Alien Attitudes?
Gavin Schaffer argues that the British have always been ambivalent in their attitude towards refugees, especially at times of war.
In the summer of 2005 the Daily Mail gave over its front page to a robust criticism of the British government’s plans to force the deportation of failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers. Under the headline ‘For pity’s sake let them stay’, it attacked ‘the wretched pretence of the Home Office … that these people will be in no real danger if they are sent home,’ concluding, ‘What planet are ministers on?’
It was surprising to see the Mail defend failed asylum seekers. Over the past seventy years, the Daily Mail, along with most popular British newspapers, has been a consistent campaigner for strict immigration limits and has railed tirelessly against perceived abuses of Britain’s asylum policies. Even in the previous year, the Daily Mail and Daily Express had run nearly three hundred stories on asylum, few of which echoed the sentiments of its report on Zimbabwe.
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