Was truth the first casualty of the referendum?

DATELINE FEBRUARY 2016: 4-months before the EU referendum, I asked this pertinent question:

'Are British newspapers the best source of reliable information when deciding how to vote in next June’s EU referendum?'

My answer?

Not if past and present form is anything to go by. Some of the British media seem intent either to misrepresent the truth or to distort it when reporting almost everything to do with the European Union.

• When the Daily Mail reported that buses and planes were sold-out with Romanians and Bulgarians coming to Britain when working restrictions were lifted, it turned out to be untrue. (There were plenty of seats; the story was fiction).
• When the Daily Express claimed that independent auditors have repeatedly refused to sign off the EU accounts, that also turned out to be untrue. (The EU accounts have been signed-off and passed by the independent auditors every year since 2007 as accurate, legal, regular and reliable.)
• When the Daily Telegraph claimed that according to an EU report, 600,000 EU migrants in the UK are unemployed, it was misleading. (The number mostly included those who are economically ‘non active’ – but that’s not the same as being unemployed.)
• When the Daily Mail quoted the Chief Constable of Kent as saying that 70% of the refugees and migrants in the Calais ‘Jungle’ were making it to England, it also wasn’t correct. (Kent police demanded that the Daily Mail print a correction, which they did, but their correction was also incorrect).
• When this month the Daily Express and Daily Mail published a story claiming that EU migrants were “pushing the NHS to breaking point” it had no basis in fact. (EU migrants coming to live in the UK are mostly young, fit and less likely to use our NHS than native Britons.)
• When the Daily Express ran a front page story claiming that Britain was full up, primarily because of migrants, it turned out to be incorrect (less than 3% of Britain is built on – most of the country is countryside).
• When the Mail on Sunday published a front page claiming that hundreds of ‘illegal migrants’ from Calais were being put-up in hotels it was misleading. (There were only one hundred temporarily accommodated in hotels, and they were genuine asylum seekers, not ‘illegal migrants’).
• When the Daily Express quoted Migration Watch on their front page that Britain had “2 million illegal immigrants” it was untrue (Migration Watch, the supposed source of the story, publically disowned it).
• When the Daily Mail ran a story claiming that new rules “imposed by the EU” could lead to “the death knell” for Britain’s ferry industry, it wasn’t correct. (The new rules – to reduce pollution – came from the United Nations and not the EU; they were voted on by the UK, and wouldn’t lead to loss of business by ferries).

Well I could go on, but I won’t. There are misleading or downright incorrect stories about the European Union almost every day in some of our newspapers.

Of course, some papers are worse than others, but it would probably be wrong to single any out. (Did I mention the Daily Mail and Daily Express?)

One can only hope that over the next four months in the lead-up to the EU referendum vote on 23 June, the electorate will be discerning and ‘read between the li(n)es..’

• Watch my video, 'How newspaper lies led to Brexit'

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