18/01/2008

Express and the BNP sitting in a tree...

Now, I know it's been a long time since we asked about immigration, but...

It really shouldn't be any wonder that the BNP showers the Express with praise, and not just because the paper parrots the views of the shovel-headed racists to such a large degree in stories like 'MIGRANTS TAKE ALL NEW JOBS IN BRITAIN', 'At last they admit: Immigration has damaged Britain' and 'Ethnic baby boom 'crisis''.

It's not even those stories combined with how willing the paper is to lie and distort to push the BNP's agenda with stories like the ones above, and others such as 'Muslims tell us how to run our schools', 'Muslim juror wore MP3 player under hijab' and 'Schools where children don't speak English'.

It's all of those combined with the paper's 'Have your say' section, populated as it is by goons representing the party dribbling over their fists as they bash out yet another ill thought out diatribe about immigration and Muslims, or about Muslims and immigration.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that the Express allows the goons to spew their bile all over its website that bothers me. Free speech and all that - people can make tits of themselves as much as they like. It's that the paper actively encourages them, effectively inviting virtual pro BNP canvassing several times a week.

Today, the 'Have your say' section has links to discussions titled:

Should Britain's taxes go to Muslim fanatics?
Should veils be banned in courts?
Has Labour totally failed to control immigration?
Have you had enough of minorities dictating the rules?
Does Britain have too many immigrants?
Are you fed up with the fanatics changing Britain?
Should immigrants be made to feel welcome?

All of them attract goons like flies on poo. If you were into strawmen, you might accuse me of not liking it that the Express dares to ask what people really think. But that's not what bothers me.

Look at the way the questions are formulated. The first one assumes Britain's taxes do indeed go to Muslim fanatics, widening out the scope of the story from the possibility of some aid money going to one organisation that might be connected with fanaticism if you follow the trail of links and connections to Palestine to a term that could apply to loads of organisations right here in the UK. The second seems to be asked every couple of months, as if the answer is ever going to be any different. The answers to the third are a foregone conclusion, since the goons seem to like saying that yes, Labour has failed to control immigration almost every day. The fourth assumes that minorities do in fact dictate the rules. The fifth is virtually the same question as the third. The sixth assumes that fanatics are changing Britain. The seventh is also a foregone conclusion.

When you already know the answer to a question, you don't ask it unless you want to hear the answer repeated. By asking the same questions over and over again in the 'Have your say' section, the Express is guaranteed to have open praise for the BNP linked to from the front of the 'Have your say' section constantly.

Whether this is deliberate or not, the question of when the Express will start backing the BNP is closer to being answered. It's already doing it now. Perhaps not directly, but still enough for the goons to thank the paper for 'vindicating all that the BNP has ever said about the strain being put upon the infrastructure of Britain by continuing to permit unfettered mass immigration'.

Incidentally, there were only 5 replies to 'Can Alesha become the British Beyonce?', the best being:
Who cares, she's not pure bred.
Vote B.N.P. for a blond with blue eyes. and someone told me she had a gay brother. Thats proof enough no English man would be a bummer.
Fair enough, it's probably someone pratting about, but it's sometimes difficult to tell.

After so many months of being given space to pretty much openly canvas, it's no wonder the BNP are grateful.

1 comment:

Chris said...

I'd say if any paper were to support the BNP the Express would be ideal.

It's so shit with it's obsession with Diana, Madeleine and it's messageboards that it'll be written off as a load of prejudiced morons (like the BNP themselves) and discredited.

One reassuring thought is that while you've got the Express, Mail (and sister papers) and Sun trying to blame everything on immigrants, there aren't - to my knowledge - vigilante groups going around kneecapping immigrants.
People like to talk tough on the net but when it comes to it they don't really do anything except whine and emigrate. Which seems a good result all round to me.