Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

The anti-immigration pissing competition

When I saw this toilet bowl of a front page this morning

I thought to myself: well, you've really outdone yourselves this time, Express. And they have, of course. I've been avoiding the Express for a while and concentrating on the Mail because I kind of hope that the Express will just wither away and die, that its poisonous hate towards minorities will be seen through and that these are the last acts of a vicious, dying brand which deserves to be condemned and forgotten like the shit it is. But it's still going. It's still clinging on.

What surprised me, though, is where they got the justification for their inflammatory headline from. I had just assumed it would some kind of Astroturf pressure group, but no. It comes from a Tory MP. First, though, comes this sentence:

While some reports said the French would use British taxpayers’ cash to offer the migrants financial incentives to go home, most experts believe they will simply disperse to smaller makeshift camps around the Calais docks and continue their attempt to enter Britain illegally.

What of these reports that the French would be using British taxpayers' cash to 'send em back'? Is that stood up anywhere in the story? Of course not, it has no basis in fact, it's a misleading fabrication, and is revealed as such with the 'reports'. The Express has no proof of this claim at all, yet puts it in anyway.

How to really whip up the readers against the refugees, though?

Their attitude was summed up by one Afghan immigrant removed from The Jungle yesterday who said: “We’re determined to stay as close to the port as possible because it’s the way to England.
“Nothing will stop us getting there. We are all determined to start a new life in Britain.”

I'm not saying that's not the reason why a lot of these refugees are in Calais, because of course it is. But doesn't it just seem a little too convenient that the Express have managed to quote a refugee saying that they are "all" "determined" to "start a new life" in Britain? Of course the dying Express can't afford to send anyone out to The Jungle to report from the scene, so where does this quote come from? Well, I can't see it in any other publication this morning, so I don't know.

Anyway, to the Tory MP [Philip Davies], who must be patting himself on the back today after using the language of the BNP and far-right to get it splashed on the front page of a national newspaper:

“It is totally irresponsible to be trying to pass them on to us. Obviously both the French government and the asylum-seekers know how soft we are and that once people are here, however bogus their claims, they will never be kicked out again.

Lie. Of course it's a lie. We all know of refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers who've been deported - and who can forget the charming tale of cancer patient Ama Sumani being dragged out of her home in Britain so she could be forced to die in Ghana? There are prison-like buildings to hold asylum seekers in Britain. An MP would know this. An MP should know this. If an MP doesn't know this then he is a disgrace to his party, to Parliament and to politics. And I don't think it is ignorance. Either the Express has misquoted him or he is lying. Which is it to be? Let's assume the quotes are genuine, though, and proceed:

“But we’ve done more than our fair share. We can’t cope with the people we have. There is still a massive backlog of cases, people who have been here years. We need to put the ‘full’ sign up. France is a big enough country. They’ve got lots of room.”

Ah yes, put the 'full' signs up - the language of the far-right, adopted by the mainstream right. Well at least they're showing their true colours, I suppose, and there's no way of mistaking the attitudes that the next likely Government of this country has towards people who have fled dangerous and violent regimes in order to try and make their way to friends and family in Britain. And as ever there's the narrative that 'soft-touch' Britain 'never' kicks anyone out. Never. And that we're full. Full.

It's become an anti-immigration pissing competition in the middle-market papers to see who can muster the most outrage and fear, and today's effort in the Express is pretty typical. This is the language we're going to see on asylum and immigration from now to the election, with all parties trying to outdo each other. Of course the irony could be that these constant statements of 'soft-touch Britain' are what convince some refugees to think that Britain is, er, a soft touch. I mean, if you heard that you could 'never' be deported from Britain no matter how bogus your asylum status, wouldn't you try and go there first? This kind of lying rhetoric may actually be encouraging more people to try and claim asylum in the first place. I wonder if Ama Sumani thought about 'soft-touch' Britain as she was forced onto the plane to go back to Ghana to die? Who knows. The Express and Mail and the usual suspects couldn't have given a shit, though. It was job done for them.

As I often say, it's my contention that these stories do more than just make middle-Britain housewives clutch their pearls over the breakfast table. They create a climate of hostility towards foreigners and immigrants, in which it's acceptable to see 'them' as the enemy and 'us' as the victim. But is that really the case? There was a court case which concluded yesterday which might give us an idea of the answer. It was the kind of case that sometimes makes headlines in the Express and Mail - a judge condemning modern British society, a vicious and unprovoked attack in broad daylight with no-one doing anything to help... so why hasn't it got more coverage? Oh I see. It's an immigrant being attacked by racists.

A JUDGE hit out at `21st century Britain' as he jailed two skinheads who punched and spat at a woman for talking in a foreign language on a bus.

...

The yobs, who both have previous convictions for racist thuggery, were linked to the attack by 25-year-old Wykes' saliva, Manchester Crown Court heard. The victim, from Malawi, was talking in her mother tongue on her mobile phone on a bus when Wykes called her a racist name and said `what are you doing in my country, speak English'.

It's a vile attack on a woman who had done nothing except speak in a foreign language on public transport.

Handing Mortimer 12 months in jail and Wykes eight months, Judge Rudland said: "What took place was the most disgraceful catalogue of behaviour. This can't be allowed to take place on public transport in 21st century England.

I wonder what newspapers they'll be reading in prison?

*update* The ever-excellent Tabloid Watch points out that the Express headline is exactly the same as a BNP slogan. Coincidence?

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