Brexit Vote Gives Tabloids Chance to Unleash Anti-European Tendencies

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/10/world/europe/brexit-britain-european-union-media.html

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LONDON — Britons could lose control of their coastline. Their country could be scrapped or merged with France. And a nation in which tea-making is a daily ritual faces the prospect of a ban on its kettles.

Over recent years The Daily Express, a newspaper with a print circulation of around 400,000, and its sibling, the Sunday Express, have made little secret of their antipathy to the European Union, presenting it as the source of a variety of such unlikely assaults on Britain and all things British.

But with a June 23 referendum looming on whether Britain should stay in the 28-nation bloc, The Express has moved up another gear, urging readers to display a window sticker in favor of quitting, or — in the paper’s words — to “STICK IT TO THE EU!”

Britain’s freewheeling tabloid press has never been shy about pushing an agenda. But the debate on withdrawal from the European Union — known as Brexit — has given some papers a particular opportunity to unleash their nationalist and anti-European tendencies.

Facing declining circulation and ruthless digital competition, the nation’s newspaper industry has ceded some of the power it once held to shape public opinion. But the hostility of some papers to the European Union is nonetheless a problem for Prime Minister David Cameron, who is engaged in a ferocious struggle to persuade Britons to vote to remain in the bloc.

One recent study found that of 928 articles focused on the referendum, 45 percent were in favor of leaving with 27 percent for staying (19 percent were categorized as “mixed or undecided,” and 9 percent as adopting no position).

The tone of the coverage stands in stark contrast to the only previous referendum on Europe here, in 1975, when almost all the press was pro-European, including the popular midmarket Daily Mail.

Not this time. The paper has not so far unambiguously editorialized in favor of leaving, but the tone was set in February, when Mr. Cameron renegotiated Britain’s ties to the European Union, before recommending a vote to remain.

The Daily Mail was not impressed and so turned to a subject that still preoccupies parts of the British press: World War II.

“Who Will Speak for England?” asked a front-page editorial comment in an incongruous echo of a parliamentary speech made before the outbreak of war with Nazi Germany.

“As in 1939, we are at a crossroads in our island history,” the paper wrote.

For pro-Europeans, the tabloid onslaught seems wearingly familiar. “Some parts of the British media do quite frequently refer back to the Second World War as the context of the discussion,” Charles Clarke, a former Labour cabinet minister, said at a recent conference, adding that “the virulence” of the way in which some papers seek to set the agenda about Europe has affected the British political debate.

For critics of press standards, this type of coverage from the tabloids illustrates more profound flaws within the British media.

“Not only do they feel no duty to report what the other side is saying or give balance, but they feel a commitment to belittle its argument,” said Brian Cathcart, a professor of journalism at Kingston University London.

“They are comfortably the most partisan participant in the debate, and anyone thinking that they are a vehicle for explaining the pros and cons of being in Europe would be under a complete misconception,” he added.

Those on the receiving end of Euroskeptic coverage include President Obama, who, during a recent visit here, supported continued British membership of the bloc and said there would be no quick free trade deal with the United States if Britain quit.

The Daily Express’s response was a banner headline on “Obama’s Amazing Threat to Britain,” and an article that reported “Outrage at his scaremongering over EU exit vote.”

Nor is Queen Elizabeth II above the fray, at least for The Sun, Britain’s biggest paid-for daily tabloid. It reported that the monarch supports a Brexit, based on accounts of comments she ostensibly made about Europe before the referendum was called.

According to Mr. Cathcart, press coverage has a drip-drip effect from both “long-term negative reporting of the European Union, and dishonest reporting of the migration issue.”

For The Sun, The Express and The Mail, the influx of European immigrants into Britain, largely from Central and Eastern Europe, has frequently been a front-page story, one that chimes with the most potent argument for those campaigning to quit the bloc.

While most of Europe is focused on the flow of migrants from the Middle East and Africa, the Brexit camp contends that immigration can be controlled only if Britain quits the bloc because the European Union allows the free movement of European workers across national frontiers.

In February, The Sun’s front-page article on migration statistics appeared under the headline “The Great Migrant Con,” highlighting claims of a “migration ‘cover-up.’ ” In March the paper reported on a guide to Polish immigrants on welfare entitlements in Britain with a headline, “How to Be a Pole on the Dole,” referring to the British term for state payments to the jobless.

Other papers have given the issue contentious treatment, according to InFact, an organization that favors remaining in the bloc.

“The Telegraph, Mail and Express have published a string of stories on migration, terrorism, crime and control of our borders that contain factual inaccuracies and/or distortions,” it said, announcing plans to complain to the country’s press regulator, the Independent Press Standards Organization, about eight articles.

But those campaigning to stay in the bloc can count on much more sympathetic treatment from several other newspapers, including The Financial Times and The Guardian, and the left-leaning tabloid The Daily Mirror.

The Mail on Sunday has devoted much more space than has its daily sibling to the case for remaining in the bloc.

In recent weeks both The Times of London and — intriguingly — the more rightward-leaning Telegraph, the favored paper of the deeply divided Conservative Party, have taken a pretty evenhanded approach to the debate, giving weight to the arguments of both sides.

This may reflect the divided views of their readers (including those reading online who tend to be younger), or worries about the economic impact of quitting the European Union on print media.

The Times, like The Sunday Times, The Sun and The Sun on Sunday, is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News UK. But readers of The Times are thought to be more pro-European than those of The Sun, so the papers could take opposing positions in the campaign’s closing weeks.

However, according to Mr. Clarke, it is not clear that even The Sun will editorialize in favor of leaving the European Union, particularly if it calculates that voters will opt to remain.

Yet, in the end, the cumulative impact of newspapers’ coverage about Europe is probably more important that any eve-of-referendum-day endorsement for either side.

Mr. Cathcart notes that British newspapers are “declining organizations,” but that they still matter.

“It’s a legacy thing,” he said.