It was a favourite tactic of the pro-Brexit press during the referendum to conflate images and stories of the European migrant crisis with EU citizens coming to Britain to work. It helped portray migration as one homogenous, threatening issue.
The Sun keeps this tabloid tradition alive today with its choice of image to accompany a comment piece by MEP and arch-Brexiteer Daniel Hannan, which speculates on government plans to control migration from the EU.
The caption reflects the content of Hannan’s article, reading: “EU nationals wanting to get jobs in the UK will be entitled to a five-year work permit.”
But rather than showing economic migrants from the EU, the picture shows a group of young men, some in hoods, walking towards the Eurotunnel. The Getty Images website reveals this image to have been taken at the height of the Calais migrant crisis by one of their staff photographers, Philippe Huguen, with the description: “Migrants walk in the direction of the Eurotunnel terminal on August 6, 2015 in Frethun near Calais, northern France.”
Images from Europe’s migrant crisis – from which the UK was largely sheltered due to it not being a member of the EU’s borderless Schengen Area – were used extensively by pro-Brexit publications and campaigners during the referendum. The most infamous example was Nigel Farage’s giant “Breaking Point” poster, using images of migrants miles away in the Balkans to argue “the EU has failed us all”. Other Leave heavyweights distanced themselves from the poster, which was compared to anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda.
Today’s image is by no means The Sun’s most brazen attempt to confuse EU economic migration with illegal non-EU migration. That accolade must go to a report days before the referendum of migrants discovered in the back of a lorry who claimed “We’re from Europe” to police. In a video included in The Sun’s own online version of the story, the migrant family could clearly be heard saying “Iraq” and “Kuwait”. The Sun and the Daily Mail both agreed to correct that story.
InFacts has asked The Sun to correct the latest story. The newspaper agreed to replace the picture “for the sake of clarification” but refused to issue a correction. The Sun said: “The original [picture] is simply a generic image showing potential immigrants, most of whom would be looking for work,” and that the picture was not “misleading in the context of the article. A correction would not be appropriate.”
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Edited by Hugo Dixon
The distinction you make between refuges and EU citizens migrating to the Uk to claim in-work benefits is only a matter of time. After they have been resident in a EU member state for long enough to claim citizenship, then they would be free to move to the UK and likely would as many of them speak English but no other EU language. Only a clean Brexit without fre Dom of movement can stop that.
This literally amounts to false propaganda and attempts to whip up racial hatred. It makes me very angry to see such blatant misrepresentations.
You – and your followers – may be interested in this detailed analysis of the coverage of immigration in the Express and Mail last year – with some mentions of the Sun. As you say, everyone was treated as part of a homogenous mass and coverage was ramped up to a peak just before the referendum.
Here’s the link:
http://www.sub-scribe2015.co.uk/whitetops-immigration.html#.WLWpSG-LTIU
But why should we be surprised that the Sun chooses to repeat their anti immigration propaganda now? Why aren’t other media outlets such as the BBC, ITV and the more reputable newspapers outing the Sun, the Mail and the Express for their wild misrepresentations of the truth. A reflection of the Germany of the 1930s?