After the mass protests of recent weeks which successfully liberated the villages of Acle and Reepham from the tyrannical rule of Norfolk Young Farmers, East Anglia’s media were on tenterhooks yesterday as the occupation of Attleborough’s market square (known to locals as Darhir square after a food poisoning outbreak caused by a visiting kebab van) entered a second night.
In a tense stand off, literally dozens of 14 to 26 year olds are engaged in a struggle to break free from the organisation that they say takes away their basic human rights and freedoms. The farming establishment has mobilised tractors and combine harvesters but has so far not used violence against the protesters, partly because causing injury to close relatives would be inevitable.
Warren Green, 17, who said he had tweeted fellow protesters using the county’s pigeon network, said that all they wanted was the freedom to go clubbing or get office jobs in Norwich, but the YF wouldn’t allow it. ‘The YF dominate every spare moment of your life,’ he said. ‘Events like treasure hunts and fancy dress socials not only take away your dignity, but eventually brainwash you into accepting a life of serfdom.’
Observers are concerned that a collapse of YF in Attleborough could threaten the peace treaty with nearby Thetford. Although Thetford has stood firm against the tide of Young Farmers that swept through the East from the 1940s onwards, the truce with Attleborough has allowed free movement of sugar beet lorries along the A11 for over two decades and prevented Thetford establishing settlements in the nearby forest.
Prime Minister Cameron has called for calm, telling protesters that he knows some really nice people from Chelsea who have second homes in Burnham Market. The USA, which has maintained a nuclear-capable air base at nearby Lakenheath since 1948 to deal with a possible YF threat to this volatile region, has so far declined to comment.
[Second attempt; no more soon]
