Sarah Murphy

Photo of Sunak in front of his ‘STOP THE BOATS’ lectern Immigration and asylum Language on immigration in UK news and politics found to have 'shaped backlash against antiracism'

The report added: "One stark example of the partnership between parliament and the news media in framing public perceptions of immigration in the UK can be found in connection with the ‘stop the boats' political slogan. "The explicit use of this slogan by rioters in the summer of 2024 on banners and in chants demonstrates that the hostile language we have identified in our analysis has emboldened sectors of the UK public to engage in racist violence.

I wonder if Sunak regrets throwing all that red meat at the racist monster that now snarls at him and clamours to deport him… www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Nigel Farage has said the first thing he would do as prime minister if his party won an election would be to remove Britain from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) but the poll suggested this idea was not hugely popular. Some 58 per cent believed Britain should remain a member of the convention, an increase in support of eight points since June, when Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, started a review of Britain's membership of the treaty.

So the first thing boring old Nigel would do is leave the ECHR, is it? Sure. Quick flounce out. Then onto privatising the NHS and cancelling climate change. 🙄

And support for the ECHR has actually gone up 8 points since Badenoch said she’d review it.

Read the room, you tediously useless clowns.

Support for Brexit has fallen away significantly. But there isn’t a determined push to rejoin either. More of a shove-it-under-the-rug-and-hope-no-one-notices-it attitude.

Only 29% would back Brexit now — poll suggests tables have turned We asked Britain about Europe, China and their least favourite world leaders, but one answer stands out Caroline Wheeler, Political Editor Saturday August 02 2025, 11.40pm, The Sunday Times

The tables have turned, according to the poll by the think tank More in Common, which found that this figure, 52 per cent, was now the percentage that would vote to remain. Bregret? Q) If the 2016 Brexit referendum were held today, how would you vote? Remain 52% Leave 29% Would not vote 11% Don't know 8% 22 July - 24 July 2025 2,113 GB adults (excludes Northern Ireland) Chart: The Times and The Sunday Times • Source: More in Common

I wonder what it could be about the cost, queues, red tape, loss of investment, loss of opportunity, isolation, dishonesty, failure and downright tedium of the Brexit moronathon that has led to people not rating it any more…

They might like their bitterness. But bitterness is failure. On a national level, it’s ruinous. How much failure do we all have to put up with and pay for before people wake up to that fact?

While mine should be nowhere near politics or power. Ever.

REFORM UK VS REALITY Farage's party has started to sound bitter The Guardian Nigel Farage's great appeal to his followers used to be the fact that he liked a drink and a laugh; that he was enjoying himself. But lately his party has begun to sound bitter, nihilistic, oddly hysterical. Claiming that Britain is on the verge of societal collapse plays well on X, but perhaps less well in daylight. Britain has big problems, many of them deep seated. But it's still a country where people wash their cars in suburban driveways on a Sunday, not a post-apocalyptic wasteland. There's undeniably a market for politicians wallowing angrily in dreams of a better yesterday. But I suspect there's still a bigger one waiting to catch sight of a better tomorrow. (Gaby Hinsliff)

Yes, Farage. You’re bitter and boring.

“There's undeniably a market for politicians wallowing angrily in dreams of a better yesterday. But I suspect there's still a bigger one waiting to catch sight of a better tomorrow.”

@gabyhinsliff.bsky.social in the Guardian (summed up in the iPaper)

Language on immigration in UK news and politics found to have ‘shaped backlash against antiracism’ Pattern of ‘hostile language’ in media and debates likely to describe people of colour with less sympathy, report says

“Racist discourse from the highest levels of UK society, including politicians and the media, is used to frame immigration as an existential threat to the British way of life … this works to justify ever more hostile immigration policies”
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Happy Friday to everyone who might be concerned that he has possession of the nuclear codes, blames the messenger for tanking the economy & would gladly pardon a monster to save his own thin orange skin.

Ugh. It sickens me the harm these safe, comfortable, privileged people do - using their influence to peddle their own prejudices, with absolutely no care or thought given to the consequences.

Just peachy to have Justin Webb on #r4today insinuating that asylum seekers arriving by small boats are largely criminals and sex offenders.
Such an irresponsible, Daily Mail-style prejudice in his questions and assertions. This isn’t journalism. It’s scaremongering for the far right. Shameful.

It’s black. It’s shitty quality. And it gives you the right to join massive queues in ports and airports, so you can get a little stamp to stop you staying too long.
No more breezing through or getting a job or studying easily. There’s red tape, visas and costs for all that now.
So, yes. Wankers.

I know. A very long-winded way of saying, “Fuck off Steve”

And it’s exactly why anyone from the destructive and ruinous Tory era that stretched from Cameron to Sunak should never be in government again. They abused their power horrendously and we must all now pay a very high price for their prejudiced irresponsibility.

Steve Baker calling himself “Brexit Hard Man” is the kind of wild delusional idiocy that defines the Brexit brand. Ridiculous Tory egos strutting around torching the place because they got totally carried away with their jingoistic ideology and forgot the country in their madness.

Yes. And some just love an audience, even if that audience is made up of god knows what and god knows who.

Fears of summer of riots intensify as online hate speech doubles A year on from Southport attacks abusive posts are rife. Sanya Burgess reports online abuse against migrants doubled in the aftermath of the Southport attack. The day after the murder of three girls on 29 July last year marked the start of the worst riots in more than a decade. In the 12 months since, the number of abusive online comments against UK migrants has soared, according to data from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). Since July last year there have been almost three million abusive posts on X - more than double the 1.2 million recorded in the 12 months before the attack. While Southport coincided with one spike, abuse also seemed to increase in line with a march by the nationalist party Britain First earlier this year, and when the X owner Elon Musk made comments about grooming gangs last year: Southport's MP, Patrick Hurley, is deeply concerned about the impact abuse on social media is having on his constituents and the country. He is calling on regulators to crack down harder on sites like X. He and his team partnered with the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) to see how many "violent" posts would be removed from X if the comments were flagged to the site's safety team. They reported 100 such posts on 7 and 8 July this year but claim just three were removed. Hurley believes the speed with which people can post abuse without taking the time to reflect on their words is a significant problem. He said: "[It] is definitely damaging for public discourse and there is growing evidence that it is damaging for the maintenance of a cohesive society." He said the platform "is not even attempting to mitigate the issues, and seems in the business of actively promoting violent threats and content designed to lead to civil unrest. Without adequate enforcement from regulators, this is unlikely to change. It's high time enforcement was stepped up."

X “is not even attempting to mitigate the issues, and seems in the business of actively promoting violent threats and content designed to lead to civil unrest.”

No need for a load of political dithering. This should be all the evidence they need.

Time to get off it.
(iPaper)

Good work. But of course disappointing. Don’t you have multi millions lying about? Often easier to lobby govt if you do.

Agreed. But if it cannot be done that way, individual govts and reputable journalists could just leave it. Or, at the very least, have dormant accounts and join alternative sites. No one has to stay and support what has genuinely become a monster.

Fears of summer of riots intensify as online hate speech doubles. A year on from Southport attacks abusive posts are rife. Sanya Burgess reports online abuse against migrants doubled in the aftermath of the Southport attack. The day after the murder of three girls on 29 July last year marked the start of the worst riots in more than a decade. In the 12 months since, the number of abusive online comments against UK migrants has soared, according to data from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). Since July last year there have been almost three million abusive posts on X - more than double the 1.2 million recorded in the 12 months before the attack. While Southport coincided with one spike, abuse also seemed to increase in line with a march by the nationalist party Britain First earlier this year, and when the X owner Elon Musk made comments about grooming gangs last year: Southport's MP, Patrick Hurley, is deeply concerned about the impact abuse on social media is having on his constituents and the country. He is calling on regulators to crack down harder on sites like X. He and his team partnered with the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) to see how many "violent" posts would be removed from X if the comments were flagged to the site's safety team. They reported 100 such posts on 7 and 8 July this year but claim just three were removed. Hurley believes the speed with which people can post abuse without taking the time to reflect on their words is a significant problem. He said: "[It] is definitely damaging for public discourse and there is growing evidence that it is damaging for the maintenance of a cohesive society." He said the platform "is not even attempting to mitigate the issues, and seems in the business of actively promoting violent threats and content designed to lead to civil unrest. Without adequate enforcement from regulators, this is unlikely to change. It's high time enforcement was stepped up."

Any debate about online safety needs to include X.
And why our govt and most of our politicians are still on it.
It’s a hellpit of radicalisation, disinformation and abuse. Too many politicians see it as a focus group to inform policy rather than a dangerous cult that threatens us all.
(i Paper)

They’re there in spirit. Just a bit too snobby still to give up the Tory brand.

Yes. Reform is where Tories go when the internal fight against their inner racist becomes too much for them and they just want to be free to be their proper prejudiced and unpleasant selves.

Those questions being…

Are you a racist too?

If so, would you like to vote us into power, where we promise to be very nasty to all the people you don’t like?

Not sure why anyone who cares about democracy and social responsibility is active on that site any more. Particularly, politicians, organisations and reputable journalists. It’s simply not safe. A radicalising machine.

The grim shame of it.
And he and his dismal bunch of halfwits seem to want to do it all over again, whipping up fear and hatred with their bullshit “legitimate concerns” wailing.

Then dumped in the metaphorical bin. Unless it’s grounds to remove her from office.

It is too kind to say that Braverman's insouciance about the political consequences of that is due to ignorance: ignorance on that scale can be attributed only to a pigheaded determination not to understand anything, or care anything, about the complex and tragic history of British involvement in Ireland or about the current politics of the island.

Such a step would almost certainly lead the EU to exercise its rights to withdraw totally from Lord Frost's other negotiating triumph, the UK/EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement. One might think that the very serious economic implications of that might trouble a body calling itself the Prosperity Institute, were one not aware that it is in fact a deeply ideological pro-Brexit knitting circle. In any event, Braverman's paper simply ignores those inconvenient consequences.

In the end, what Braverman's paper does succeed, magnificently, in demonstrating are the fundamental weaknesses of the case for leaving the ECHR. The ECHR's defenders need to take every opportunity to hammer away at those weaknesses. At the end of the day, ECHR leavers want to put all of our fundamental rights entirely in the hands of government ministers and bureaucrats. And their breezy assurances about the consequences of leaving are quite as ill thought-through and deceptive as the promises made by the same people about the consequences of leaving the EU. As the old saw puts it: "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me".

An excellent read. Intelligent scrutiny applied to dangerous populist drivel. It should happen more often.

Loved the reference to the Prosperity Institute as a “deeply ideological pro-Brexit knitting circle” and the absolute and well-deserved contempt for Braverman’s profound awfulness.

It says a lot about where we're going that the BBC is now running stories in which they ask lifeboat crews whether they will apologise for using their boats to save lives

Yes. Rather than holding them to account, the media has instead helped persuade voters to choose these howling inadequates to represent them.

Oh yes. They helped with the ‘persuading’ part.