OVER the weekend BBC News released a feature on the activities and tactics of fascist group Patriot Platform after masked men descended on the port of Dover last week.
The corporation felt it appropriate to call these men “hardened activists” in the headline and throughout the piece the group are described as engaging in an “intimidating show of strength” by employing “military precision”, with the article detailing how they “stood their ground” in the face of police officers.
This language that legitimises the activities of far-right extremists that the public should be being warned about is becoming worryingly common across the BBC.
In a BBC Disclosure documentary entitled Welcome to Glasgow last month, fascists who were staging violent demonstrations in the city were also referred to as “anti-immigration influencers”, as if what they were doing was somehow akin to the peaceful protests of climate activists, for example.
What the BBC decide to mention way down the article on Patriot Platform, more than 30 paragraphs in, is that organiser Danny Thomas – an associate of Tommy Robinson – was jailed for two years in 2016 after he and two others tried to kidnap a man at knifepoint in Portsmouth in a dispute over money linked to drugs.
But apparently this was not seen as crucial context earlier in the piece which seems to wax lyrical about a “new style of protest” these thugs are employing and simply describes Thomas as the “main organiser” for several paragraphs who delivers “clear instructions” to his supporters.
Media critic Mic Wright told The National the BBC is attempting to appear neutral by reporting on these groups this way.
But he insisted the broadcaster has a responsibility to report accurately on the frightening reality we face.
“I think BBC News takes this approach because it wants to appear neutral but impartiality applied to street fascism is akin to not being willing to say it’s raining while standing beneath the storm clouds,” he said.
“I would absolutely call on them to face up to the reality we are in right now – one in which far right groups are taking to the streets to actively threaten and intimidate. There is only one direction that goes in and it is not a good one.”
Wright said in a blog post on his Conquest of the Useless substack that by creating an “impression of discipline” around these extremists, it “playing exactly into the group’s self-image”, as it goes on to describe their “eye-catching tactics” carried out in “well-organised waves”.
In one paragraph the article says: “Hardened anti-immigration campaigners were using their newly-developed tactics for the first time. It bore little resemblance to the running battles seen in cities in the Midlands in the days of Tommy Robinson’s original vehicle, the anti-Muslim English Defence League.”
Highlighting how the piece attempts to contrast the group with that of the English Defence League, Wright wrote: “Daniel Thomas is a long-term and extremely close associate of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who calls him himself Tommy Robinson.
“The way the previous paragraph is written creates the impression that Patriot Platform is a) an improvement and b) something materially different and from the EDL. In truth, it’s a group that draws its foreign funding from the same sources and features many of the same people.”
Wright went on: “I don’t think for a moment that Daniel Sandford or BBC News are advocating for Patriot Platform, but the language and the framing given to them is to their advantage. At no point would a group on the left be given the levels of understanding or implicit praise that the black-shorted boot boys are getting. We’ve seen it happen enough times to know exactly what’s going on here.”
The activities of far-right extremists cannot be ignored and the media should absolutely be shining a light on the dangers they pose to society, but this is not what the BBC is doing and members of Patriot Platform will no doubt feel emboldened by this coverage that panders to their desire for legitimacy.
The BBC has been approached for comment.
