Thread by @docrussjackson

#THREAD

Until everyone in Britain knows that demonising & scapegoating asylum seekers, migrants, & minorities is a manipulative yet effective political strategy, successfully mobilised by tyrants within democracies, we will be stuck in an endless cycle of division & dysfunction.

To spell out how explicit #racism is a constant & central feature of every successful @Conservatives' electoral strategy over the last 45 years, I once again quote directly from the essential & insightful @johnsimkin.

Everyone must learn this lesson. 🇬🇧

spartacus-educational.com/spartacus-blog…

Unemployment remained low in the years following WWII. In 1974 unemployment was only 2.6%.

In a TV interview in January, 1978, Margaret Thatcher played the race-card: "Some people have felt swamped by immigrants. They've seen the whole character of their neighbourhoods change."

Bernard Levin, who was a supporter of Margaret Thatcher, warned that, "If you talk and behave as though black men were some kind of virus that must be kept out of the body politic then it is the shabbiest hypocrisy to preach racial harmony at the same time."

British historian David Olusoga points out in 'Black and British: A Forgotten History' (2016): "Immigrants accounted for a mere 4 per cent of the British population in 1979. Yet, the word 'swamped' struck home with voters and shocked some commentators."

"Intentionally or not it was an echo of Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' speech... Thatcher's words were denounced by black British groups and by her political opponents, and criticised by some of her own party."

Thatcher's incenduary comments, amplified & emphasised by the supportive right-wing billionaire-owned press, increased her popularity with the British public, and it is widely believed it was a significant factor in her victory in the 1979 General Election.

"Before her remarks, only 9 per cent of British citizens felt that there were too many immigrants; afterwards 21 per cent admitted they were worried. Thatcher's supporters argued that it was a politician's job to draw the public's attention to uncomfortable truths."

"Opponents suggested that such rhetoric was self-fulfilling. It was easy to forget that at this time immigrants amounted to 4 per cent of the population. Was it possible for so small a minority to 'swamp' a mighty imperial nation?"

This prepared the way for Thatcher's neoliberal economic policies mobised in order to control the power of the trade union movement.

Unemployment figures rose substantially over the next few years: 1980 (7.4%), 1981 (11.4%) and 1982 (13.0%).

With high unemployment, and with the encouragement of the politicians who created the unemployment, many people turned their hostility towards the people who are immigrants or who look like immigrants, who they were led to believe had taken their jobs.

In recent years, Conservative Party politicians and the right-wing press have continued to argue that Britain has too many migrants entering the country. This was often explicitly if tenuously related to the shortage of houses, wage stagnation, & the rise of insecure work.

The housing problem is made worse by many people owning more than one house.

In 2009, David Cameron was asked how many houses he and his wife owned. He said 'probably four' but begged the journalist not to "make me sound like a prat for not knowing how many houses I've got."

Predictably, Boris Johnson's new employer, The Daily Mail, played an important role in trying to persuade Cameron to bring an end to immigration.

It reported that 70 million is "the number of people who our national statisticians expect will populate the UK by mid-2029".

The @BBC joined in with these scare stories: "A new survey predicts the UK population will reach 78m by 2051."

bbc.co.uk/blogs/haveyour…

"By 2051 a growing birth rate, coupled with high levels of immigration from Europe, Australasia and the US, as well as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, will take the UK population to 78m... The report predicts ethnic minorities will make up 20% of a 78m population."

These scare stories worried Cameron during the #GE2010 he promised to bring net migration below 100K a year. Of the three main political parties the one that had most strongly opposed immigration, the @Conservatives, gained the most seats & formed a coalition with the @LibDems.

Just two weeks into power the new government published an official document committing to the introduction of an actual limit on the number of non-EU migrants to be admitted into the UK to live and work.

Cameron went into #GE2015 with net migration to the UK three times as high as he promised in 2010.

In February, 2015, the ONS "announced a net flow of 298K migrants to the UK in the 12 months to last September – up from 210K on the previous year, equal to the pop of Nottingham."

"The sharp increase was driven by a 'statistically significant' rise in immigrants arriving in the country – up to 624,000 in the year to September from 530,000 in the previous 12 months. Around 327,000 people emigrated in the same period."

"The final set of such statistics before the May election showed significant increases in migration among both non-EU citizens – up 49,000 to 292,000 – and EU citizens, which rose by 43,000 to 251,000."

During the 2016 EU referendum debate immigration became one of the most important issues.

The Centre for the Study of Media Communication & Power at King’s College, carried out research into the way the media dealt with this subject.

It analysed almost 15,000 articles published online during this period by 20 news outlets, including the @BBC and all the national papers.

Researchers found immigration to be the most prominent issue in the 10 weeks running up to the vote, leading 99 front pages.

Of those, more than three-quarters were from the four most virulently leave newspapers: The Daily Express, The Daily Telegraph, The Sun, & predictably & inevitably, Boris Johnson's latest employer, Jonathan Harmsworth's Daily Mail.

"Coverage of immigration more than tripled over the course of the campaign, rising faster than any other political issue. Immigration was the most prominent issue, based on the number of times it led newspaper print front pages (99 immigration front pages, 82 on the economy)."

"Coverage of the effects of immigration was overwhelmingly negative. Migrants were blamed for many of Britain’s economic and social problems - most notably for putting unsustainable pressure on public services."

kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publ…

"Specific nationalities were singled out for particularly negative coverage – especially Turks & Albanians, but also Romanians & Poles. The majority of negative coverage of specific foreign nationals was published by three news sites: the Express, the Daily Mail, and the Sun."

The Daily Mail - along with pretty much every single right-wing print & broadcast cast media outlet -  has continually condemned the @UKLabour Party for being 'soft' on 'illegal immigration'.

In one article the Mail accused the "@UKLabour Party of running up the white flag on immigration". This is because "Diane Abbott said she would close two main detention centres, axe migration targets and force officials to prove suspects were in Britain without permission."

"The shadow home secretary also vowed to scrap the requirement for bosses and landlords to carry out checks on a worker or tenant’s right to be in the country."

The Mail then attempted to persuade its readers that illegal immigration and immigration are the same thing.

The Mail quoted disgraced (& now former) Tory MP & irresponsible conspiracy theorist Andrew Bridgen as saying: "Diane Abbott has confirmed what we already know – that @UKLabour will have an open-door policy where anybody who wishes to come to our country can do so."

It's always going to be very difficult to have a rational immigration policy when you have this kind of reporting on the debate we need to have on this subject. On 31st October 2022, Home Secretary Suella Braverman caused great controversy with dangerously irresponsible rhetoric.

In the House of Commons she said: "Let's be clear about what is really going on here: the British people deserve to know which party is serious about stopping the invasion on our southern coast and which party is not."

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1657692480060420096?t=Fjk4obBD85z-oEHk3YDHkw&s=19

"Some 40,000 people have arrived on the south coast this year alone. Many of them facilitated by criminal gangs, some of them actual members of criminal gangs. So let's stop pretending that they are all refugees in distress. The whole country knows that is not true."

"It's only the honourable members opposite who pretend otherwise. We need to be straight with the public. The system is broken. Illegal migration is out of control & too many people are interested in playing political parlour games, covering up truth than solving the problem."

Labour MP Zarah Sultana: "Disgusted to hear Suella Braverman say there's an 'invasion on our southern coast', just a day after a migrant detention centre was fire-bombed.... Language like this - portraying migrants as 'invaders' - whips-up hate & spreads division."

"She's totally unfit to be Home Secretary."

Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon was also upset by Braverman's statement: "This kind of dreadful rhetoric is not only fundamentally wrong, it is incredibly dangerous."

"Men, women & children coming to the UK on small boats are fleeing war, conflict & persecution - underlined by the vast majority of asylum claims being granted. To demonise those who have fled their homes to escape some of the most dangerous regimes in the world is appalling."

Probably the most important criticism of Braverman came from 83 year-old Holocaust survivor, Joan Salter, who had received a MBE for her work for the Holocaust Education Trust.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1614289008431071233?t=OE9-7ZPcF8v1rwXnLL186w&s=19

She told Braverman at a meeting on January 2023, that the language used by her to describe immigrants as being "very, very similar" to that used in Nazi Germany against Jewish people and was used to justify murdering her family under the Third Reich.

Salter told Sky News: "I feel very strongly that the #Holocaust ended in the death camps but it started with words, with othering the Jewish people, blaming them for all the problems in Germany, & I am afraid that the actions & words of our home secretary is very, very similar."

Predictably, Salter's words were almost completely ignored by the entire right-wing press. Omission of important news & context can be every much as manipulative & propagandistic as deliberately spreading lies, exaggerations, misinformation, conspiracy theories & disinformation.

It was only when Gary Lineker commented on a video message by Braverman about stopping migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats, that the subject made the headlines.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1634243357760208904?t=CFTZ5BLKRZSYQteDnD94qQ&s=19

Lineker said the message was "beyond awful" & called the government's policy "an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s".

Inevitably, the right-wing press & broadcast media, many Tory MPs, & numerous other right-wing organisations, commentators, & far-right activists, as well as Braverman, attacked Lineker.

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1641979117259182080?t=npP2_rHeJBAFLjiq_RwtpA&s=19

Lord Alf Dubs, one of 669 Czech-resident, mainly Jewish, children saved by Nicholas Winton, & others, from the Nazis, supported Lineker.

A former Labour MP & director of the Refugee Council, Dubs thanked Lineker & praised him for his "compassion & support for vulnerable people".

Obviously, it was easier for the right-wing press to attack Gary Lineker & the @BBC than #Holocaust survivors such as Joan Salter and Alfred Dubbs. So this is precisely what the Mail did in an editorial on 9th March, stating:

"The question of who calls the shots when it comes to the state broadcaster’s impartiality rules is today under the sharpest scrutiny. Is it the corporation’s bosses – or the highly paid and self-regarding celebrities they employ?"

"The issue has been thrust into the spotlight by football pundit Lineker’s grotesque intervention in the small-boats debate. In a tweet, the MotD host turned tedious virtue-signaller drew a parallel between Suella Braverman’s crackdown on illegal immigration and Nazi Germany."

"It’s difficult to think of a more ignorant, preposterous and offensive comparison. Hitler’s evil regime exterminated six million Jews."

Of course Lineker did not refer to the extermination of "six million Jews".

Instead he talked very explicitly & precisely about the UK government's "cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s".

When comparing the two situations you need to be aware that Nazi Germany was a refugee-producing state, not a host or destination state, though its borders remained open until 1939.

"What singles out the UK now is that we have a Government saying it will still welcome refugees, alluding to a tradition of hospitality, and yet is loudly shutting the doors to some of the world's most vulnerable people."

"As the UNHCR notes, there are currently no safe & legal routes to reach Britain, and no resettlement schemes operating, an as a result the Government's plans amount to a ban on asylum."

"The upsurge in the arrival of small boats packed with refugees is evidence that the UK does not currently offer a viable alternative."

bylinetimes.com/2023/03/09/is-…

Lineker's comment was about the language used by the government of Nazi Germany about the Jews not about the extermination camps.

As the Holocaust Memorial Museum points out: "In order to make Jewish persecution publicly palatable, Nazi propagandists branded Jews as a biological threat to Germany."

Govt-sponsored racist propaganda was widely distributed denouncing Jews as 'alien & parasitic,' & responsible for Germany's cultural, political, & economic 'degeneration'. These words had an enormous effect, creating an environment in which persecution & violence were acceptable.

"Students burned books by Jewish authors on pyres and purged works of art and music by Jews and others considered 'un-German.' Much worse, Jews became less human in German eyes, and less worthy of society's protection."

This view is supported by academic research into the language of Nazi Germany.

Researchers from the Stanford School of Business & Tel Aviv University collected 140 pieces of Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda, including posters, pamphlets, newspapers, & political speech transcripts.

These spanned from November 1927 to April 1945, totaling over 57,000 words. They then used a cutting-edge psycholinguistic tool that can dig deeper into the intentions behind the words.

"Their findings suggest that Nazi propaganda leading up to the Holocaust implied that Jewish people lacked the capacity for experiencing human emotions and sensations, which is a clear indication of dehumanization."

It should be remembered that in 1934 Adolf Hitler sent communists, socialists and trade unionists to concentration camps whereas he wanted the Jews to leave the country. Hitler openly expressed anti-Semitic ideas.

Based on his readings of how blacks were denied civil rights in the southern states in America, Hitler attempted to make life so unpleasant for Jews in Germany that they would emigrate.

The day after the March, 1933, election, stormtroopers hunted down Jews in Berlin and gave them savage beatings. Synagogues were trashed and all over Germany gangs of brownshirts attacked Jews. In the first three months of Hitler rule, over forty Jews were murdered.

Adolf Hitler urged Jews to leave Germany. One of the major reasons why so many refused was that they were unable to take their money with them. Hitler arranged for 52,000 to emigrate to Palestine.

To encourage them to go the German government allowed "Jews who left for Palestine to transfer a significant portion of their assets there... while those who left for other countries had to leave much of what they owned behind".

Richard Evans has argued: "The reasons for the Nazis' favoured treatment of emigrants to Palestine were complex. On the one hand, they regarded the Zionist movement as a significant part of the world Jewish conspiracy they had dedicated their lives to destroying."

"On the other, helping Jewish emigration to Palestine might mitigate international criticism of anti-semitic measures at home. Moreover, and crucially, the principal aim of the Nazis in these years was to drive the Jews out of Germany and preferably out of Europe too."

Evans contends that "for all the murderous violence they meted out to them, they did not at this stage intend, still less plan, to exterminate all Germany's Jews."

The Daily Mail approved of the way Hitler treated the Jews in Nazi Germany.

It's owner, Lord Rothermere, commented in July 1933: "The German nation was rapidly falling under the control of its alien elements. In the last days of the pre-Hitler regime there were twenty times as many Jewish government officials in Germany as had existed before the war."

"Israelites of international attachments were insinuating themselves into key positions in the German administration. 3 Ministers only had direct relations with the Press, but in each case the official responsible for conveying news & interpreting policy to the public was a Jew."

Hitler wrote to Rothermere praising an editorial from the newspaper that dealt with Germany's foreign policy: "Your leading article published last week, which I have read with great interest, contains everything which coincides with my own ideas."

The Daily Mail also led the campaign against allowing German Jews to enter the country. It warned those who tried to enter the country without permission would be caught and dealt with.

On 2nd August 1938, the Mail reported:

"Never before has it been more difficult for an alien to land unlawfully and remain out of police hands for more than a few hours. The favourite method is to come ashore in a rowing boat with the appearance of having been out for a short sea-trip."

"Despite coastal watch it is possible for an alien to escape notice in this way, but his inevitable struggle for existence is almost certain to lead him before long into police hands..."

"Immigration authorities now have a secret and scientific method' for detecting the ploys of illegal aliens, so that ‘the offender soon finds himself trapped."

Later that month, the Mail quoted Herbert Metcalde, a London magistrate as saying:

"The way stateless Jews and Germans are pouring in from every port of this country is becoming an outrage. I intend to enforce the law to the fullest." The newspaper praised Metcalde for his comments.

"The number of aliens entering this country can be seen by the number of prosecutions in recent months. It is very difficult for the alien to escape the increasing vigilance... Even if aliens manage to break through the defences, it is not long before they are caught & deported."

James Curran, the author of Power Without Responsibility (2003) has argued that the government responded to the pressure applied by the right-wing press meant that many Jews denied entry were "later slaughtered in the death camps."

"As many as ten times the number of European Jews were blocked as were granted asylum in Britain during the later 1930s."

According to Louise London's definitive account of British Immigration Policy, Jewish Refugees and the Holocaust  (2000):

"Around 70,000 had been admitted by the outbreak of the war, but British Jewish associations had some half a million more case files of those who had not."

amazon.co.uk/Whitehall-Jews…

It could be argued that the anti-immigration rhetoric of the Daily Mail resulted in the deaths of up to 500,000 Jews.

Anne Karpf points out that: "The myth was born that Britain did all it could for the Jews between 1933 & 1945. This comfortable view has proved remarkably durable, & is still adduced to support claims that Britain has always admitted genuine refugees."

"And that the latest harsh measures against asylum seekers are merely designed to exclude bogus applicants... We remember the touching photographs and newsreel footage of unaccompanied Jewish children arriving on the Kindertransports..."

"There are no such photographs of the Jewish parents left behind in Nazi Europe... The Jews excluded from entry to the United Kingdom are not part of the British experience, because Britain never saw them..."

"Memories of the unsuccessful public campaign to persuade the government to rescue Jews from mass murder faded quickly."

theguardian.com/uk/2002/jun/08…

"What's more, those that were granted entry were admitted only because the Jewish community guaranteed that it would bear all the expenses of accommodation and maintenance, with no burden placed on the public purse."

#NeverForget #NeverAgain