THE EQUALITY IMPLICATIONS OF BEING A MIGRANT IN BRITAIN
When asked, migrants and others experiencing hostility often blame the media for it. Sometimes the reports have not even been about migrants: McKay and WinkelmannGleed (2005) found that the general public rarely differentiated between refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers: media attacks on refugees and asylum seekers often created general feelings of hostility, if not outright racist abuse, towards migrant workers, too. Press reportage is shaped by and shapes public attitudes and is by no means uniform. An example of a flawed survey and very slanted reportage of its results by The Daily Telegraph is cited in Chapter 11. The Daily Mail, however, in 2007, reported straightforwardly on a survey commissioned by Strangers into Citizens, a community-based campaign to regularise undocumented migrants: Working migrants should stay – poll Two thirds of Britons believe illegal immigrants who have been in the UK for more than four years and who work and pay taxes should be allowed to stay, according to a poll. 37 On the other hand, the BBC Poll Watch for November 2007 38 reported under an ambiguously positive headline: Immigrants work harder The month began with a MORI/Sun poll (sampled 31 October–1 November) on immigration. This suggested that 70 per cent were dissatisfied with the government’s handling of immigration and asylum; and 64 per cent supported tougher immigration laws (67 per cent took this view in a January 2003 poll). Also, 68 per cent thought there were too many immigrants in Britain. However, 45 per cent thought immigrants work harder than people born in Britain, compared with eight per cent who thought they did not. ORB/BBC Newsnight (sampled 2–4 November) found 44 per cent thought immigrants to the UK did more to help the country, as opposed to 41 per cent who thought they did more to harm it. By April 2008, however, they were reporting on a BBC-commissioned MORI poll: Of the 1,000 people asked, 60 per cent said the UK had too many immigrants and half wanted foreigners encouraged to leave. But the proportion of people describing themselves as ‘racially prejudiced’ was down to 20 per cent, compared with 24 per cent in 2005.
37
See www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-450530/Working-migrants-stay--poll.html
38
Friday, 7 December 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7132364.stm
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