Tabloids & Asylum Seekers (Part1- 1990s)
Note
The word refugee used to conjure images of flight, hardship and trauma
deserving of relief. No longer. Refugees are now seen as scroungers, bogus,
illegal and undeserving of public assistance. We are told they come in
floods.
The government and the tabloid papers applaud the ‘free market’ and the global
economy from which they benefit. Yet the same government and papers rail
against those who have been bled dry by the capitalist system and who try to
seek refuge and security elsewhere.
It is the tabloids that set the parameters of popular discourse and guide its
direction.
They are the
ones that popularize government legislation and make the harsh & racist laws
seem benign and reasonable.
Here are some snippets.
Socialist Worker (21 August 1999)
[The paper headline was RACIST LIES ABOUT REFUGEES (in Dover)]
For over a year, the local paper, Dover Express, edited by Nick Hudson has been running a filthy racist campaign. It headlined: “Illegal immigration, asylum seekers, scum of the earth drug smugglers have targeted our beloved coastline. We are left with a nation’s human sewage and no cash to wash it down the drain”.
.
Local politicians have added to the lies. Tory Kent County Council leader Sandy Bruce-Lockhart complained to the government that the locals felt ‘swamped’. Tory Ann Widdecombe visited Dover and said that Britain is a soft touch and should get tough on bogus asylum seekers.
The press has painted lurid pictures of ‘refugee violence’, ‘razor mob fury’, ‘scores of Balkan men butchering’ local youths after an incident at a fair in Dover last week. There was no mob, no gangs, no razors. One AS finally snapped after a string of racist taunts and went for local youths with a knife. The press has been spreading myths – ‘One way ticket to benefits Britain’, ‘The good life in asylum alley’, ‘Sex for the price of a potato’.
Said Charles from Dover Refugee Link: “The problem is the racism… now anyone in Dover who is not white is a Slovak. There are only 40-50 Slovaks in the area.” There are just about 800 AS in Dover in a population of 55,000 – hardly a tidal wave. Thousands of people travel to & from the continent. Yet no one says the town cannot cope or is being swamped.
But it is not asylum seekers (AS) who have wrecked the town’s economy. The people to blame are the Tories. Dover port used to be the only mining area in the south of England but the Tories shut Kent’s pits and sacked 1000s of seafarers. They are scapegoating the refugees.
The
level of violence against AS in Dover has been appalling – fire bombings,
attacks with iron bars, a Kurdish refugee hospitalised after being smashed over
the head with a bar and run over by a car. Two Banglandeshi boys were mistaken
for AS and beaten up on a train. The National Front has marched 3 times in the
town. A refugee family had their windows broken and had to move out. They
received a letter with the warning: “The boat leaves in 15 minutes, get
moving.”
One distraught man found children running away when they see him or his friends
approach. He couldn’t understand why.
Evening Standard (11 Nov 95)
[The reference was new regulations under a new Asylum & Immigration Bill that would deny asylum seekers (in-country and making appeals) all welfare benefits from 8 Jan 1996.]
Home Secretary Michael Howard suffered a highly personal attack over his own immigrant father. Claude Moraes, Director of the JCWI, said that if Mr Howard’s Bill had been law 50 years ago, he himself may not have been in Britain today. Howard’s Jewish father, Bernard, had fled to Britain “as an asylum seeker from Romania fleeing war and persecution”. If he had come now, he would have had nothing to live on and been expelled win 48 hours.
Daily Mail (12 Dec 95)
This issue carried the frontpage headline (3 cm tall letters):
DOOR SLAMS ON ASYLUM CHEATS.
[Right on top against a blue background was the headline:
“REVEALED: The whales’ agony the Japanese didn’t want us to see”.
So note the compassion for animals but none for certain humans.]
Under this Bill (which had its 2nd reading yesterday), the thousands of applicants arriving from the ‘whitelist’ states [considered safe, including Ghana, India, Pakistan & Cyprus] would be fast tracked within a few weeks or even days to stay or expelled. Britain’s asylum laws are being systematically abused.
The overwhelming majority of applicants are bogus. Most have entered this country illegally and only when arrested on other matters months or years later they pose as terrified fugitives from tyranny…Experience has taught immigration officers that what almost always drives people here is the prospect of economic advantage rather than the fear of political persecution. From India alone last year, of 2030 claims for asylum, only 5 were judged to be genuine.
Based on the returns of the 1991 Census and the number of women of child-bearing age, it is predicted that the capital’s Asian & Afro-Caribbean communities will within 20 years rise by 40% from 1.4m to nearly 2m. Similar increases can be expected in the Midlands.
With the best will in the world – and thankfully, race relations in this country are relatively good – that is bound to pose a challenge. [Note the connection: good race relations requires fewer non-white immigrants.]
Daily Mail (10 Oct 1991)
Below is an example of how the millionaire owned tabloids hire pundits to mislead and disinform readers (blaming immigrants for abusing western hospitality; absolving the West from any responsibility for creating intolerable Third World conditions – poverty, repression; ignoring the colonial plunder, unfair trade, arms deals, supranational institutions, interventions that have enriched the West, …)
Author: Graham Turner
Article headed How can we stem the tide?
Sub-heading: THIS WEEK THE MAIL HAS EXPOSED THE FLOOD OF IMMIGRANTS INTO EUROPE. TODAY WE LOOK AT THE THREAT TO BRITAIN
It is now abundantly clear that Western Europe faces the threat of a tidal wave of immigrants from Eastern Europe and the Third World… These invaders come armed not with the weapons of war but with passports and tourist visas. Then having entered the EC by false pretences, they seek to remain by claiming they are political refugees who deserve asylum.
We must face the fact that they will lie, cheat, flout the law and pay criminal organizations to smuggle them into our countries, abusing the tradition of western liberalism. Politicians are at best lukewarm about having the law enforced. Many European politicians and intellectuals, esp on the left, are still wallowing in guilt about our colonial past and about our present economic success. This guilt is both misplaced and totally out of date. Most of the Third World countries have now been independent for 30 or more years. A great many have records of oppression, corruption and civil war which make their former colonial masters look like paragons.
Asylum seekers cannot demand a share in the prosperity we have worked to create… [No mention of colonial loot]
At the moment, the system of dealing with applications for asylum is ludicrously long-winded – some 18 months in Britain, longer in Germany. During that time, applicants take jobs, receive social benefits, put their children in school – making it harder to expel if they are granted asylum.
They should be kept in camps or reception centres while their cases are considered…
Immigrants who are accepted should no longer expect that vast numbers of their families will be allowed to join them. This is to avoid serious trouble from those whose culture are not compatible with our own.