate effect of deferring a socioeconomic reckoning with exploiters
Derek, good article here and you’ve generated a lot of good debate. Could you do another article on agricultural exploitation ? Or can I find this in your books ?
Thanks, Peter; much appreciated. I do touch on Lincs. agricultural history in my book, but not in as much detail as it deserves. The book is about all aspects of this fantastic and varied county, from prehistory to the present, poets to puritans, and Brexit to zoology. I may well try and do something specific. Thanks for the idea
Hello, Douglas. Thanks for taking an interest. I actually know Boston very well (by sad coincidence, I was there on the day that sweet child was stabbed), and whenever there strive to keep my eyes open and talk to people of varying perspectives. I try to be careful with facts and stats, even if they aren’t always mentioned, or linked to, within the text. But I also try not to get offended when people don’t approve of what I’ve written! Best wishes, Derek
Always a pleasure to read Derek’s work. Sea Changes is a great novel.
Henry James doesn’t really bring out this side of Boston.
I seem to remember Mrs Birdseed being quite vicious. Perhaps I am confusing her with the Boston Strangler.
To my mind, the “market” should eventually solve the agricultural labour shortage issue, just as it resolves the issue of the right level of pay for office workers who work from “home” (remember “home” might be in a foreign country). Looks like pay for agricultural workers will have to rise significantly while home workers’ pay is likely to stabilise or fall. A big change in the work economy is coming. There is hope for places like Boston.
“The exodus of Europeans has caused short-term “critical” labour shortages, in farms and haulage firms, care homes and caravan parks, with crops sometimes left to rot and lorry-loads of goods left undelivered.”
And wages and provision for workers welfare increased substantially. But you failed to mention the economic quid pro quo in your incessantly doom laden article. Seems like rather cynical and desperate bottom-scraping journalistic opportunism – “I know, something topical, let’s do an article about the nihilism of Boston and link it somehow to the wee girl that got murdered.”
I expect better from Unherd.
In my 30+ years living near Newmarket, it was Always said a Fenland wedding and christening is the world’s smallest party as the grandmother, Aunt and wife are all the same person.
A most bizarre, odd, eery and wholly unattractive part of England.
It’s not a secret that parts of Britain experienced in breeding. Quite a while back though. And I agree, parts of East Anglia boast a not altogether comfortable landscape.
and yet no Fenland native was either victim or perpetrator. Does no one wonder why a 22 year old male stabs a 9 year old girl? Does anyone know why? Perhaps a reason will become known and we can then decide how that is determined by our politics. Maybe it has nothing to do with immigration other than both were immigrants. It may well be related to drugs, drink, sexual deviation or mental health. Then the focus of the discussion will no doubt change, but I find it hard, whatever happens, to see how Fenland native breeding practices have any bearing on it.
You make a fair and reasonable point. However the article makes clear there is unrest in Boston due to the large percentage of immigrants. What you must ask yourself is was knife crime a feature of Boston life before mass immigration? However I will concede the remoter parts of East Anglia have historically had large numbers of mental health problems that have not been adequately addressed by the Government.
And that is why many people vote Leave.
Fewer Poles more 3rd Worlders.
“And that is why many people vote Leave.”
Not me. And nobody that I know.
You just make stuff up, Jeremy.
I said “many”, I didn’t say all.
Why did you vote Leave?
And what do you want the gov that you elected to do about migration?
P.S. It is sarcastic -you do understand that?
I see no sarcasm, just a display of political illiteracy.
Why did I vote Leave? I refer you to the case made by Tony Benn. Benn was right.
Excellent – now you got the GOV you deserve.
Fix the problem.
Punk
LOL – no, we didn’t get the Government we deserve, we never do. We got the least worst alternative as we usually do.
Same reason that I voted leave.
We should have voted for the Brexit Party. Had all Brexiteers voted for the Brexit Party we would have removed 410 sitting MPs no matter what Remain did, voted tactically etc, they could still not have stopped 410 leave seats. That would have meant 410 remainers who have obstructed the popular vote since 2016. In the end we only removed 80, and so the remainers remain in parliament and continue to screw us up.
As an aside, I’m amazed Reform don’t point out that IF all Brexiteers voted for them, they’d do the same, they’d return approximately 410 MPs and have the largest landslide in close on a century. Sadly they’d then ruin it all by opting for PR and we’d not be able to kick MPs out in the numbers we’d like when we like.
Boston, with its rotting vegetables and unstaffed care homes is reaping what it sowed. Take Back Control? Yon won it. Now own it.
LOL – and your preferred Government would have done better? As I said earlier, we never get the Government we deserve, we just get the least worst, fortunately we haven’t got the Government you would espouse, as it would be even worse.