Some papers sympathise with the victims, while others swim in the sewer of nativism
As politicians compete to find the most callous and militarised response to the Calais ‘migrant crisis’, a division has opened up among the Tory commentariat.
Finally, after some excellent reporting by several papers, columns sympathising with the victims of war abroad – rather than put out British tourists – have been published in the Tory press.
The Times has a thoughtful and stirring piece by David Aaronovitch looking at the real causes of the crisis, (dictatorship and war), which handily shames much of the press coverage of recent migration. Read it all here (£).
The Telegraph’s Emma Barnett (no relation) mocks emphasis on the supposed plight of British tourists stuck on motorways over ‘hundreds of displaced people from all over the world [who] live in some of the most wretched conditions’. She concludes:
“An island nation we might be, but that doesn’t have to mean our mentality must follow suit.”
The Daily Express and the Daily Mail, by contrast, chose to blame ‘the French’ for being too lax, and demand that soldiers in Europe be used to pacify refugees who have fled soldiers in the Middle East and Africa.
The worst of the bunch is probably the Sun.
Along with blaming ‘Frenchies’ (which century is this?), and running a two-page story headlined ‘Farce-holes’ against a picture of migrants tearing through fences, the paper’s main comment piece belongs in the archives, alongside Katie ‘let them drown’ Hopkins’s infamous ‘cockroaches’ screed.
Veteran noise-maker Rod Liddle, who was a troll before there were trolls, has decided to restate and extend the ‘what a rubbish holiday’ model, in a piece headlined:
‘Go on holiday to France? You’d be better off in Syria’.
Liddle doesn’t even attempt to justify this proposal, I suspect because he has little interest in what’s happening in Syria. Instead we are treated to sentences like this, describing the sort of holiday you can expect in France:
“…when you reach your home and empty out the car, you find Mohammed, Tariq and Abdullah from Somalia hiding in the kids’ lunchboxes.”
As against Aaronovitch’s solid internationalism, Liddle’s analysis is proudly nativist:
“It’s not a British problem. It’s not an EU problem. It’s a French problem.
They need to sort out Calais, and quick.Deport the immigrants. Send them back to the countries they came from. Stop whining about not having enough help.”
What if they face torture, death or persecution in ‘the countries they came from’? The thought seems never to cross Liddle’s mind. Or perhaps it does, and he simply thinks, ‘Not my problem’.
When he half-jokingly says ‘you’d be better off in Syria’, what he effectively means is, ‘they would be better off in Syria’. Which is quite a presumptuous line to take for a Little Englander with scant interest in Syria, Somalia, or anywhere else he’s unlikely to go on holiday.
Adam Barnett is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward. Follow MediaWatch on Twitter
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47 Responses to “Rod Liddle says send migrants back to Syria in the Sun’s shameful Calais coverage”
Cole
It’s sad that you are such a blinkered and selfish person that you can’t accept that there are lots of people who have been forced to flee their homes because of wars and murderous dictators. Like the Tory press, you just smear these people as bums who want to scrounge off us.
MacGuffin
And when you’ve let in the two thousand presently at Calais, and you’ve let in the ten thousand that are there a month after, and the one hundred thousand the following month, what will you do when there are a million migrants on the shores of northern France, with millions more on the way up from Africa and the Middle East? Do you think calling people racist and selfish will be be an effective argument?
damon
As Adam Barnett still hasn’t given us a more detailed plan for what should happen, I think it’s fine for people to say the kind of things that Rod Liddle says. He’s just being irreverent most of the time anyway. Taking the Mick.
Some of the suggestions that people put forward are ridiculous.
Most former Communist countries in the EU don’t want African asylum seekers and migrants.
Or that’s what I’ve been told by people from Eastern Europe that I’ve worked with.
Driving through Camberwell in south London with its very big African community, I’ve asked a guy from Lithuania, ”Could you have this in your country?” – and the answer is always ”No”.
They don’t want it – and why should they be forced to really?
As soon as the asylum seekers got EU passports they’d be off to the west anyway.
Like the ten thousand plus Somalians who moved to England from the Netherlands and Sweden did.
I wish the pro migrant people would just argue for open borders and tell us that certain EU countries should have to expect rising populations.
And racial politics more toxic than those seen in the USA right now.
Cole
No one in their right mind is suggesting letting millions in. But what is a required is a recognition that many of these people are the victims of wars and murderous dictatorships, and that we need to try to find a solution to this difficult issue. What is unacceptable is that the likes of Liddle and you (and the scummy Tory press) saying that these folk are a bunch of idle scroungers.
Of course it’s nothing new. It’s exactly the same rubbish that was stirred up about Jews in the 1930s by the likes of the Daily Mail.
MacGuffin
But you ARE suggesting that. You are saying we must let in anyone who claims to be fleeing a war zone, and that it is selfish to say no. Tens of millions of people will come here to claim that.
What’s most annoying about you and your kind is that you KNOW it won’t be allowed to happen because ‘evil right wingers’ (ie. anyone who disagrees with you) will find some sort of solution, while you are free to carp and signal your bien-pensant virtue from the sidelines.
I certainly haven’t said they are idle scroungers. Far from it. In the main, they are economic migrants coming here to work, if they can find it. They will put massive pressure on the housing situation in the UK, drive down wages and yes, many will fail to find work, through no fault of their own, and increase the welfare bill. We are talking about millions of people wanting to come here to improve their economic situation.
Your pathetic attempt at the Godwin Ploy was very funny. Thank you. You even managed to work in the Daily Mail. Well done!