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National Identity, the British Media, and Press Propaganda

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How Press Propaganda Paved the Way to Brexit

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Abstract

This chapter explores British attitudes towards Europe. History and heritage have engendered national pride and nostalgia and geography a sense of independence. English has increased distrust of Europe as fewer people now learn languages. The chapter looks at how the media landscape of film, television, books, newspapers and social media affects attitudes towards Europe. Broadcasters are bound to impartiality but Britain’s press is mostly Eurosceptic. Its influence is wider than its declining print circulations: online consumption has grown and it sets the news agenda. Its Euroscepticism is down to the right-wing backgrounds of proprietors, editors and journalists. The Continental press is more balanced towards the EU, as even a cursory glance shows. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the features of propaganda and why the term fits much of the output of the British press. Finally, the chapter debunks the main euromyths.

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Notes

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    Lewis, Jane. 2016. The Connell Guide to the EU Referendum. Stay or Go? London: Connell Guides Publishing. This guide also contained some important errors. Like Bootle, it got the EU’s legislative process completely wrong, claiming that the European Commission passes laws, probably because, like Bootle, it did not appreciate that the “Council” has a dual role with a completely different composition in each role: the European Council is the top EU body and is made up of the member states’ leaders and takes major strategic decisions; the Council of Ministers (or, officially, the “Council of the European Union”) is the day-to-day legislative body composed of national ministers which passes laws proposed by the European Commission as part of a two-chamber legislative system with the European Parliament. The guide also made the common mistake of taking the European Court of Human Rights for an EU body. See below Sect. 3.5.1 and Chap. 4, Sect. 4.2.

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  43. 43.

    HuffPost. 2016. Which newspapers support Brexit in the EU referendum? 21 June. See also Martinson, Jane. 2016. Did the Mail and Sun help swing the UK towards Brexit? The Guardian. 24 June.

  44. 44.

    Denis MacShane complains of an apparent desire to keep a low profile on the part of business. MacShane, Denis. 2016. Let’s stay together: Why Yes to Europe, 3. London: I.B. Tauris.

  45. 45.

    Ofcom. 2017. News consumption in the UK 2016. 29 June.

  46. 46.

    Ibid., Table 4.3 Combined print and digital monthly readership of newspapers, 2015–2016.

  47. 47.

    Ofcom, Ibid.

  48. 48.

    See also Martinson, Jane. 2016. Did the Mail and Sun help swing the UK towards Brexit? The Guardian. 24 June, quoting David Deacon, Professor of Communication and Media Analysis at Loughborough University.

  49. 49.

    BBC Radio 4’s Question Time, 3 August 2017: “We have this extraordinary tabloid press that couldn’t run a single good story about the EU. We were told rubbish about straight bananas and all sorts of nonsense.” See also Daily Telegraph. 2017. Let’s not jeopardise this important task. 19 June: “For those who struggled for decades to reverse the decision to join the EU, and by so doing reclaim the sovereignty this nation lost with membership, it is an incredible moment.”

  50. 50.

    See Ofcom. 2017. Sect. 5: Due impartiality and due accuracy. 3 April.

  51. 51.

    Ofcom, Ibid.

  52. 52.

    Garton Ash, Timothy. 2016. The BBC is too timid. Being impartial on the EU is not enough. The Guardian. 1 April.

  53. 53.

    Cushion, Stephen, and Justin Lewis. 2017. Impartiality, statistical tit-for-tats and the construction of balance: UK television news reporting of the 2016 EU referendum campaign. European Journal of Communications, 32, 208–223.

  54. 54.

    Op. cit.

  55. 55.

    Ofcom. 2017. News consumption in the UK 2016. 29 June.

  56. 56.

    Parliament UK. 2019. House of Commons Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. 18 February. The Committee also noted an unclear relationship with the insurance company Eldon Insurance owned by Leave.eu’s main backer Arron Banks which held a large quantity of personal data on its British clients, and considered there was evidence that the data analysis company Aggregate IQ collected, stored, and shared data belonging to UK citizens in the context of its work for the main Leave campaigning organization Vote Leave.

  57. 57.

    FullFacts. 2019. There’s a lot wrong with this viral list about the Lisbon Treaty. 11 March. Toynbee, Polly. 2019. The anti-EU lies are back to exploit Britain’s weak spot again. The Guardian. 4 March.

  58. 58.

    Sipilä, Annamari. 2015. EU on Britanniassa tunteen asia (“In Britain the EU is a matter of feeling”). Helsingin Sanomat. 10 September. For a similar analysis of the behaviour of the Eurosceptic press during the referendum campaign by a press insider, see Rusbridger, Alan. 2018. Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now, 361–365. Edinburgh: Canongate Books.

  59. 59.

    Sipilä, Annamari. 2014. Britannia voi olla EU:lle jo menetetty tapaus (“Britain could already be a lost cause for the EU”). Helsingin Sanomat. 30 August.

  60. 60.

    See, for example, European Commission. 2016. Standard Eurobarometer 85 Spring 2016: Public opinion in the European Union. July 2016.

  61. 61.

    Hardman , Isabel. 2018. Why We Get the Wrong Politicians, 198–199. London: Atlantic Books.

  62. 62.

    Greenslade , Roy. 2016. The Sun’s Brexit call is unsurprising but it has a symbolic significance. The Guardian. 14 June.

  63. 63.

    talkRADIO. 4 October 2017. Julia Hartley-Brewer and Alistair Campbell.YouTube.

  64. 64.

    See, for example, Lynn, Matthew. 2017. Ignore the hype, this ‘Merkron’ axis is likely to leave Europe worse off. Daily Telegraph. 27 June, exaggerating the protectionist or socialist nature of proposals on takeovers, public procurement and social measures that President Macron had made to Mrs Merkel in a relaunch of the Franco-German axis after his election.

  65. 65.

    MacShane . Denis. 2015. How Britain Will Leave Europe. London. I. B. Tauris.

  66. 66.

    The Guardian. 2017. David Cameron asked Daily Mail owner to sack Paul Dacre over Brexit. 1 February.

  67. 67.

    Greenslade . Roy. 2016. The Sun’s Brexit call is unsurprising but it has a symbolic significance. The Guardian. 14 June.

  68. 68.

    For example, the EU Commission President’s remarks that negotiating the issue of citizens’ rights would take longer than a few weeks after Mrs May had said she hoped for a deal by the end of June was called a “plot”: Daily Telegraph. 2017. EU plots to block May’s deal on expats. 2 May. Pro-Brexit propaganda has also continued unabated on social media. 

  69. 69.

    Rautio , Paavo. 2016. Helsingin Sanomat. Vinoista paloista syntyy vino kuva (“Crooked pieces make a distorted picture”). 27 July. More on the noble sport of Eurobashing in Chap. 5, Sect. 5.4.1.

  70. 70.

    Sipilä. Annamari. 2016. Helsingin Sanomat. Äänestäjiä pitää osata pelotella ajoissa (“You have to be able frighten voters early enough.”) 24 May. See also Sect. 3.4.5 below.

  71. 71.

    See Sect. 3.4.4 below, article in De Morgen by Hans Vandeweghe.

  72. 72.

    BBC Radio 4. 2018. Today. 26 November. See also comments in a similar vein by Juncker to the German TV network ARD, reported on BBC News on 25 May 2019.

  73. 73.

    Juncker’s statement was met with silence. But British journalists who know Europe believe Juncker is right. Simon Kuper of the Financial Times , for example, wrote that the only major purveyors of fake news in Europe are the UK’s tabloids: Financial Times. 2017. Why there will never be a Trump in western Europe. 1 July.

  74. 74.

    Barnett, Steven. 2018. Daily Mail: new editor, new ‘enemies of the people’. The Conversation. 19 November. Nevertheless, the paper is still staunchly Eurosceptic and pro-Leave.

  75. 75.

    Die Welt. 2019. Kleinlaute Populisten (“Subdued populists”). 9 April.

  76. 76.

    The book of the Libération journalist Jean Quatremer. 2017. Les Salauds de l’Europe: Guide à l’usage des eurosceptiques. Paris: Calmann Levy, debunks the myths of Euroscepticism while not denying the EU’s imperfections.

  77. 77.

    Who predicted a Leave win in the 2016 referendum almost two years beforehand, in view of the prevailing Eurosceptic mood among the population and the country’s largely anti-EU press: Helsingin Sanomat. 2014. Britannia voi olla EU:lle jo menetetty tapaus. (“Britain could already be a lost cause for the EU”). 30 August.

  78. 78.

    HM Gov. 2016. Why the Government believes that voting to remain in the European Union is the best decision for the UK. 7 April.

  79. 79.

    What Kelvin MacKenzie thought of his Sun readers is documented in Chippendale, Peter and Chris Horrie. 1991. Stick it Up Your Punter: The Rise and Fall of the Sun. London, William Heinemann. See also Rusbridger, Alan. 2018. Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now, 49. Edinburgh: Canongate Books. See also Müller, Reinhard. 2017. Das Volk ist kein Stimmvieh. (“People are not voting fodder.”) Frankfurter Allgemeine. 28 April.

  80. 80.

    See Anderson, Peter J., and Tony Weymouth. 1999. Insulting the Public? The British Press and the European Union. London and New York: Longman. Also, Morgan, David. 1995. “British Media and European Union News: The Brussels News Beat and its Problems.” European Journal of Communication, 321–343. See also the complaints about euromyths and the EU’s attempts to counter them in the 1990s referred to in Chap. 5.

  81. 81.

    See O’Brien, James. 2018. How to be right … in a world gone wrong. London: W. H. Allen, Chap. 6: Nanny States and classical liberals.

  82. 82.

    BBC News. 2016. Reality Check: How many refugees in Germany will become EU citizens? The number of refugees claimed likely to come to Europe has turned out to be much exaggerated. 29 April.

  83. 83.

    Kuper, Simon. 2017. Brexit: Britain’s gift to the world. Financial Times. 29 September.

  84. 84.

    O’Brien , James. 2018. How to be right … in a world gone wrong. London: W. H. Allen.

  85. 85.

    An appreciative reference to BBC Radio 4’s “Global Philosopher” with Michael Sandel.

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    Francis Rawlinson

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Rawlinson, F. (2019). National Identity, the British Media, and Press Propaganda. In: How Press Propaganda Paved the Way to Brexit. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27765-9_3

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