Media: getting serious [not]

By Richard North - November 30, 2024

Despite “immigration and asylum” remaining as one of the most important issues of concern in this country, it seems the media could not get rid of yesterday’s news on the ONS figures fast enough.

Trawl through headlines in today’s national press and you will be hard put to find any reference to the figures which on Thursday caused such alarm. The events of that day almost have a dreamlike quality, particularly the sight of Starmer rushing to the No.10 press suite to give an impromptu press conference, pledging an “imminent” White Paper that was going to fix the problem.

For sure, there is a crowded news agenda, with the parliament vote of the state suicide service top of the bill, but it is still relatively rare for such a high profile matters as we saw in the immigration figures to disappear almost without trace, leaving only the faintest echoes of their passing.

For the cynics amongst us, that echo can be found in the Guardian, a soft-focus piece headed: “‘We can live or die, but we are going to the UK’: the Calais refugees clinging desperately to a dream”.

This is a story featuring the hard-luck stories of brave and determined “refugees” and they hole up in Calais waiting their change to join the criminal ranks of illegal immigrants to the UK. It can hardly be a coincidence that this should appear the day after a rush of bad publicity about these people who, last year, cost hard-pressed taxpayers £5.38 billion.

Still less is it surprising that Diane Taylor, the Guardian writer – a freelancer who just happens to specialise in “human rights, racism and civil liberties” – finds the mood amongst the men, mostly young, awaiting their turn to be “buoyant and relaxed”, and that they are – to her, at least – friendly.

It is an easy job to put a human face on these people – the Guardian and the BBC do it consummately well, and with unfailing regularity. It is hard not to sympathise with a stateless man who has escaped from Kuwait, crossed the desert, survived a police beating in Serbia and now has to contend with the harassment of the French police.

But it is a cheap trick. Set the experience of this man, and men like him, against the hardship of British pensioners struggling to heat their homes after their winter fuel allowance has been siphoned off to pay for these “refugees”, as the left-leaning media insist on calling them.

Compare and contrast the fate of these men who, once they arrive in the UK are pampered and protected, as against the thousands of indigenous homeless who are left out on the street without support. While the homeless freeze, the illegal immigrants toast themselves on the free central heating in their hotels, smoking and drinking away the hours between their regular meals.

The point is that hard-luck stories are easy to come by, but with an estimate of round 100 million refugees on the move at any given time, no nation can afford an open-door policy without getting swamped, to the detriment of the indigenous people.

Charity, in this context, has to begin at home, and it is necessary to harden one’s heart to the suffering throughout the rest of the world – and especially with illegal immigrants who are, after all, queue-jumpers.

At a purely practical level, a diminished, impoverished country is less able to do good in the world – what we spend on these people comes, in part, from our foreign aid budget, reducing our capacity the relieve hardship and suffering elsewhere in the world.

That the left plays these dire games, supporting illegal immigration and projecting it as an unconditional good, has not been helpful in our attempts to contain the scourge, poisoning the debate, distorting priorities, and muddying the waters when it comes to the consideration of “legal” immigration.

That the left should be so supportive of immigration is one thing, but that does not explain the more general reluctance of the media to address the immigration issue seriously, and its failure to support robust policies to deal with the problem.

When we have, essentially, upwards of six million foreigners who should not be here – and would not be, but for a broken and entirely dysfunctional immigration policy – the remedy cries out for something far more than just restoring our borders. Logic suggests that some of the people who are here, and should not be, need to be removed.

As we know, other countries have come to that conclusion and others are being drawn to the idea as a necessary measure to resolve the problem of hostile, unabsorbed communities in their midst, with puts the policy of “remigration” front and centre of the policy mix. Yet you will find scarcely any reference to the word in the national press.

Wikipedia defines it as a far-right and “Identitarian” political concept referring to the forced or promoted return of non-ethnically European immigrants, often including their descendants who were born in Europe, back to their place of racial origin, typically with no regard for their citizenship.

Search the news pages of the national media and the most recent reference, amid sparce offerings, comes in the Guardian in a piece from 3 October headed “How remigration became a buzzword for global far right”.

Tellingly, the piece is written by Ashifa Kassam, who well might be one of those pencilled in for the treatment, so the issue is not going to get a clear run from this source. And so that proves to be the case.

The egregious Kassam tells us that electoral success of parties in Germany and Austria backing mass deportation is linked to the term’s growing use by mainstream politicians – or so say some “experts” co-opted for the purpose.

He piece starts with an account of a protest in Germany where tens of thousands took to the street, wielding placards that read “Nazis out” and “Never again is now”.

They were, we are told, appalled by revelations that some among the far-right Alternative für Deutschland had attended a meeting in Potsdam at which “remigration” had been on the agenda. To counter this, the protesters had offered “a powerful rebuttal” to the idea that the mass deportation of migrants – including those with German citizenship – was a valid policy option for any decent politician.

Yet, for others, this furore was “a moment of opportunity”. Kassam has it that far-right movements across Europe have “long sought to peddle the concept of remigration”, her choice of phrasing adequately revealing her own bias.

In the deluge of headlines and social media chatter, she wrote, “they saw their chance”. according to Julia Ebner, a researcher with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and the University of Oxford, it meant that the far right globally could tap into that moment,” “Because it was an opportunity to convey the impression that this is an entirely legitimate concept, one that is being picked up by politicians”.

With unconcealed horror, Kassam reports that, in September Donald Trump embraced the term, mentioning it in a tweet that has since racked up more than 56 million views. The [then] Republican candidate posted: “As president I will immediately end the migrant invasion of America. We will stop all migrant flights, end all illegal entries … and return Kamala’s illegal migrants to their home countries (also known as remigration)”.

That, it would appear, has put the word on the map. Says Ebner, such usage reflects a sea change in recognition of the concept. “Now we don’t only have mentions among a few hundred people. It’s really become a much more mainstream term that has been used by people across the world and especially by far-right populist politicians”.

But, while it has seen greater currency, it has not found a home amongst British politicians, or in the British media – and not even amongst our putative “populist” politicians. Earlier in November, I noted that Farage was showing no enthusiasm for the concept, and he has since rejected the idea completely.

That, in a way, gives the green light for the legacy media to ignore the issue and, if they do, that enables mainstream politicians to do likewise. Even if the Overton Window has shifted, there is no open recognition of the movement in this country.

And that, in my view, makes the media as much part of the problem as the politicians. I have only half-formed theories as to why this might be the case but the very behaviour of the national media suggests that they are compromised on this issue and are incapable of dealing with it.

It also has to be said, though, that until the politico-media nexus entertains a frank discussion about remigration, there can be no serious debate in this country about immigration. This will be the acid test and, while social media is having to do the heavy lifting, it is not yet able to drive the political agenda.

That one word, therefore, is the one to watch. When we start seeing it in the legacy media, we will know that the discussion on immigration is getting serious.