Ian Wright (right) with Gary Lineker: they were right – the councillor in this story was wrong.
I’m with Wrighty on this one.
It’s the story of Cllr Alexis McEvoy, who called Match of the Day pundit Ian Wright a “typical black hypocrite” after he spoke in support of the show’s presenter, Gary Lineker, and his public stance on the people we all seem to be calling “migrants” these days.
After an outcry, she deleted the tweet and posted an apology, noting that it had caused offence: “I did not mean it to do so and I am deeply sorry. I find racism in any form abhorrent.”
Mr Wright then accused her of making a “fake apology”. In response, she deleted her tweet and deactivated her account.
She also said the tweet had been taken out of context, suggested the row was an attempt to discredit her ahead of local elections, and protested that she also does good things for people, whatever colour they are.
My problem with this is that the councillor did not consider the meaning of her original words before she tweeted them – or she did, and thought they were acceptable. That suggests innate racism to me.
Yes, she may do good deeds. So might, say, a domestic abuser who contributes to food banks and/or other charities. Going further up the scale, Jimmy Savile raised money for charity. At risk of being accused of Godwinning, Hitler loved his dogs.
I’m not for one moment suggesting Cllr McEvoy’s words make her as bad as the other monsters I just mentioned. My point is simply that good deeds cannot be used to mitigate an intentional wrong.
The councillor quit her membership of the Conservative Party and of outside organisations, and reported herself to the authority’s monitoring officer. But would she have done that if nobody had complained – or if complaints had not become public knowledge?
The fact is that she didn’t. Her acts of rectification were prompted by public outrage.
That’s why Ian Wright said her apology was fake, and that’s why I agree with him.
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Braying beardie: this is still the only image I have of Jonathan Gullis (the maskless one shouting over Boris Johnson’s shoulder).
The ‘House of Commons Hooligan’ has struck again – but this time he may have made a fatal mistake.
This is because Jonathan Gullis has has accused BBC sports presenter Gary Lineker of calling so-called Red Wall voters Nazis and bigots – alongside a slew of other unsupported accusations…
"Boris has a star quality that no other politician… could even get close to."
Tory MP Jonathan Gullis discusses the state of 'red wall' Conservative constituencies with Paul McNamara, as our exclusive poll finds that they would lose all 45 seats. pic.twitter.com/Urgj6bDgg5
This Writer can only urge Gary Lineker to initiate court action at once. It won’t go all the way because the offence seems very clear-cut, and the experience of having to apologise and make reparation might even reform the Tory party’s loudest-mouthed thug.
For anyone who doesn’t think the above is bad enough behaviour, let’s have a few reminders:
In January 2022 we all saw him screaming his support for Boris Johnson after the Tory soon-to-be-ex-prime minister made a fat-shaming joke at the expense of then-SNP Parliamentary leader Ian Blackford, in response to an accusation about the alleged birthday party at Downing Street: “I do not know who has been eating more cake.”
Here’s a video clip:
Ian Blackford makes a point about millions of people being dipped into poverty & this is how the Tories respond when Johnson makes a fat joke. If this doesn’t sicken you, there is something deeply wrong with you. https://t.co/djUXwrlvKU
— Simon Gosden. Esq. #fbpe 3.5% 🇪🇺🐟🇬🇧🏴☠️🦠💙 (@g_gosden) January 20, 2022
"Gullis said that he would not address a "baying mob" in response to an alleged planned protest during his visit to a church foodbank"https://t.co/U72KoZWh2v
Is anyone surprised to learn that the bearded braying MP for Stoke-on-Trent Jonathan Gullis says Black Lives Matter is a Marxist plot to smash the nuclear family & defund the police and has called for teachers who criticise the Tory Party to be sacked. pic.twitter.com/vlFErBATJ6
After a mercifully-brief period as an education minister in Liz Truss’s less-than-two-month ministry, in December 2022, he made another of his famously misguided attacks – this time at bishops in the House of Lords.
His outburst came after all the Anglican bishops in the Upper House said the Tory government’s Rwanda deportation policy, which was endorsed as “lawful” by the High Court earlier this week, should “shame us as a nation”.
They signed a letter saying, “The shame is our own, because our Christian heritage should inspire us to treat asylum-seekers with compassion, fairness and justice, as we have for centuries.”
In fairness, even the Home Office seems to have accepted that many of those who arrive in the UK by illegal routes still have a claim for asylum; the majority of them are accepted as genuine refugees and are permitted to remain in the UK.
The problem lies in the fact that they have to take illegal routes – making them prey for the Tory government’s deportation policy – because there are no legal routes; the Tories have closed them all off in order to be able to pursue this inhumane mistreatment of people who are already victims.
Gullis’s response may be found here:
So: first he flung some whataboutery into the ether, claiming that the Church should be dealing with abuse claims against its own clergy. How does he know that it isn’t? And isn’t that more a problem for the Catholic clergy?
Then he said: “Too many people are using the pulpit to preach from.” Does he not know that preaching is exactly what the pulpit is for?
This man used to be a teacher but gave up when he was elected into Parliament. He said pupils at the school where he had been working were “probably happy to see me go” – perhaps because they were already better-educated than he was?
He also said the bishops were unelected. Correct – but everybody has an understanding of what constitutes fairness and justice, and nobody needs to be elected to put forward their opinion of what that is.
Furthermore, these are people who sit as experts on law and political matters in the Upper House of Parliament, and their words have weight whether Gullis likes it or not.
And in January this year, Gullis apparently shouted, “Well, they shouldn’t have come here illegally!” in response to a Prime Minister’s Question by labour MP Tulip Siddiq, drawing attention to the fact that, despite the UK being considered a safe haven for vulnerable children, there are 200 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children missing from UK hotels.
That’s Compassionate Conservatism for you: let children go missing – kidnapped? Made into slaves for criminal gangs, for purposes that one flinches from considering? – because they should have stayed at home, possibly to be exploited in similar ways by their own countryfolk?
<strong>One can only agree with Peter Kyle: The Conservatives have found a new low.</strong>
Here’s the video clip:
And here’s Mr Kyle’s tweet:
Tulip Sadiq asks the prime minister about the welfare of 200 unaccompanied migrant children who’ve gone missing.
Tory MP Jonathan Gullis heckles ‘well they shouldn’t have come here illegally’.
Just when you think you’ve heard it all, the Tory Party find a new low #PMQs
Are these not great reasons for someone who has the ability to punish Gullis, actually to do so?
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Marie Van Der Zyl: The president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews may need to ask some serious questions of the other members of her organisation.
“I do not like the Board of Jewish Deputies,”
writes Martin Odoni in his excellent article about this incident.
“As a body, it falsely claims to ‘represent’ British Jews, but hardly ever consults any of us before arriving at its official position on any matter. They no more represent Jews than Mary I represented the people of England.”
This seems clear from its treatment of Rachel Shabi, who also happens to be Jewish, and who tweeted a response to Karen Pollock of the Holocaust Educational Trust, who in turn had claimed that Gary Lineker had been wrong to make Holocaust comparisons to current events:
This is plainly wrong. A key tenet of Holocaust education is never again, for anyone. The Holocaust is unique, but "never again" is universal. Drawing out similarities and parallels is critical and part of the education https://t.co/d5fbRRQJ5E
I agree with Shabi, most particularly in light of the many, many examples, during eight years of anti-Semitism hysteria directed at the British Left, of wildly hyperbolic and irresponsible Holocaust comparisons being misused – think of Margaret Hodge – to which the HET ‘mysteriously’ never responded. (Once again, the outrage only follows when the comparisons are made with the modern British Right.)
But such comparisons can be accurate, and the horrid rhetoric the current Tory Party are using when discussing asylum seekers is indeed barely distinguishable, at least in tone, from the sort of anti-Semitic propaganda that was omni-present in Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
However, the Board of Deputies of British Jews was apparently outraged. It published a (now-deleted) tweet, to which Ms Shabi responded… actually in thoroughly reasonable tones, considering the content. Look:
“Rachel Shabi telling the head of the Holocaust Education Trust that she’s “plainly wrong” about, er, the Holocaust, is the definition of chutzpah. The shamelessness of this asshole.”
Is that really appropriate language for the body claiming to represent all British Jews?
After the inevitable public backlash, even the BoD agreed that it isn’t, with an apparent claim – clarified by Ms Shabi – that the tweet was intended to go from a member’s personal account rather than the organisation’s official Twitter feed:
Hi @BoardofDeputies thanks for the apology, though the problem isn't just the language but the substance of the post.I'm concerned that the person intending to post this on their personal account is responsible for your twitter account.Can you take action? https://t.co/WzXWSBlYif
Mr Odoni has information about the person apparently responsible for the BoD’s Twitter account, but I’ll leave it to him to explain it to you, over in his article.
But I will pass an observation by an onlooker about what the apology says about the BoD:
Translation:
We meant to post that abusive tweet about Rachel Shabi on one of our numerous sock puppet accounts, but we accidentally posted it on our official account by mistake. We're not remotely sorry about the content of the tweet. We're just sorry we used the wrong account. https://t.co/tdqmb7zvGo
— Frank Owen's Legendary Paintbrush🥀🇵🇸🇾🇪 (@OwenPaintbrush) March 12, 2023
Whatever happened here, it is likely to tarnish the reputation of this organisation for some time to come.
BoD president Marie van der Zyl may need to explain what’s going on – because if Gary Lineker can be removed from his position at the BBC over a tweet he published on his personal Twitter feed, then surely a member of her organisation should be removed for publishing a tweet containing inappropriate language and inaccuracies, on its official Twitter feed rather than their own.
Or will we see some more double-standards in this increasingly twisted saga?
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After days in which Labour politicians have lambasted BBC Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker for publishing entirely reasonable comments about the Tory Illegal Migration Bill on Twitter, party leader Keir Starmer has changed course radically.
Mr Lineker said the rhetoric used by Home Secretary Suella Braverman was similar to that of Germany in the 1930s.
He has since been shown to be right.
There is no stipulation in his BBC contract to suggest that he, as a sports presenter, should not be allowed to discuss politics on his own personal Twitter feed.
But Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper had this to say about it when she was interviewed on LBC, after the row initially broke out…
Contrast her words with Keir Starmer’s comment, after the BBC suspended Mr Lineker from presenting Match of the Day, prompting a huge walkout by his fellow sports presenters that critically hampered the Corporation’s sports coverage and brought its decision-making into question.
This was just bandwagon-jumping by Starmer.
He saw an opportunity to hammer the BBC for pandering to Conservatives and he took it – never mind the fact that he was speaking in opposition to his own shadow ministers.
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Here’s another great analysis of what’s coming to be known as GaryGate, or LinekerGate:
The big take-out from this one is the passage from Gary Lineker’s BBC contract – on personal opinions.
It states, “The Conflicts of Interest Guidelines on Public Expressions of Opinion set out the position for all BBC staff:
“Public expressions of opinion have the potential to compromise the BBC’s impartiality and to damage its reputation. This includes the use of social media and writing letters to the press. Opinions expressed on social media are put into the public domain, can be shared and are searchable.
“The risk is greater where the public expressions of opinion overlap with the area of the individual’s work. The risk is lower where an individual is expressing views publicly on an unrelated area, for example, a sports or science presenter expressing views on politics or the arts.”
So Gary Lineker was well within his rights to express an opinion on politics, from his position as a sports presenter, it seems.
The revelation of these guidelines also highlights a glaring double-standard at the BBC, where hard right-winger Andrew Neil – for many years the Corporation’s most high-profile political presenter – was allowed to tweet his highly-partisan opinions willy-nilly for years without ever being called into question under these guidelines.
It seems the BBC cannot be trusted to apply its own guidelines.
Perhaps an independent body should be assigned to oversee it?
Ah, but that would require bureaucracy and red tape – and Tories are against that.
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“Blatantly Backing Conservatives”: the malady seems to have spread from BBC news and is now affecting all its departments. But can the Corporation bow to public demand and restore its tattered claim to impartiality?
Who would have thought that one little tweet would rock the world’s biggest public service broadcaster to its foundations?
That’s what Gary Lineker seems to have done with this message:
He was referring, of course, to the language used by Suella Braverman when she introduced her silly Illegal Migration Bill to Parliament last week – and he was right.
Subsequently, we learned that the measures in the Bill, and the language around it, would be more appropriately compared to the UK’s own treatment of Jews fleeing Nazi Germany in the 1930s – politicians of that time sent more than half a million back to Europe where an unknown number ended up being killed in extermination camps as part of the Holocaust.
Everybody should think very hard about that – and about the way politicians in both the Conservative Party and Labour condemned Mr Lineker and denied that the current Bill, or the way it was described, bore any resemblance to what happened in the 1930s.
The BBC reacted to Tory pressure the way it usually does – it caved in.
Mr Lineker was removed from his position as host of Match of the Day – and the Corporation lied about the circumstances. First we were told he was “stepping back” voluntarily until he could reach an agreement with the BBC over how he conducts himself on a social media account that is nothing to do with his employment and over which his employers should have no influence at all. Then we found out that he had been forced out.
And then the effluent hit the air conditioner.
Mr Lineker’s co-presenters on MOTD walked out in solidarity with him and everyone asked to be a possible stand-in host refused on principle.
Now, we are learning that sports coverage at the Beeb is suffering even more:
Presenters, pundits, commentators, players and another BBC football shows pulled….am sure no-one at BBC had any idea the decision to take Lineker off air would escalate as quickly or dramatically like this. And when crises do blow up like this, climb-downs become even harder…. https://t.co/BfyD9wHkwG
And the backlash has spread into other parts of the BBC.
Question Time, which actually discussed both the Illegal Migration Bill and Mr Lineker’s tweet about it, has come under fire after host Fiona Bruce played down the significance of Stanley Johnson beating his wife, in a discussion of his son Boris’s nomination of that man for a knighthood.
Here’s what she said (with apologies for the strong language used by the person tweeting it):
The charity Refuge, which supports women and children who are victims of domestic abuse – and for whom Ms Bruce is an ambassador, made its position abundantly clear:
“Domestic abuse is never a ‘one off’, it is a pattern of behaviour that can manifest in a number of ways, including physical abuse. Domestic abuse is never acceptable.”
In a parallel with the BBC’s treatment of Mr Lineker, the charity said it had also been in talks with Ms Bruce: “She is appalled that any of her words have been understood as her minimising domestic violence. We know she is deeply upset that this has been triggering for survivors.
“Like the host of any BBC programme, when serious on-air allegations are made about someone, Fiona is obliged to put forward a right of reply from that person or their representatives, and that was what happened last night. These are not in any way Fiona’s own views about the situation.
“Fiona is deeply sorry that last night’s programme has distressed survivors of domestic abuse. Refuge stands by her and all survivors today.”
Sadly, the BBC did not see fit to support the charity’s assertion that Ms Bruce was “appalled” and “deeply sorry” for “triggering” and having “distressed” survivors.
Instead, it merely defended what happened on the programme: “When serious allegations are made on air against people or organisations, it is the job of BBC presenters to ensure that the context of those allegations – and any right of reply from the person or organisation – is given to the audience, and this is what Fiona Bruce was doing last night. She was not expressing any personal opinion about the situation.”
Not good enough.
A BBC decision not to broadcast an episode of Sir David Attenborough’s new series Wild Isles for fear that its its themes of the destruction of nature would risk a backlash from Tory politicians and the right wing press has provoked a huge backlash – not just from environmental groups but, again, from within the Corporation itself.
The sixth episode will appear only on BBC iPlayer. All six episodes were narrated by Attenborough, and made by the production company Silverback Films, which was responsible for previous series including Our Planet.
Chris Packham, presenter of Springwatch, told The Guardian: “At this time, in our fight to save the world’s biodiversity, it is irresponsible not to put that at the forefront of wildlife broadcasting.”
Green Party MP Caroline Lucas said: “For the BBC to censor of one of the nation’s most informed and trusted voices on the nature and climate emergencies is nothing short of an unforgivable dereliction of its duty to public service broadcasting. This government has taken a wrecking ball to our environment – putting over 1,700 pieces of environmental legislation at risk, setting an air pollution target which is a decade too late, and neglecting the scandal of our sewage-filled waterways – which cannot go unexamined and unchallenged by the public.”
The Guardian added that “senior sources at the BBC [said] that the decision not to show the sixth episode was made to fend off potential critique from the political right.
Again, the BBC’s response was cowardly. The broadcaster claimed the six-part series was only ever intended to have five episodes: “Wild Isles is – and always was – a five part series and does not shy away from environmental content. We have acquired a separate film for iPlayer from the RSPB and WWF and Silverback Films about people working to preserve and restore the biodiversity of the British Isles.”
If this sixth film is part of a package of such films – a series, if you will – all made by the same organisations and narrated by the same person, and all to be available together on iPlayer, then it seems clear that it is an episode of that series and the BBC is again being economical with the truth.
This behaviour – and the decision over Mr Lineker – drew the following comment from economist Richard Murphy;
So, this afternoon the BBC gives in to fascists over Gary Lineker’s support for asylum seekers and on David Attenborough’s desire to highlight the impact of climate change. Fascism isn’t a threat. It is happening here and now, with the BBC enabling it.
Finally (for now), the BBC has faced a backlash against its continued employment of Lord Sugar on The Apprentice, whose own political tweets – particularly attacking former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – have gone unquestioned by the Corporation.
Mr Corbyn found an unlikely defender – on a BBC news programme – in Alastair Campbell. And the former New Labour press secretary didn’t pull his punches when referring to any of the scandals mentioned above:
Finally some honesty about the disgusting treatment Jeremy Corbyn received from figures at the BBC. And it’s coming from…Alistair Campbell. pic.twitter.com/sBhNOMFrIL
I’m aware that Campbell himself is a controversial figure but he’s absolutely right here.
The BBC is in serious trouble over these politically-motivated decisions. Its claim of political impartiality lies in tatters.
The only way out is to apologise and reform.
But, as Beth Rigby stated above, when crises blow up like this, climbdowns become very hard to do.
What next?
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Empty chairs: is this how Match of the Day will look tomorrow?
The BBC has dug a hole for itself after dropping Gary Lineker from its flagship football show, Match of the Day, over his tweet linking government rhetoric on Channel migrants with that of Germany in the 1930s.
Mr Lineker will not be presenting Match of the Day this week – but the reason is not clear. The BBC is saying he’s “stepping back” until an agreement is reached on how he should use the social media – but Sky News reckons he has been forced off the programme for refusing to apologise.
Now, fellow presenters are lining up to refuse to take part. So far, Alan Shearer and Ian Wright have said they will not appear, in “solidarity” with Mr Lineker.
Jermaine Jenas has said if he were asked, he would say no.
Is Saturday’s edition of the show going to be a shot of empty chairs around a desk, with some football clips interspersed intermittently?
Elsewhere in the BBC, Good Morning Britain host Richard Madeley made himself both a hero and a villain in the eyes of the public when he talked about the row surrounding Mr Lineker’s Twitter comments on the BBC’s Question Time.
First, he stood by Mr Lineker’s right to say anything he wants on his personal Twitter account – to applause from the audience.
Then he said what had actually been declared on Twitter was “preposterous” – and received a less enthusiastic reaction.
See for yourself:
What do you think? Should Gary Lineker have his right to free speech curtailed, simply because he presents a programme that is not remotely related to the subject he was discussing?
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Gary Lineker: he opened a debate on Channel migrants by highlighting similarities with Nazi Germany – but our politicians’ speeches have far more in common with BRITISH MPs of the 1930s.
Tory chameleon Grant Shapps (as he styles himself today) has been quick to jump into the controversy around Gary Lineker.
Mr Lineker compared Tory rhetoric about asylum-seekers – who come across the Channel in small boats because the UK’s current government has closed off all their legal routes to seek sanctuary here – with that of the Nazis in 1930s Germany.
Here’s what Shapps had to say about that:
As a Jewish Cabinet minister I need no lessons about 1930s Germany from @GaryLineker. Like Gary, I am hosting refugees in my own home, but unlike Gary, I do not believe it is either right or moral to tolerate criminal gangs trafficking vulnerable people across the channel.
— Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP (@grantshapps) March 8, 2023
Of course the obvious answer to this is to point out that his colleague, Home Secretary Suella ‘De Vil’ Braverman, isn’t targeting the “criminal gangs” at all; she’s persecuting the “vulnerable people” instead. And Shapps is fine with that.
The less obvious answer is to point out that, as a Jewish Cabinet minister, Shapps should be more concerned about the similarity of Braverman’s language to that of UK politicians in the 1930s.
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Here’s Professor Tim Wilson to explain:
When Nazi Germany was persecuting Jews, the UK government “ramped up” laws to prevent adult Jewish people from coming here.
The Kindertransport initiative was laudable, but we should not let it mask the fact that the UK turned its back on those children’s parents and left them to be transported to extermination camps.
The EU and UN conventions on human rights, both of which were created in the 1950s, were set up in acknowledgement of our – and other countries’ – failure to do the right thing.
And now Braverman is turning her back on those conventions because she wants vulnerable people who are fleeing persecution to suffer. It’s the 1930s all over again.
Here’s an example of 1930s rhetoric, pulled at random from Twitter:
What people conveniently forget is that before the war the UK closed it's borders to Jews trying to flee the Nazi terror. There was the same kind of rhetoric then, from the very same newspapers. pic.twitter.com/50RvVRiDdX
“The way stateless Jews from Germany are pouring in from every port of this country is becoming an outrage. I intend to enforce the law to the fullest.” Was it an “invasion”, of the kind recently described by Braverman?
Sadly the UK’s main opposition party – Labour – is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Tories on this issue. In an LBC radio interview, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said Gary Lineker was wrong to make his comparison with the 1930s:
Yvette Cooper thinks Gary Lineker was wrong to compare the Government's dehumanising language to that used by Germany in the 30's. Even though a Holocaust survivor confronted Suella Braverman pointed out the same thing.pic.twitter.com/oYW0IiuHHW
Perhaps she was covering for her boss, Keir Starmer, whose words in Prime Minister’s Questions harked back to the UK’s political rhetoric of the 1930s:
I’d missed this. I didn’t think so could be shocked by anything @Keir_Starmer said or did, but he said, “They sit in hotels and digs for months on end at taxpayers’ expense.” Think about that, in the context of far-right attacks & racism vs asylum seekers. pic.twitter.com/NyIeuRDuio
During the same exchange, Starmer equated Channel migrants with rapists:
Sorry, but what is Keir Starmer doing here other than equating migrants with rapists in the public mind, unintentionally or otherwise? https://t.co/HcifXGe0k5
We should be thanking Mr Lineker for raising the issue of inhumane policies directed at people who are too vulnerable to resist.
But it is clear that we didn’t have to look as far as Nazi Germany to find parallels with the 1930s. Both the government and its opposition are parroting British racists of that time.
They shame us all.
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Gary Lineker: once again, his compassion for others has set him against Establishment rhetoric.
The demonisation of Gary Lineker – for pointing out something that should be obvious and uncontroversial – is disgraceful and the Tories doing it should be shunned.
The European Convention on Human Rights was set up in the early 1950s, and Suella Braverman’s filthy little Illegal Immigration Bill spits on it.
The United Nations has also stated that the Bill undermines the “very purpose” of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which “explicitly recognises that refugees may be compelled to enter a country of asylum irregularly.” The statement added: “International law does not require that refugees claim asylum in the first country they reach.”
That convention was introduced in recognition of the failure of neighbouring countries to help refugees from Nazi Germany when they needed it.
In Parliament, Braverman referred to her Bill removing “foreign national rapists, drug dealers and murderers” – and was reprimanded by Labour’s John McDonnell for “inflammatory language” that was putting asylum-seekers and those who represent them “at risk”.
In response to earlier such shenanigans, former footballer and TV presenter Gary Lineker tweeted that the language in which Braverman’s plan was set out was “not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s”. He has a point, it seems.
This is what @GaryLineker tweeted. His controversial comment was about the Govts language – but that’s not how it’s being reported.
I don’t agree with his comparison but I absolutely defend his right to say it. pic.twitter.com/rzgeF6JsKd
But of course Mr Lineker wasn’t trying to help her; he thinks her law is rotten. Notice that she appealed to “the British people”, claiming that her law was in line what the people want. Isn’t that exactly the kind of rhetoric that the Nazis used?
Also:
This is staggering. Let’s not beat around the bush. It is about denying the humanity of asylum seekers, and that is a dangerous, slippery path towards the politics of fascism. Sometimes that word just has to be used. https://t.co/0VxbcYWyqp
Dehumanising people was exactly what the Nazis did, of course.
And – of course – Braverman cynically inflated the figures on the number of people allegedly trying to come to the UK:
Is there a problem with people illegally crossing the Channel? Yes Are 100 million people trying to come here? Of course not. The Home Secretary should be utterly ashamed of herself for resorting to the language of extremists https://t.co/32VSvflUzb
This 100m figure is – I would guess – a ref to the UN’s calculation that 100m are fleeing conflict and disaster. But most do not cross a border. 55 million are “internally displaced” – eg Syrians who fled from Aleppo to Idlib. The idea they are all coming to UK is absurd. https://t.co/RrMG9PwADi
The media debate is big on emotion and small on detail, with other claims added in to boost the failing Tory rhetoric.
For example, on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Susannah Reid had to torpedo a claim that all asylum claims should be refused (75 per cent are valid) and that civil servants were inclined to grant all asylum claims for an easy life (there’s no evidence to support that at all):
The United Nations has provided valuable insight on the facts here. Its refugee agency, the UNHCR, has stated that Home Office data indicates that the “vast majority” of small-boat migrants would be granted refugee protection if the UK considered their claims.
“Branding refugees as undeserving based on mode of arrival distorts these fundamental facts,” the agency added, calling on the government to consider its own “concrete and actionable proposals” as a way to reduce the demand for small-boat crossings.
Underlying all this is the fact that the so-called “war on immigrants” has been manufactured by the Tories in order to give people a bogeyman to fear and revile.
The reason people are coming across to the UK in small boats is simply that Boris Johnson turned his back on the UK’s former “returns” agreement with the European Union, that allowed a Labour government to return 60,000 people in its last year in office. That’s more than the most recently-recorded number of people coming in. Watch:
Jeez. The Home office video of Suella Braverman saying “Enough is enough. We must stop the boats” is almost at 2 million views. Lets make sure the public know it was her Government which created this situation by sharing this as widely as possible https://t.co/kceiWvtn8o
Labour has, at least, recognised that there is an easy way to solve the issue of people crossing the Channel in small boats:
Labour would deal with the Tory-made small boats crisis by:
– Negotiating returns deal with EU – Cracking down on criminal gangs by boosting police and security forces – Having well managed safe & legal routes – Clearing the asylum backlog@UKLabourpic.twitter.com/fgaiKpmwn3
Mr Lineker faces a “frank conversation” with his BBC bosses about his criticism of the government, which the Corporation – under its Tory-supporting, Tory-appointed chairman – is claiming contradicts its impartiality rules.
But of course, he was tweeting in a personal capacity.
I am reminded of Rachel Riley’s vigorous campaigning against Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party in the run-up to the 2019 general election.
Her right to do this was not publicly disputed by her employer, the broadcaster Channel 4.
Isn’t it incongruous that she was allowed to undermine a left-winger’s election campaign but Mr Lineker is being reprimanded for passing a reasonable comment on a right-winger’s attack on refugees?
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