The Conservative party and its media outriders have overreached themselves in the Lineker affair. The “stop the boats” policy, which flouts democratic, legal and humanitarian standards to reach new heights of cruelty in our proposed treatment of asylum seekers, is not just another political controversy. It goes to the heart of what kind of country we are and how policy should be conducted in a democracy. Authoritarian regimes everywhere progress by breaching one convention as a launchpad for breaching the next until, finally, they land their prize of subordinating human rights to their partisan and untrammelled will. But human rights are indivisible; one breach leaves the rest diminished and weakened.
No less fundamental in a democracy are the rules of engagement in the public square. Debate, however passionate, must respect facts. While our broadcast media are regulated to serve that end, upheld by a system of public service broadcasting of which the BBC is the anchor, our newspapers are not. Newspapers, particularly of the right, have increasingly been edited not as journals but as propagandists of rightwing ideology in which facts are subordinate, serving profoundly political ends. The callous extremes of the “stop the boats” scheme could not have been conceived, nor the extravagant language used to defend it, without the poisonous climate they created. They are necessarily ardent critics of the BBC, even stricken and enfeebled as it is, because it stands in the way of how they want to frame political and cultural argument – part of the march towards the unconstrained exercise of executive privilege, the attacks on human rights and the diminution of our democracy.
The government had readied itself for a fierce reaction to its policy and already had its lines of counter-attack prepared. Protest was only to be expected from a “blob “of “lefty lawyers” in cahoots with the Labour party and a resistant civil service. What it did not expect was a popular sports presenter, Gary Lineker, describing the plan as immeasurably cruel and disproportionate, clumsily saying it had similarities to the language of 1930s Germany. What Lineker was suggesting was that regimes hostile to human rights and democracy proceed in a manner that echoes the language of Suella Braverman and Rishi Sunak, a comment much harder to contest because it is true – and which his army of critics made no effort to understand. However, his miscue opened the way to the Mail and Telegraph vindictively denouncing him on their front pages along with condemnation from the home secretary for the analogy with 30s Germany; editorials demanded he be sanctioned for abusing his position, hypocritically urging the BBC, as a great national institution, to defend an impartiality they never observe themselves – a criticism designed not to help the broadcaster but to damn it.
The weight of the coverage was wildly excessive, a tribute to the vulnerability the right itself feels over the small boats policy – how pleasing to have Lineker in their cross hairs rather than arguments over the cruel and illegal treatment of asylum seekers. Notwithstanding the storm, an unrepentant Lineker stood by his comments. On Friday evening, the BBC ran up the white flag and forced him off air, his fellow presenters refusing to present Match of the Day in his absence and commentators declining to report the matches. The blob turns out to be no blob at all – but includes respected sports presenters, provoked into acting not just for their own consciences but for millions who think like them. This is not the political positioning the government intended.
The exposure of the “stop the boats” policy as designed in a hyper-rightwing echo chamber with a narrow base of support could scarcely have been better revealed – nor the parallel effort to weaken the BBC and make it a pliant supporter of the drive not merely to “Torify” Britain, but to redefine who we are as a country. There is no parallel pressure from the rightwing press, its editorialists and the government on the compromised chair of the BBC, Conservative donor Richard Sharp, to “step aside” and resign for not disclosing his role in helping Boris Johnson find an £800,000 loan. His task is to ensure the BBC stays editorially compliant in the run-up to the general election – an essential role in Torification. He is thus relieved from the pressure that forced Lineker off air.
The arguments over whether Lineker’s contract as a freelance sports commentator allows him to express his views or not are specious. The contract does. Over the years, a string of presenters of varying political colours have been permitted to share their thoughts on social media without sanction, while simultaneously observing impartiality in BBC studios. In a world of social media it’s the only way to operate, otherwise the pool of talent prepared to work for the channel will shrink alarmingly – thus Alan Sugar and Andrew Neil have worked both as BBC presenters and social media partisans, and Lineker was acting within the same framework. But whatever the rules, when policy gets this extreme, menacing who we are and the values we live by, unexpected people stand up to be counted and find ways to make their voice heard. In this case, Lineker was the man. The BBC found itself in a position where it was damned if it acted and damned if it did not. The stronger position would have been to protect itself and thus Lineker; by “sticking to its guns” over impartiality being applied to a presenter who leans left, but not having acted on those who lean right, the charge of double standards has become impossible to rebut. Before our eyes a treasured public institution paid for by all licence fee payers has become a satrapy of the right.
The furore has transformed the terms of the debate. Labour had confined itself to criticising the policy only in terms of its workability. Now it cannot allow only Gary Lineker to speak out about the rotten values that have driven it, as the numbers declaring their support for him grow. This is transmuting into a popular progressive moment as the integrity of public service broadcasting is defended alongside Lineker’s stance on asylum seeking. Britain is not the rightwing country the right imagines. It is a fairer, much more decent place. Congratulations to the Match of the Day presentation team who showed us who we are – the best game any of them have played.
• Will Hutton is an Observer columnist
