Radicalisers with a byline

Taking a look at one particular Daily Telegraph contributor and think-tank ghoul who specialises in anti-immigration screeds.

Previously: Seaside fun times with Farage

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The headline is blunt — Migrant hotels are radicalising Middle England — but look at those on recent pieces from the same author and it looks like radicalisation is something at which he’s a dab hand:

Britain is turning into a hotel for the world’s criminals

The failure to crush other Left Wing Extremists created Palestine Action

Labour’s new housing is liable to fill up with asylum seekers

That’s just a selection of Telegraph articles from Guy Dampier, Senior Researcher on Nationhood at the Prosperity Institute, which is the name now used by the shady think tank formerly known as the Legatum Institute. Dampier — an appropriate surname for a man who looks permanently wet — writes almost exclusively about immigration and always in the most apocalyptic tones possible. He is a radicaliser with a byline. His entire purpose is to stir up fear, doubt, and uncertainty.

Let’s take a closer look at his latest Telegraph contribution to better understand his role as a radicaliser. It opens:

Sunday saw another night of protests outside the Bell Hotel in Epping. Essex police were eager to clamp down on the subsequent demonstrations, arresting a total of six people and describing the atmosphere as “angry and violent”. Locals had for years expressed frustration at the area being used to house asylum seekers, a feeling which overflowed last week.

This is not the first time protesters have clashed with police over the Government’s decision to place those who cross the Channel in hotels. But the events of the past week should suggest to us that these disturbances will become more common. Epping is not like the largely Northern, post-industrial towns which protested last summer after the Southport attack. It is a leafy area, where you need a middle-class income to afford a mortgage.

The framing of these protests is important. Dampier implies that this is simply the local community rising up in anger. At this point, he makes no mention of the Far Right activists who have descended on the area to ratchet up tensions. Notice also how he makes sure to distinguish Epping — “a leafy area, where you need a middle-class income to afford a mortgage” — from the blasted North. The message to Telegraph readers is: These are just nice ordinary people like you.

The subtext simply becomes the text in the next section:

One of the videos from Thursday’s protest showed the difference. A mother who looked like she would be more at home on the school run in an SUV than with a megaphone gave a rousing speech, saying that they were there to protect their children. That is because the trigger for the protests was an alleged sexual assault on a 14-year-old girl by a recently arrived Ethiopian asylum seeker, Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, staying at the asylum hotel.

You see, these aren’t people who’d usually protest — not the sort who the Telegraph would instantly demonise — but school run mums just looking out for their kids. How picketing a hotel results in a safer environment for anyone doesn’t matter because Nigel Farage says that the disturbances are just the result of “a few bad eggs”. The same newspaper that usually decries protests as an afront to the rule of law is obviously delighted with these events.

Just like the Far Right agitators who have descended upon the existing protests, Dampier is exploiting the alleged sexual assault to serve his own purpose. He goes on to deliver a familiar line:

The failure of this Government and the last to stop the small boats crossings is radicalising Middle England. Every week brings more young men from some of the poorest and most violent societies on earth. Some will successfully claim asylum because they claim to come from places to which they cannot be deported. They are often kept in hotels, at a cost of billions to the tax payer. Although the Government brags that hotel numbers are on the way down, asylum seekers are also being put in flats and HMOs across the country.

What has contributed to those countries being among the poorest and most violent on earth? Ah, we don’t need to get into all that. Instead, like Dampiere, we’ll pull a two horrendous cases — one alleged and one proven — and use them as an excuse for violence on the street and the implication that every person seeking asylum in Britain is some kind of monster.

It’s at this point that Dampier finally gets around to mentioning the Far Right, but only to dismiss any suggestion that organised groups might be involved:

That is why ordinary people came out onto the streets of Epping. Although there have been reports of members of the Far-Right attending, the hand-made signs and mixed nature of the crowd suggests that it is largely locals. Tommy Robinson may have said he will join the protests this coming weekend, but that shows that he too was caught out. Most of the professional protestors were from counter-protestors from Stand up to Racism, who arrived from out of town with their professionally printed placards, only to be run out again by furious locals. That should actually worry the authorities more. A handful of troublemakers is one thing, a community up in arms is another.

If I were a resident of Epping, I’d be offended that Dampier believes that no anti-racists live in the area. If you don’t share the same worldview as The Daily Telegraph, you’re a “professional protestor” but if you agree with Dampier, you are surely a salt-of-the-earth type who has simply just had enough. However, if you have access to a decent printer, you’re immediately suspect.

The next paragraph is where Dampier’s poorly-fastened ‘reasonable commentator’ mask slips off entirely and reveals the snarling face beneath it:

There is a logic to such community backlash. Last month, in Ballymena, the horrific rape of a local girl, allegedly by Roma teenagers, led to riots over several days that targeted Roma and other foreigners. In the aftermath, many of the Roma have left or been moved to new accommodation. Many locals are said to be pleased, claiming that anti-social behaviour has subsequently reduced.

If you suspect ‘foreigners’ or some other dreadful minority of committing a crime, you should riot in the streets. It’s simple and effective, according to Dampier at least. That same flexible approach to law and order continues in the next section:

This shift in attitudes can also be seen in the increasingly fractious relationship between the police and the public. Images of a police van smashing into a protestor without stopping on Thursday shocked many. The sight of the police evacuating Stand up to Racism protestors in vans was also controversial, even if it was probably a sensible tactical decision to get them away.

The Telegraph only objects to brutal police tactics during protests when it agrees with the protestors’ sentiments. When it’s the Left on the streets, columnists start asking for the Army to be deployed and muttering about rubber bullets.

As Dampier’s column slumps to its grim conclusion, it finally becomes clear what he really wants to see: Human rights law tossed in the bin as quickly as possible. He writes:

Restoring trust requires action. Our broken human rights laws are at the root of the small boat crisis, which is why Suella Braverman and I co-wrote a paper published this week which shows how Britain can leave the European Convention on Human Rights. Once we have regained control of our borders, we can begin closing the asylum hotels and HMOs. Those granted asylum over the last few years should have their cases reexamined, to see if they are genuine or if they were only beneficiaries of our overly-generous laws. This will help make our country safer for women and girls, bringing peace back to our streets.

This is the classic tactics of a radicaliser at work: Imply that a threat is great and growing, encourage a violent response to that threat, then conclude that the only solution is to change the law in a way that suits you. Oddly, “bringing peace back on our streets” doesn’t involve taking action against Far Right vigilantes. They’re too useful to the cause.

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