Counter-Narrative to Islamophobia 8 (UK) looks at Accuracy in, agitation for and sanction for failure in delivering accurate representation in particular but not solely media representation. Find the full list of ten and their details here. This work was undertaken in 2017 – 18, and remains pertinent. The ten counter-narratives will be indexed on this site too here.
The media as a source of Islamophobic narratives has been extensively outlined in previous work (Poole, 2002, Ameli et. al., 2007, Ameli and Merali, 2015 etc.). Tackling the impact of this is an ongoing project with a plethora of examples from civil society and alternative media, but considerable lack from the mainstream media and wider political culture. Whilst disproportionately affecting Muslims, the operation of mainstream media is deeply problematized in the wider UK culture, as the Leveson Inquiry (2012) bears testament too, the business of which remains unfinished with calls for an urgent review circulating at the time of writing (Hacked Off, 2017)[xvii].
Ameli et. al. (2012) argue that those citizens who have been incited to Islamophobia are also a type of victim of Islamophobia in that they have been pushed into action by media and political discourse. Parkinson (2017) felt that protestors attending far-right demonstrations he had covered as a journalist had been pushed to this by misrepresentation of Muslims in the media.
The recommendations as to how to deal with media cut across narratives but also sites of Islamophobia. The media in particular is acknowledged as underpinning, reinforcing, (re)producing and normalizing anti-Muslim political and public discourse. Poole (2017) describes the situation, the cause and the needed action thus: “it is so embedded now in so many institutions and it’s become normalised and naturalised so that people don’t recognise it for what it is because if anybody criticises then you get either the idea that, if it’s a Muslim criticising Islamophobia then its extremism, if it’s not then it’s an attack on liberal values. So, there isn’t an easy answer because it’s got to come from political and social context and that doesn’t appear to be changing any time soon.”
Whether the narrative is that of Values and Britishness which then morphs into a state policy of Fundamental British Values which is then the basis of serious diversions from existing equalities praxis and the justification for various derogations from established human rights norms, this process has been repeatedly highlighted not just in the field-work for this research but for many years previously.
Tackling this falls broadly into the categories of:
- Civil society initiatives and responses;
- Successes and critiques thereof;
- Mainstream and Alternative Media initiatives, media (self)regulation, reform and cultural transformation;
- State re-evaluation of media monopolies and laws regulating hate speech.
Civil society
Whilst there has been a long history of Muslim community outreach to the media and calls on the media to interact with a wider representation of Muslims in various contexts (Ameli et. al., 2004a, b, 2005b, 2007), there remains a significant lack in media response to these issues (Narkowicz, 2017, Ahsan, 2017, Winstanley, 2017, Parkinson, 2017, François, 2017, Hooper, 2017, Salih, 2017) with significant critique coming from within and without media circles.
In terms of civil society initiatives, there was qualified support but also critique for initiatives that sought to challenge the media that used existing complaints mechanisms, in particular an initiative to use the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) to challenge misrepresentation of individual Muslims. Whilst this gave some form of redress where successful to individuals targeted e.g. Bouattia (2017, MCB, 2017), interviewees were also concerned that (a) the scope of IPSO was still limited to redress against named individuals rather than issues of demonization and racist narratives that target communities, groups or organizations. Sanction by IPSO resulted in published apologies, usually buried in small print inside papers. Where the law was sought as a recourse for libel e.g. Baroness Warsi’s settlement with the Jewish News (2017)[xviii] or Shadjareh with the Times (2008), this seemed to rely on cases where a specific falsehood had been printed rather than the more general demonisation that accompanied the claim meaning pieces written with anti-Muslim bias but which were careful not to directly make false claims about individuals, there was little recourse to the law.
Even where such claims were made, the ability of individuals to seek redress in the courts was hampered by lack of legal and other barriers already highlighted above.
Interviewees were further critical of civil society initiatives that relied on existing broadcast oversight mechanisms like IPSO and OFCOM (though OFCOM was felt to be more robust, it came under similar criticism).
The case of Kelvin McKenzie’s attack on Fatima Manji, the Channel 4 News anchor is illustrative of the limits of IPSO, which found in favour of McKenzie whose article in The Sun received over 800 complaints. McKenzie had contended that the sight of Manji in a hijab anchoring the news after the Marseilles attacks was offensive and went on to lambast the hijab as a symbol of oppression and misogyny. Its findings, rather than highlighting and sanctioning the racist portrayal of both Manji and Muslims in general, sought instead to incorporate such representations within the frame of debate and reasonable discussion (Greenslade, 2016). Manji and her bosses had argued that the article discriminated against her as a Muslim and also incited hatred against Muslims. Poole (2017) highlights the repeated use of this type of defence as a double-standard used to silence critical voices:
“There’s a difference isn’t there between legitimate criticism and hate speech and offensive speech which is just racist. It seems like any attempt to say ‘you can’t say that, that’s offensive’ is an attack on free speech but free speech is just said as a way of protecting privileged rights. It’s not legitimate.”
As Hooper (2017) highlights, Kavanagh is in fact a board member of IPSO and this conflict of interest has not been raised at any point, and that: ‘…these institutions need to be examined a little bit more closely by those of us in the media who are attuned to these issues. From a media perspective, I think that’s the way to go.’ In his opinion the current situation it is only civil society initiatives which are trying to tackle structural racist media representation that are having any effect:
“We’ve moved from the era when we talked about institutional racism, institutionalized racism notably around the Lawrence inquiry. We can now talk about institutionalized Islamophobia within the media…The Times and The Sunday Times, I think the newspapers that, when I wasn’t looking for stories to react to, they served those stories up on a weekly basis for several years, you know, deeply, deeply damaging and unfounded allegations about people so… in terms of challenging that there’s been some good work done. I think there’s stuff [done]… in terms of complaining to IPSO and raising the profile of Islamophobic media coverage that has been quite useful. I think there are issues that need to be raised about IPSO as well, obviously, the fact that Trevor Kavanagh was on their advisory board… I think there’s good work been done by MEND and MPAC and lots of community activism which shines a light on this stuff and highlights it. I think that’s all really important and the fact that it is now taking place in a social media environment where things can be challenged very quickly. I think that’s very helpful.”
Without a longer-term strategy initiatives that sought to use IPSO and other regulatory mechanisms were at risk of re-inscribing a problematic narrative (Narkowicz, 2017) that existing mechanisms were adequate and that Muslims were unable or unwilling to use these to make reasonable claims, or that the findings of the body in cases like that of Manji were acceptable thus normalising deeply problematic understandings of free expression. This also legitimised the idea that Islamophobia in the media where it existed did so in individual cases not as part of a conscious or unconscious culture.
Veteran journalists highlighted that Muslims and Muslim civil society in particular needed to be more media savvy, particularly in dealing with the management of content rather than on issues of individual presentation. Salih (2017) argues that Muslims must learn when and how to interact with the mainstream media.
Tackling the tendency of sensationalism even in high-brow news magazines which tended to pit a so-called liberal Muslim voice (usually from a narrow pool of individuals associated with The Quilliam Foundation and other government backed organisations) and so-called extremist groups like Al-Ghurabah and Al-Muhajiroun against each other. This leaves out the voices of the vast majority of Muslims on any given issue and denies them a voice usually about issues like the securitized state, other community related issues or British foreign policy that are of great and direct concern to them. Salih (2017):
“It’s a way they’re framing their programmes, framing their debate, framing articles, just seems very skewed to me. Even when you’re doing a so-called balanced debate on a Muslim question that the very premise of the debate is very Islamophobic. There are so many things they could do differently. I guess hire more people that aren’t just brown or black faces but who ultimately talk the white man’s lingo and won’t challenge them but hire people who will actually represent the community. And get rid of the tokenistic approach they have to hire ethnic minorities now.”
For civil society, Salih argues that they should be ‘encouraging a no platform policy’ with both ‘extreme’ types of unrepresentative voices. Likewise, as a medium to long-term strategy he advocates Muslim understanding that for the media to access news content from Muslims, Muslims themselves are able to set in part the terms of their participation through such strategies. Muslims as the repository for media content are then in a position to recalibrate the relationship between Muslims and the mainstream media in a less skewed fashion.
Poole (2017) believes there are already examples of this happening. Her research has indicated that where there are anti-Muslim social media hate campaigns there are often more social media posts responding with counter-narratives and some of these are being picked up in the mainstream media thus getting through to wider society:
“But you can see examples in… Channel 4, BBC, The Guardian, local media, where its beneficial for those organisations to represent Muslims positively. So, if there’s a demand, then the media are going to start paying attention to that demand… Once organisations realise that they’ve got to meet the requirements of their audience which is getting more and more diverse then that’s when perhaps things might change a bit.”
Sinan Siyech (2017) argues that Google’s Redirect program that redirects users trying to access terrorist materials to so-called ‘moderate Islamic’ sites, should be used as a model to redirect internet users from Islamophobia. Other initiatives include the making more widely known of Google’s suppression of sites reported to them as hateful, deliberately lowering their ranking when searches are made.
However, Poole tempers this with the caveat: ‘You can see progress, you can see that those institutions are listening but in terms of the general representation, then I would say the framework of representation is getting more-narrow. There is more volume of coverage and narrower representation towards the Islamic terror framework.’
Mainstream and Alternative Media initiatives, media (self)regulation, reform and cultural transformation
However civil society practice cannot fix the power imbalance between parties. This idea of not just better representation in personnel but in product as well goes back to the Kerner Report (1967) in the US which highlighted the lack of understanding in the media of issues affecting and impacting black minorities in the US but also how that lack contributed to racist representation in the media. In order to tackle this using Kerner, Ameli and Merali (2015) suggested:
- Expand coverage of Muslim community affairs and of race and Islamophobia problems through permanent assignment of reporters familiar with the issues around these affairs, and through establishment of more and better links with the Muslim community. The Muslim community is a diverse one, and the media needs to engage with that diversity and not promote or rely on sensationalist or apologetic voices that simply help propagate deeply held negative ideas. Williams (2017) summarises thus: “We don’t have enough of Muslims voices invited into the public space. One of the challenges of the media is to look for a greater diversity.”
- Integrate Muslims and Muslim activities into all aspects of coverage and content, including newspaper articles and television programming. The news media must publish newspapers and produce programmes that recognise the existence and activities of Muslims as a group within the community and as a part of the larger community (adapted from Kerner, 1967). Ameli et al (2004a and 2007) emphasise the idea that a dual space for minorities is essential for any society to foster a sense of citizenship among minorities. To do this, a space for minorities to call their own is essential and a media that is supported in the conceptual sense by dominant society is essentially a part of that.
- Recruit more Muslims into journalism and broadcasting and promote those who are qualified to positions of significant responsibility. Bodi explains further that media institutions should: ‘[h]elp nurture Muslim journalistic talent within mainstream media settings to promote inclusiveness to combat institutionalised Islamophobia.’ Recruitment should begin in high schools and continue through college; where necessary, aid for training should be provided (Baig, 2017, Salih, 2017).
- Accelerate efforts to ensure accurate and responsible reporting of news concerning Muslims and all minorities through adoption by all news gathering organisations of stringent internal staff guidelines, but also as part of a more accurate representation of so-called ‘foreign affairs’ (Winstanley, 2017).
- Cooperate in the establishment of and promotion of any existing privately organized and funded independent institute(s) to train and educate journalists in Muslim affairs, recruit and train more Muslim journalists, develop methods for improving police-press relations, review coverage of Muslim related issues, and support continuing research in these fields. Bodi (2017) takes this further and argues for: ‘Support [for] education initiatives for senior mainstream media personnel around issues of Islamophobia and how to avoid it.’
Johnson (2017) highlights the case of an individual Imam in Denmark in the run up to and subsequent to the Danish cartoons affair, and its resonance for now in a post-Brexit culture. The lack of redress for the individual in this matter is eclipsed by the need for the media to understand how its vilification of someone who simply tried to start a dialog on an issue of concern and avoid conflict is indicative of a supremacist culture within the media, which reinforce state narratives:
“…he had actually spoken to the people who ran the newspaper before it became an issue – before it became an international issue – and tried to get them to apologize, tried to get them to engage in a discussion. And they refused. And then he started talking about it internationally. And the Danish media just hounded him. It was really horrendous. To the extent that even after he passed away a lot of the news media were like, oh “Radical Muslim Has Now Passed Away.” It was one of those moments where you realize, even this man who you know… who is really just trying to tell people “hey, the ways in which this language is perpetuating is really unfortunate” has been hounded from that point in time until the end of his life, which is incredibly sad. And then now, it’s another moment where I’ve seen a lot of young Muslims, young people of colour more broadly and young Muslims specifically, thinking about what it means to grow up in Britain post-Brexit.”
Silencing
This repeated experience of Muslims, either as victim or as witness, sharply critiques the media and wider culture’s self-perception of a free, fair and balance media. The experience of the Imam as well as the experience in curtailing of the work of Muslim journalists is set in sharp contrast with the argument that free speech is one of the fundamental values of the society we live in. Additionally, this claim ignores the heavy hand of the law to curtail and criminalise speech under anti-terrorism laws. A combination of actual criminalisation and a culture of fear, means that Muslim voices are silenced, even when they are expressing thoughts and ideas no different from non-Muslim peers which go unsanctioned. It is the media’s role to highlight these anomalies at the very least, and to campaign for a more open space for dialog rather than pursue restrictive practices in framing stories and curtailing the ability of journalists, particularly Muslim journalists from pursuing stories within the mainstream (Baig, 2017, Salih, 2017, Bodi, 2017).
Truth-telling and Tackling Bias
Berger’s critique (2016) of the functionality of current news media as reporting a political discourse ‘emptied of any meaning’, which presents and classifies the world with the ‘jargon and logic of management experts’ is particularly revealing of the challenge faced by counter-narrative work that seeks to tell ‘truth’ or be ‘accurate’. In Berger’s analysis of the news as the showing of a succession of spectacles, ‘deprived of context, in numbing succession’ coming as shocks not stories is a reflection of the critique of many interviewees of how Muslims, Islam or related issues are portrayed, the cumulative effect being to shock and scare rather than to make known.
Winstanley (2017) highlights role of Electronic Intifada, Salih (2017) the role of 5Pillars.com in trying to report accurately on issues that have been very much skewed in their framing in the mainstream media. Whilst Salih claims there is no such thing as an ‘independent media’ and there should be no pretence regarding this, Winstanley and Hooper (2017) argue that the reporting of truth is the main way to tackle the issue of negative framing in the mainstream media. Winstanley highlights the operation of anti-Muslim narratives in political and media discourse on Palestine, as Palestine is a Muslim majority nation: “one of the main narratives against the Palestinians by Israel and its supporters in the West is that they’re Islamic extremists, Palestinian organizations are Islamic terrorists and Palestinian resistance movements are terrorists. The issue is Islam is negative and negative portrayals of Islam in this country come up a lot in those portrayals. There’s quite a big crossover between the pro-Israel lobby and what’s often termed counter-jihad movements… quite often they cross over quite a lot with pro-Israel organizations.”
Likewise, Hooper (2017) highlights work at Middle East Eye that tries to ‘present the Middle East in a more intelligent way that reflects the reality on the ground more than traditional narratives’. However, he notes pessimistically that this issue of framing or creating wider counter-narratives may not be something within the remit of journalists. He sees the role of journalists and civil society intertwining to raise awareness of Islamophobia and the problems of framing. To that end:
“The racism paradigm is useful in the sense that a lot of people who may have been racist in a fairly unthinking way perhaps thirty or forty years ago, I suppose there’s a positive social trend in some aspects and we just need to continue pushing ahead with that in terms of how Islamophobia is framed but the key to that is obviously addressing issues with foreign policy.”
Parkinson’s (2017) work on the rise of the far-right in the UK over a number of years is another example of building a significant body of work for short and medium-term awareness raising, particularly when through one media outlet.
Mills (2017) extends this to wider issues with regard to the role of the BBC in promoting a widely pro-government narrative in its output. Both and numerous others emphasise the need to persist with such narratives despite attacks from anti-Muslim commentators, as an essential part of creating and maintaining alternative/Muslim space for expression and agency. Salih and others acknowledge that this will not in itself address the hegemony of ideas in the mainstream. Indeed, there is an increasing view that responding to, lobbying and negotiating with the media is not a useful long-term strategy, whilst such methods must be employed in order to fulfil short term functions like the highlighting of discrimination case victories (Ahmed, 2017), or to get redress for personal violations (Bouattia, 2017). Parkinson (2017) expresses the frustration of many including within journalism at the failure of the post-Leveson culture. Whilst there are many fines given to newspapers there: “[has] got to be more accountability and more punishment towards the people in that profession when they do something like that. It’s not happening. If a journalist makes up a story or completely misrepresents a story and it aids and abets a racial or hatred angle, I’m afraid they should probably lose their job and they shouldn’t be employed again because they have broken the golden rule of the ethics of journalism.”
Anonymous 3 (2017) and Anonymous 4, journalists, spoke of the impact of the Cathy Newman affair as highly demoralizing for journalists of colour in mainstream settings, as well as journalists close to the Channel 4 news team.
In 2014, scandal hit Channel 4 News when its presenter Cathy Newman was found to have lied about a negative encounter at a mosque. Parkinson describes the responsibility of journalists and the failure highlighted by this incident: “any news outlet can be guilty of that, some more than others. I mean, for instance, what I would consider probably one of the best go-to news outlets would be Channel 4, but remember what Cathy Newman did and made up a story about when she went to the London mosque and she was told to leave because she was a woman. They released video footage that showed her going in and leaving on her own accord. I mean, why would you do something like that? As a journalist, you have a responsibility to make sure you’re not making up stories, you’re not actually helping a racist or a hatred narrative. It’s our job to be there to show things that are really going on.”
Parkinson (2017) highlights the need for unions to take a more active role in lieu of more regulation, using a case where a Paparazzi had been expelled from the National Union of Journalists after appearing on a TV show. Whilst unions tackling major newspapers and their staff would probably require a legal fighting fund, the possibility has been proven. Resources for media to help news media transform itself exist aplenty, with UNESCO, the Fundamental Rights Agency, the Ethical Journalism Network and various Muslim civil society groups having issued recommendations, guides, best practice exemplars on a number of issues, however the uptake remains small. These guides vary in their approaches with many highly sympathetic to the ‘dilemmas’ faced by the mainstream media (Ethical Journalism Network, 2012). Others provide sophisticated analyses, case studies and good practice guides on issues like the reporting on terrorism that avoids making generalisations that promote anti-Muslim or more generally demonising narratives. These guides are an existing form of counter-narrative that enriches the media environment should the mainstream media decide on self-evaluation and cultural transformation on this issue as they have done on other issues, notably the reporting of sexual orientation (Ameli et. al., 2007).
A caveat offered by Hooper (2017) is worth noting with regard to the role of journalists charged with exposing Islamophobia as being an essential short-term aim, but which does not work without longer term thinking and wider support regarding the transformation of the media culture:
“Going forward, in terms of how we address it, I suppose journalistically, my interest is always in finding stories that expose the inconsistencies, the hypocrisies; how this Islamophobic ideology surfaces in terms of public policy or how people are treated and journalistically, that’s quite straightforward, we just keep finding the stories that tell us that that is happening. That’s absconding responsibility a bit because it leaves it for others to think about what we do with that. I think there’s an inherent danger in that, as well, in the sense that if my career depends on finding examples of Islamophobia and reporting them then I’m going to continue…”
Beyond this a genuine dialogue between mainstream media and Muslims, whether through a broad range of civil society organizations or outreach to the grassroots that is based on Kerner principles of identifying Muslim issues as part of the news media landscape, rather than in a sensationalist fashion. The strengthening of existing complaints mechanisms (Hacked Off, 2017, Bouattia, 2017, Ameli and Merali, 2015, Parkinson, 2017, Baig, 2017) is a short-term demand which itself will only fulfil the function of widening scope for redress as a short-term strategy. Without partnership from main media organisations, the cultural shift that is needed is unlikely to happen.
Poole (2017) argues that there are existing accepted levels of regulation of broadcast media and also regulations for social media that can be a starting point for printed press regulation:
“…there’s lots of opposition to that but it could be regulated like broadcasting is. The problem is the media is becoming more fragmented so more difficult to regulate, but there are some steps to regulate it. So, with the internet, there’s been more pressure put on digital companies to regulate content that appears on their platforms. So, it is possible to put pressure on companies to do that.”
Bouattia (2017) argues that one of the functions of organisations like IPSO must be to monitor media representation of minorities both in the case of where individuals are targeted by negative media complaints, but in terms of general trends of representation of minoritized groups. As much research already exists on the representation of Muslims in the media pre-dating 9-11 (see e.g. Poole, 2002, Poole and Richardson, 2006, Richardson, 2004) as well as a substantial research post that date, it seems clear that external pressures are needed to make the mainstream media engage with these findings. Whistleblowers from inside the profession, reference cases where news media have cynically stoked antiMuslim hatred even where inaccuracies exist. Despite this being revealed in the Leveson Inquiry into media practices, the resulting body set-up to replace the existing press complaints mechanism (IPSO) has no mandate to initiate complaints against papers when such issues are exposed, or tackle wider issues of demonization, monitoring etc. Part of this lack has been attributed to the setting up of IPSO as a holding organization until the second part of the Leveson Inquiry is completed[xix]. However, the political backing for the second part of the Inquiry seems to have dissipated and campaigners are worried that despite previous assurances, no such Inquiry will now be completed (Hacked Off, 2017). Whether via Leveson Part II or some other form of Inquiry, the outstanding issues raised in that report like the demonization of groups, need to be addressed.
State measures
Breaking up / preventing monopolies
Aside form Muslim critiques of the operation of the mainstream media, there is a more general critique about the power of certain figures and corporations in monopolizing newsmedia. The role of the state in ensuring that there are no monopolies of ownership (Ahsan, 2017 and Parkinson, 2017) goes some way to minimizing damage caused by the trends in certain media that work in tandem with political discourse and policy development. Bodi (2017) conceptualizes it further to clarify how imbalance of power that impacts minorities affects the idea of media equality and balance. He advises that the government must: ‘[t]ake steps to resist the trend towards consolidation in the media industry as minority groups do not have the financial clout to buy into conglomerates.’ Poole (2015) advises that there are measures that grassroots civil society can and do take the lead on: ‘small measures from the ground up, you’re talking about educational measures, about lobbying certain organisations that are willing to listen like the BBC and Channel 4, The Guardian.’
This does not of course prevent cross-cutting narratives of Islamophobia pervading when there is a ubiquitous culture of anti-Muslim hatred. The Ethical Journalism Network (2012 onwards) has provided a guide to Hate Speech for journalists, however this relies on selfregulation, which has been demonstrably inconsistent and unaccountable. This raises the spectre of the need for tighter and consistent hate speech laws. Whilst issues like the ‘glorification of terrorism’ and ‘incitement to religious and racial hatred’ are covered in parts of the anti-terrorism and existing criminal law, their extend seems to be heavily biased towards prosecuting Muslims and racialized groups. There is an argument that such laws must either be used against non-racialized perpetrators including those given a media platform e.g. Katie Hopkins whose columns and social media comments have been heavily criticized for demonizing Muslims, migrants and other minorities[xx]. Whilst curtailing speech is always a controversial demand, the current situation where the speech of Muslims is criminalized but that of those who call for a ‘final solution’ against Muslims is not, cannot be allowed to continue. Either there is consistent application of these laws, or their total repeal or a total review to make effective the boundaries that have always existed regarding what is and is not hate speech and can and cannot be allowed. As Narkowicz (2017) explains:
“It’s like when you think about women and it’s not okay to say certain things about women, it’s not okay to sit on morning TV and say all women are stupid and they’re less intelligent… in the UK that is not acceptable because it is not acceptable in the mainstream… it is unacceptable and why. Well we allow hate speech in the media and we don’t punish hate speech like Katie Hopkins’, why doesn’t she get punished? I don’t understand why she wouldn’t be charged for her hate speech or spreading hate. So when people see the media and celebrities doing it it is becoming okay and I don’t think we can expect the media to change much but it is the government that should lead on this, the government should say these are not our values, we don’t promote hate speech, the rest have to catch up with that.”
Bodi (2017) sums up his concerns by: ‘[u]rg[ing] member states to enact anti-hate speech legislation to criminalise Islamophobia and other forms of hate expression in the media.’
Arzu Merali worked on this project while head of research at Islamic Human Rights Commission. The project spanned 8 European countries and involved IHRC and five universities. IHRC was responsible for the UK, Germany and France sections of the project. Find out more about the project here[EXTERNAL LINK].
[xvii] The campaign group Hacked Off is supported by civil society groups, victims of press abuse and public figures.
[xviii] The Jewish News agreed to pay substantial damages and print a front-page apology for an op-ed that claimed she was a supporter of ISIS.
[xix] This part of the Inquiry was delayed for criminal proceedings against certain newspaper personnel were complete. Now completed there has been a delay in announcing the start date from the government, and there have been rumours that the government does not want it to restart (Hacked Off, 2017).
[xx] Hopkins had called for a ‘final solution’ after the Manchester Arena attack in 2017, and had previously called migrants ‘cockroaches.’ (Topping, 2017).
