The Daily Mail‘s headlines in the last 12 months have been getting more and more unapologetically sympathetic towards the far right, but it felt like things took an unprecedented step this weekend.
Well, unprecedented in terms of this century, at least. We’ve been reminded enough times of the paper’s past.
1930s, and Daily Mail manages to turn the Blackshirts into the ‘new men’ required to eradicate the elite career politicians. ‘Hurrah!’ pic.twitter.com/wGeBGPy39L
— Sam Iles (@Sam_Iles) November 24, 2016
The anti-immigrant rhetoric deployed by the publication is nothing new, with the Mail out-Mailing itself with front pages about calls to ‘Give Child Migrants Age Tests’Â and widespread scapegoating of foreigners to the point that Gary Lineker has waded in.
But for all the far right apologism and – well – actually publishing lines of argument which share plenty in common with the rhetoric of actual neo-Nazis – they had stopped short of outwardly sympathising with the far right without any subtle coding.
That all changed, however, when Austria’s Presidential candidate Norbert Hofer lost out to Alexander Van der Bellen in the country’s election.
Hofer included Islamophobic sentiment throughout their campaign, while a previous leader of his Freedom Party praised Adolf Hitler’s ’employment policy’ and was accused of antisemitism on multiple occasions.
Austrian Jews were among those pleading for the country not to elect Hofer this week, and Van der Bellen’s victory was met by scenes of relief by many.
So, how did the Mail report on it?
Frightening that #DailyMail uses language suggesting disappointment that a far right politician has lost in Austria. #DontBuyTheDailyMail pic.twitter.com/YYfd2QdJ4f
— Jo Wale (@CedricWale) December 5, 2016
To say people were surprised by the approach would be incorrect, but there was still some shock at how brazenly the paper appeared to side with extremism.
https://twitter.com/NyeBeverage/status/805480235395207168
https://twitter.com/JaspJackson/status/805485894182510593
https://twitter.com/AndrewFairbairn/status/805530153833140224
https://twitter.com/nikeshshukla/status/805511762711900160
The use of "gloating" in that Mail headline is absolutely remarkable. Relief that the far right lost is gloating now?
— Dorian Lynskey (@Dorianlynskey) December 5, 2016
@Greg946 @b_judah The Mail have been consistent on this, always supported far right Austrian leaders.
— Darren Richman (@darrenrichman) December 4, 2016
Leave it to Gary Lineker to point out what the Mail were missing in how they portrayed the reaction of those pictured (leaving aside the argument of whether they are necessarily left-wing or merely anti-racist).
An Austrian from the far-right losing. More relief than gloating, I suspect. pic.twitter.com/Hf08mH2FRY
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) December 5, 2016
