The media is normalising neo-fascism for clicks What stunning gladiatorial spectacle can we next expect on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show? When they hosted Marine le Pen, […]

What stunning gladiatorial spectacle can we next expect on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show? When they hosted Marine le Pen, howls were heard from objectors. Job well done. Just what they wanted- overexcited, affronted liberals. This week, they had the ubiquitous Nigel Farage on, this time defending Trump’s retweets of Britain First anti-Muslim videos. Not as entertaining as Le Pen, perhaps, but still, sure to get those weakling do-gooders choking on their avocados on toast.

‘Editors and A list hacks arrogantly claim that they expose these people by having them on their shows’

Actor and comedian David Schneider’s spoke for many of us when he tweeted: “Today on #Marr: does the media giving platform to right wing extremists normalize them? With Guests Nigel Farage, Jacob Rees Mogg, Marine Le Pen, all of Britain First, a 1970 skinhead and ghost of Benito Mussolini”. It may have been a joke, but Schneider isn’t laughing. He is disquieted and alarmed that repellent views are now welcomed into studios to stir things up and generate heat.

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‘Challenging the Consensus’

James Harding, director of BBC news, defends this “provocative” cultural shift because “the BBC should be open to those who challenge the consensus”. Yet the consensus is now increasingly intolerant and nationalistic. The outsiders, it seems, are those who hang on to human rights, the EU, equality, diversities and internationalism.

Radio 4’s Today programme got its scoop this week with the American polemicist, Anne Coulter who came on to defend Trump’s anti-Muslim tweet. Coultor is a savage, hard right, white woman, who thinks torture works beautifully and that more Arabs should have been killed in Iraq.

Meanwhile Jayda Fransen, deputy leader of Britain First, was all over the BBC, Channel 4,and other broadcast and print media outlets. She who turns up outside mosques and bullies and insults Muslims and their faith is now a global personality. The harrying of Muslims delivers stardom.

‘When Mussolini first emerged, journalists were amused, bemused, or neutral’

Editors and A list hacks arrogantly claim that they expose such parties and spokespeople by having them on their shows and in their newspapers. This is either a massive delusion or a dangerous game.

Hatred of the other

This country marks the two world wars with increasing fervour, but chooses now to set aside the lessons of those infernos. Did you dutifully wear the poppy this year so born-again Nazis and Anglo-Saxon purists would gain ground? What happened to “never again”? Hatred of the other, the outsider, the different is now considered natural. We who are daily abused, threatened and humiliated are told we must understand those who want to hurt us, that it is our fault really for being here, for being too many, for not being Christian, for having too many babies, for not knowing our place, for speaking out against our foes who want us gone. The media now allies itself with such bigotry. It is knowingly complicit.

This same complicity was evident across Europe in the thirties. When Mussolini first emerged to lead his anti-establishment fascist insurgency, European and US journalists were amused, bemused or neutral. Within two years he was elected leader for life. Hitler was, to Newsweek, an ineffectual screecher , until they finally saw the darkness befalling Germany. Private Eye thought it was clever mocking Idi Amin, president of Uganda, while thousands were being slaughtered. Journalism has a tradition of being too clever by half, or more seriously, flirting with evil, which is what is happening now.

‘Farage put a tie and bespoke suit on white extremism’

Nick Griffin was invited on the Question Time in 2009. Admittedly, he was weak and weird, but his party found a new legitimacy. One thing led to another. The BNP became Britain First. Then Ukip stole BNP voters, as charming Farage put a tie and bespoke suit on white extremism and made it acceptable. In 2013, Jacob Rees Mogg made an after-dinner speech to the Traditional Britain Group, which has called for “millions” of immigrants to be “requested to return to their natural homelands”.

But hey, the BBC put him on Have I got News For You, and he was transformed into an endearing, authentic chap.

Who is next?

These TV whizzes probably think it would have been wonderfully subversive to get Goebbels and Milosevic on to their irreverent shows. Jayda Fransen would whip up a great storm. Maybe Katie Hopkins will get a show on Radio 2 and Farage will be the common sense man on Newsnight. It is all possible.

The click-obsessed British media seems to have abandoned all moral sense and social responsibility, masking the shift in claims of “neutrality”. Neutrality and balance in our broadcasters and especially the BBC is important, but that doesn’t excuse platforming hate speech or those who profit from it. We Britons pay for the BBC; Channel 4 is meant to stand up for fairness and justice and even commercial media operators have a duty to public safety and security. Good people must resist the new normalcy.

Journalists get extremists on to programmes and pages and claim they are being bold and uncensorious. They are, in fact, enabling soft fascism, and must be called out.