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Beware the foreigners: 2013,
a year of xenophobic front pages

Uk border controls
Thursday 2 January, 2014

Scene 1: A group of Romanians runs a car wash franchise in the car park of a DIY store. It's a cold, drizzly day and there are few customers. A woman drives up and the entire dozen-strong workforce emerge from their warm hut and get to work on her car. No one sits back to watch others work, and with everyone pitching in, the job is done in five minutes.

Scene 2: A gang of Romanians cases a London antiques fair and follows one of the jewellery dealers home. They set up camp in woodland at the bottom of her garden and watch her movements for a few days. They see her coming home with new stock. At 3am they remove the bolts and padlocks on her doors and break in to steal everything. Her life's work gone in minutes.

Which would be the better news story?

No contest. One is an everyday occurrence, the other a cruel assault on a woman's home and life. And we know that an essential element of news is that it should be out of the ordinary.

So why does SubScribe suspect that the raid would be reported by many of our newspapers not as something unusual, but as typical of the sort of behaviour to be expected of eastern European immigrants?

And why, given our endless fascination with the subject and the reams of newsprint devoted to it, is so little written about work ethic and immigrants' contribution to the economy?

As Big Ben chimed midnight yesterday, thousands - even millions - of Romanians and Bulgarians were supposed to swarm into Britain to steal our jobs, our benefits and our wallets.

The mass migration did not materialise on cue, but that doesn't mean we're safe. You never know with sneaky foreigners; they might be biding their time, waiting for us to be 

preoccupied with the storms, before invading. And there's plenty to worry about, as the Daily Star warned us yesterday:

"Fears grew of a crimewave last night as hordes of Romanians and Bulgarians bought every seat on planes and buses to the UK...
Police experts predicted a fresh wave of crime as the country already struggles with an influx of foreign crooks.
Shock figures revealed that the eastern Europeans already topped the crime league tables before Britain opened its borders to millions from the two countries today.
Almost 1,000 Romanians were detained by police in just one county alone over the past three years..."

As SubScribe wrote on Tuesday, the new rules on immigration change little. Seasonal workers, those in other specific trades and the self-employed were already able to come to Britain to work. They also had the same right as other EU nationals to enter the country for up to three months as a visitor - and to be deported if they engaged in criminal activity. Romanians and Bulgarians may now come to seek work in any field and stay for any length of time. But they still won't be allowed to stay if they start begging or stealing.

The newspapers most terrified of this foreign invasion have been reluctant to make this clear. They don't seem to have grasped the notion that if someone's intention is to come to Britain to break the law, they didn't need to wait for the law to change to do so. Wouldn't it make sense for them to pop over, make hay for as long as they could without getting caught, and then go home with their ill-gotten gains? They could have been doing this for seven years.

Twitter has been a joy the past couple of days, mocking the tabs that predicted floods of evil migrants. Buzzfeed, as ever, put together a good compendium - and just going on to Twitter and searching 'Romanians and Bulgarians' brings a rich harvest.


SubScribe would like to make a three-part contribution to the conversation. The first was published on Tuesday. The second, below, is a collection of the British front page splashes from the past 12 months that have focused on the subject of them darn foreigners. The third is an analysis of the winner's tactics.

January
Express migrants shun english
Express 75 thousand say no to more EU migrants
Mail foreaign rapists etc we can't throw out
Picture

Scare stories that build prejudice

Barriers came down on New Year's Day so that any Bulgarian or Romanian who wanted to work had a right to come to Britain. The self-employed, students and people in certain occupations were already allowed entry. So would there be a January invasion as some predicted? Would the newcomers cost us money or contribute to the economy? Read more on Immigration scare stories do nobody any good. It's time for some facts please. 
Guardian Immigartion retoric deterring foreign students

February
Express migrant crooks
Mail Migrants handed money
Times Cameron vows to cut migrants benefits
Express immigrant crime soars
Indie PM targets benefits for migrants
Express 4m migrants vote to come here
Express Romanian criminals terririse our streets
Mail Rioters we cant kick out
Express I'll stop migrants benefits

March
Express Battle to keep out EU migrants
Times Cameron to deny aid to migrants
Telegraph ban immigrants
Express 1-5 migrants come here
Mail find work in 6 months
Picture
Romanians and Bulgarians will cost the UK £1.4bn in welfare benefits over the next seven years, according to the Express. If officials are unwilling to say how many are expected - or even how many have arrived since January 1 -  how did the paper reach this conclusion?Read more on Immigration and the Express

Express EU says migrants must get benefits
i End soft touch reputaion
Express outrage at migrant flood

April
Telegraph legal curb for migrants
Mail health tourists
Express migrants get more benefits

May
Express migrants change britain
Express illegal immigrants
Express £70 million NHS rip off
Indie EU students owe UK in unpaid loans

June
Express ban on benefits
Express stop migrant invasion
Express EU guide to UK benefits
Express Asylum seekers cost £1.5 a day

July
Mail True toll of mass migration
Mail 500,000 migrants get social housing

August
Indie Home office broken law
Express migrants fuel baby boom
Times EU reform talks
Mail ID checks scrapped for migrants

September
Observer Immigrants suffering sexual abuse
Mail  Migrants fuel school crisis
Times - Romaniand like Brits with French villas
Telegraph foreign beggers

October
Telegraph scale of EU migration
Mail slas benefits for migrants
Telegraph Immigration
Indie the truth about health tourism
Telegraph Jobs for the Brits not migrants
Mail the cost of health tourism

November
Express 98% want migrants banned
Express 75,000 say no to more EU migrants
Telegraph foreign criminals stay in UK
Star - Roma invasion will lead to riots
Mail immigration mistake
Telegraph Corruption rife in pakistani community
Mail £10k to teach migrant to fly
Mail population to grow by 10mill
Telegraph immigrants fill 1 in5 skilled jobs
Express pay to teach migrants manners
Times voter fury over immigration
Times  Cameron to defy EU on migration
Mail Queue to work in the UK
Express foreign NHS patients stop cancer treatments
Telegraph tax raid on foreigners
Express Crackdown on EU migrants
Mail Enough is enough
Telegraph Romanian migrants will help economy
Mail I do share your concern
i Britain no soft touch
Times Tough curbs on benefits
Mail Immigration the backlash

December
Times Immigrant offenders slipping the net
Mail UN meddlers lecture Britain
Mail Migrants to be charged for A&E
Telegraph migrants given free access to GPs
Sun Draw a red line under immigration
Guardian Camerons migrant crackdown
Times Idle Brits allowing Romanians to take jobs
Express igrsnt numbers at crisis point
Times Romas says watch your bankers
Telegraph speak English or lose benefits
Express Migrant beggars on £36,000
Observer rebuke from Bulgaria
Express Migranst set to flood in
Mail Coalition at war over migrants
i A&E patients must prove they are not migrants
Telegraph Cable compres Cameron to Enoch Powell
Mail Cost of our open borders
Guardian Cable hits out at Tories for migrant panic
i immigrants told to speak English
i Tories panicing over immigration
Indie Migrants to pay for A&E
Times Clegg blocks curbs on migrants
Star Migrant war on streets
Guardian Un condems Cameron over immigration law
Sunday Times May goes to war over EU migrants
Sun Cheeky beggars

...and the winner is....

Well, it was neck-and-neck into the final strait. The Express made the early running and built up a good lead over the Mail. But it was distracted by the scorching summer and, possibly suffering from a touch of arthritis, started to flag. It rallied in the autumn, just as the Mail put on a burst of speed. For a while it looked as though the Mail  might come through, but the favourite held on with enough in reserve to romp home by five issues.
The white-top tabs left the rest of the field trailing. The Telegraph put on a solid show to finish third in front of the Times, which veered from one rail to the other throughout the race.
The Sun and the Star were too distracted to give of their best - the Star got confused and galloped off to chase foreign killer spiders instead of foreign human beings. Both made a last bolt for the finishing line, but neither ever had a hope.


The result
Daily Express  26;  Daily Mail 21;  Daily Telegraph 20;  The Times 9; Independent 5;  i 5;  Guardian 4;  Sunday Telegraph 4;  Sunday Express 3; Sunday Times 3;  Observer 2;  Star 2;  Sun 2;  Mail on Sunday, 1
Special award: Daily Mirror (non-runner)

...and the losers are...

Our national reputation and anyone who looks to the middle-market Press for a fair and balanced view of the value - or cost - of immigrants to British society.

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