Newton Dunn Shits Himself

The realisation in the right-leaning press that their constant diet of – often totally untrue – scare stories about the EU, and frightening readers against migrants, has fuelled the rise of UKIP, and that this may ease the path of Mil The Younger into 10 Downing Street next May, has precipitated blind panic among the ranks of overpaid hacks and pundits, and especially at the Sun.

That's what I think of Nigel bladdy Farage and his party, the bladdy pommie drongoes!

Rupert Murdoch has met Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, and has correctly identified him as an opportunist and spiv for whom playing as a team means everybody else follows the whims and foibles of Himself Personally Now. The idea of Farage getting his hands on the levers of power worries Rupe. For the Sun’s non-bullying political editor Tom Newton Dunn, this has apparently induced involuntary bowel movements.

The Sun is behind a paywall, but a Zelo Street regular has scanned the relevant by-product from Newton Dunn’s latest panic attack (see how that works, Rupe?). Here, readers are told “Cam to demand immigration control ... if he doesn’t win, he’ll back EU exit”. An accompanying editorial tells “At last, David Cameron will throw down the gauntlet on immigration”. It’s total drivel.

Young Dave’s hot air – and when it comes to claiming that the UK will opt out of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW), that is all it is – is designed to out-UKIP the Kippers in the run-up to next month’s by-election in the Rochester and Strood constituency, forced by the defection of Mark Reckless to the Farage fringe [someone has forgotten the press’ approval of using the EAW to extradite teacher Jeremy Forrest].

This, together with confronting UKIP’s supposed “woman problem” by selecting a female candidate, and a visit schedule providing saturation coverage by every Tory cabinet member, is designed to see off Mr Thirsty and his fellow saloon bar propper-uppers and keep the seat blue.

(c) Steve Bell 2014

But the idea that Cameron will somehow nip across to Brussels and tell those ghastly foreigners that the UK will unilaterally opt out of the free movement of people that is one of the fundamental principles of the Single European Market to which Mrs T signed us up all those years ago is pie in the sky. So is Newton Dunn’s dishonest suggestion that countries like Spain and Italy would go along with it.

UKIP speaks to the dissatisfaction among voters that used to favour the Lib Dems, before they went into Government. The idea that it is all about immigration is just the press going back to their basest, bigoted instincts. It is this week’s saddest coincidence that it is fifty years since Smethwick, and “if you want a n****r for a neighbour, vote Liberal or Labour”. You’d think the Tories could do better by now.

Sadly, the Sun cannot. Newton Dunn blames immigrants for his panic, but the reality is that he and his pals have no-one to blame but themselves.