Colin Clark and Margaret Greenfields's Here to Stay provides a politically engaged and detailed analysis of the position of Britain's major Traveling communities. Drawing on a combination of secondary sources and many years of familiarity with the field, they have produced a much-needed general volume that successfully caters to policy practitioners, general readers, and an academic audience. With experts such as Donald Kenrick and Rachel Morris covering specific chapters, the volume aims to set the present position of Gypsies and Travelers in the context of various aspects of state action, welfare provision, and control, as well as wider issues, such as the communities’ treatment at the hands of the media and popular perceptions of their ethnicity.

The title—Here to Stay—captures something of the ambivalent position in which Gypsies and Travelers still find themselves. Neither popularly accepted as an established ethnic minority nor seen as a legitimate part of most local communities, Traveling communities nevertheless are an established part of British life and show no sign of vanishing. This tension is repeatedly drawn out throughout the chapters, as the authors highlight the gulf between Gypsies’ and Travelers' status under human rights and race relations legislation and their actual treatment by agencies, settled society, and the media.

Clark's opening chapter provides one of the best introductions to the contentious and much-debated issues surrounding the definition, naming, origins, and ethnicity of the various Traveling populations of the British Isles. While not underestimating the difficulties of using the term “Gypsies and Travellers,” the authors use this phrase to move beyond the “artificial” and “often racialised ‘divisions’ that are placed around different communities” (13). This is part of a call to “take more seriously the issue of nomadism. … For too long now the bogus ‘race’ schism has created false divisions between different Gypsy and Traveller groups in Britain.” Clark is explicit in the political rationale behind such a call, as he argues that the different groups should be “forming strategic political alliances to dismantle anti-nomadic legislation and practices, rather than arguing over who is the ‘genuine’ Romani and who is the ‘pretend’ Traveller” (281).

More generally, this approach allows the authors to draw out similarities in culture and experience between groups that are normally excluded from studies of Gypsies, such as New Travelers and recently arrived Eastern European Roma. Consequently, what their work is able to reveal is the commonalities in the treatment of marginalized and nomadic people of all types by a state and society still unwilling to embrace the challenges posed by their presence. Implicitly, the “Gypsy problem” then becomes one of the attitude and practice of wider society, rather than the simple presence in modern society of Gypsies and Travelers.

The book moves through the main issues affecting Travelers in modern Britain—accommodation, legal issues, health, education, and their treatment at the hands of the press and within the context of the European Union. Usefully, historical context and background is frequently provided, which adds depth to their analyses.

A consistent theme emerging across the chapters is the patchy nature of good practice toward and provision of services for Travelers. While the authors highlight successful initiatives and developments, what is painfully clear is that, in areas of policy as diverse as housing, policing, education, and health, very often advances are due to the determined effort of particular individuals or authorities, rather than to blanket acceptance by organizations of their duties under Race Relations and other legislation. In part this is due to the traditionally parochial nature of service provision in Britain, which ensures that Travelers are seen as a “local” rather than a national issue. The authors also make it amply clear that limitations in provision for Gypsies and Travelers are often a direct result of personal and institutional prejudice and discrimination.

Another theme running through the policy-related chapters is the long-running tension between separate versus integrated provision of services. In a climate of marginalization, with mainstream provision often proving an alienating experience for Travelers, specifically targeted services delivered by culturally aware and sympathetic staff are an attractive option for many Travelers. Such initiatives ensure that Gypsies and Travelers have access to certain services from which they might otherwise be excluded. However, the existence of such initiatives can result in ghettoization, with the mainstream remaining unchallenged: this creates ongoing problems for Travelers who do not have access to targeted services and also speaks more widely of the failure of mainstream services to provide for marginalized and minority groups. Overall, there appears to be a trend toward seeing separate provision as a “stepping stone” (228) toward gradual integration into more sympathetic mainstream services.

Perhaps the most interesting parts of the book are where the authors engage with the issue of citizenship and belonging and usefully compare the status of Gypsies/Travelers with asylum seekers. Morris notes that the media's “tone, language and imagery” in its coverage of both groups is “strikingly similar” (246). She argues that “in neither case are the people portrayed considered to ‘belong’, to be ‘local’, to be citizens, and are therefore neither welcomed nor deemed deserving of the benefits that might flow from belonging” (246). Clark's chapter on Europe highlights the fact that certain advances in legislation, most notably human rights, provide potential advances for Gypsies and Travelers. However, he also raised concerns over how the emergence of “fortress Europe” in the 1990s has raised serious questions about immigration and asylum, not least through legitimizing the often racialized discourse around legal status and denial of substantive citizenship. Overall, this book demonstrates that while Britain’s, and indeed Europe’s, Gypsies and Travelers are “here to stay,” they have yet to firmly establish their right to belong.