{"id":1179413,"date":"2023-08-14T08:42:59","date_gmt":"2023-08-14T08:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecanary.co\/?p=1668166"},"modified":"2023-08-14T08:42:59","modified_gmt":"2023-08-14T08:42:59","slug":"spot-the-difference-as-labour-the-mail-and-gb-news-all-shame-themselves-over-refugee-channel-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/08\/14\/spot-the-difference-as-labour-the-mail-and-gb-news-all-shame-themselves-over-refugee-channel-deaths\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Spot the difference\u2019 as Labour, the Mail, and GB News all shame themselves over refugee Channel deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Six refugees<\/a> from Afghanistan died in the Channel when the boat they were travelling to the UK on capsized. Predictably, the Mail on Sunday<\/em> ran a suitably horrid front page, while GB News<\/em> screamed about ‘taxpayer cash’ – and less predictably (but becoming more the norm), the Labour Party<\/a> under Keir Starmer gave both of them a run for their money.<\/p>\n

Six refugees dead, yet who’s to blame?<\/h2>\n

As Agence France-Presse<\/em> (AFP<\/em>) reported, on Saturday 12 August, six people died and 61 others were rescued including children. They were mostly from Afghanistan<\/a>, with some coming from war-torn Sudan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Utopia56 humanitarian group blamed border “repression” for the tragedy. They told AFP<\/em> that the difficulty of securing legal passage only:<\/p>\n

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increases the dangerousness of crossings and pushes people to take more and more risks to reach England.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Previously, five people died at sea and four went missing while trying to cross to Britain from France last year. In November 2021, 27 people also died when a boat capsized in the Channel.<\/p>\n

Of course, this is also a Europe-wide problem<\/a>. As the Canary<\/em>‘s Afroze Fatima Zaidi recently wrote:<\/p>\n

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almost 2,400 refugees have died or gone missing so far in 2023\u00a0while trying to reach European shores<\/a>\u00a0via the Mediterranean Sea. Moreover, as the\u00a0BBC<\/em>\u00a0reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“The United Nations has registered more than 17,000 deaths and disappearances in the central Mediterranean since 2014, making it the most dangerous migrant crossing in the world”.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Tories (and their mates in the corporate media<\/a>) in the UK are quick to blame anyone except themselves, of course. The Mail on Sunday<\/em>‘s front page on 13 August was a case in point. It ran with the headline:<\/p>\n

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Was French patrol boat to blame for migrant drownings?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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I mean, really?
An old law of journalism: when there\u2019s a question-mark in the headline, the answer is invariably \u2018no\u2019 pic.twitter.com\/LG0wxPRtR6<\/a><\/p>\n

— Jon Sopel (@jonsopel) August 13, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n