David Amess And Press Incitement

Yesterday, for the second time in just over five years, a serving MP was killed doing their job. In 2016 it was Jo Cox, gunned down outside her constituency surgery; in 2021 it was long-serving Tory David Amess, who represented Basildon and then Southend West, also at a constituency surgery. Amess was fatally stabbed; a man has been arrested on suspicion of murder and remains in custody. So far, so grim.

David Amess

The suspect is a 25-year-old British Citizen who is believed to be of Somali heritage. His actions are suspected to have been terror related. But while the far-right fringe has been up in arms about Scary Muslims™ overnight, our free and fearless press has thus far restricted itself to remembering Amess’ long service as a constituency MP and champion of the area he served - in contrast with their behaviour in the recent past.

Why an MP was killed meeting the voters, and why a Muslim man with links to Somalia might be involved, should surprise no-one who has seen the behaviour of the press, even after Jo Cox was murdered. Demonisation of serving politicians, judges, campaigners, migrants, and yes, Muslims has been not merely routine, but incessant.

No more than a few days after Ms Cox was killed, the Mail on Sunday’s not even slightly celebrated blues artiste Whinging Dan Hodges penned his infamous “Labour MUST kill vampire Jezza” column, replete with a mocked up image of former party leader Jeremy Corbyn in a coffin. With several knives having been plunged into him. Subtle, eh?

The pursuit of authority figures didn’t end there: after Theresa May tried to use the Royal Prerogative to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, and lost a legal challenge which reasserted the view that Parliament was sovereign, the incitement began. The Mail declared the judges to be “ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE”. The Murdoch Sun called Gina Miller, who brought the challenge, part of a “Loaded foreign elite”.

Ms Miller then received death threats, not that the inmates of the Baby Shard bunker cared. And all the while, there was the constant drip-drip of Muslim and migrant bashing. There was so much of it, in fact, that compiling a sample of front page hate speech was difficult not for want of finding suitable material, but deciding what to leave out.

From “HALAL SECRET OF PIZZA EXPRESS”, to “RAMADAN A DING-DONG”, to “1 in 5 Brit Muslims’ sympathy for Jihadis”, to “MUSLIM SCHOOLS BAN OUR CULTURE”, to “GIVE US FULL SHARIA LAW”, to “PM: UK MUSLIMS HELPING JIHADIS”, to “CHRISTIANITY UNDER ATTACK”, to “BRIT KIDS FORCED TO EAT HALAL SCHOOL DINNERS”, the impression of hatred and riling up the mob was inescapable.

It was the same for anyone called a migrant: “4,000 FOREIGN MURDERERS AND RAPISTS WE CAN’T THROW OUT … BRITAIN MUST BAN MIGRANTS”. And so on, and so forth: hating on authority figures, talking of killing a party leader, incitement against people who aren’t white, “othering” Muslims, and indeed migrants in general.

Yet the press and its cheerleaders will never accept that their actions, year in, year out, can ever have fatal consequences. Even after another MP gets killed doing their job.

Power without responsibility. What you will not read in the papers.

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