The Daily Mail performed a curious about-face on Romanian immigrants and criminality, as Nigel Farage came under fire for defending his comments that Britons would be concerned about a family of Romanian immigrants moving in next door to them.
The ‘DMReporter‘ Twitter account has revealed that until Farage’s appearance on LBC radio this week, the Daily Mail reported on numerous occasions about the threat of criminal gangs from the former socialist country. The evidence raises questions about the Mail’s editorial integrity and an inherent anti-UKIP bias.
Prior to Farage’s comments, the Mail reported no less than 8 times on the issue of criminal immigrant gangs, with articles dating back to February 2013.
But as soon as the UKIP leader began to reflect the Mail’s own reporting, the paper underwent a Damascene conversion, slating Farage and attempting to use the UKIP leaders’ comments against him.
On February 27th 2013, the paper claimed, “28,000 Romanians are held for crimes in UK over 5 years… and there are only 68,000 of them living here!”
On April 22nd 2013, the Mail reported, “Romanian crime is a problem in Britain admits their own PM as BBC immigration poll shows hundreds of thousands DO plan to come here when restrictions are lifted”.
On June 6th 2013, a headline read, “Cashpoint card snatches treble: Romanian crime gangs responsible for 92% of thefts from cash machines, police believe”.
Follow-up articles were published on October 2nd, November 30th, and December 13th and 19th 2013. Another came on January 11th 2014.
But this didn’t stop the Mail hitting out at Farage this week, culminating in Brendan Carlin’s report today: “Farage racism row grows as he insists: Romanians ARE more likely to commit crime”.
If the Mail had been intellectually honest, claim critics, they would have pointed to the evidence found in their own reporting which backs up Farage claims. Instead, the paper went for the racism angle, much like every other UK paper.
A senior UKIP source told Breitbart London: “This just shows what joke the media has become. I wonder what the Tory party offered them to sell out so brazenly? I hope it was a good offer”.
The Mail has not commented on the matter.