BBC is forced to withdraw ‘biased’ immigration video
THE BBC has withdrawn an educational film about immigration following complaints that it was biased.
The film, aimed at GCSE pupils, contained claims that Britain was ‘multicultural long before curry and carnival’ and that debate over immigration had fuelled a ‘huge rise’ in support for far-Right politics.
It was pulled from circulation and removed from YouTube after complaints that it broke impartiality rules.
Among other assertions by contributors to the film, part of a series called Don’t Hate the Debate, was: ‘Multiculturalism is a powerful tool for survival and possibly the only way to survive, so let’s embrace it.’ Another speaker suggested that ‘Britain had never been a nation of immigrants’.
A BBC spokesman said yesterday: ‘Don’t Hate the Debate is a series of films designed to help teachers enable classroom debates about topical issues.
‘Each film includes a real debate between four young people, all giving views on a topic. While we believe the film did convey the broad elements of the immigration debate, we accept further efforts could have been made to involve contributors with a more diverse range of opinions, so we removed the video.’
The film, produced by BBC Education and aimed at pupils aged 14 to 16, was posted online in May. It focused on discussions about immigration among four young people.
One contributor said: ‘We were multicultural long before curry and carnival. It’s in our DNA.’
Another said the debate around immigration had led to a ‘a huge rise in people going towards the EDL and Britain First and reinforcing those nationalistic values’.
Critics of the BBC say it ignored public concern over high levels of immigration after Tony Blair’s government triggered a major rise in immigration 20 years ago. They claim it instead chose to prioritise material that suggested anyone worried about immigration was racist.
The new film drew a scathing complaint from the Migration Watch UK think-tank, which said it failed to treat its subject with care and objectivity.
Lord Green of Deddington, founding chairman of Migration Watch, added that the discussion between young people in the film was ‘shallow, unbalanced and unrepresentative’.
And he wrote to BBC chairman Sir David Clementi saying: ‘Most people in the UK are not opposed to immigration per se, but they are concerned, we think rightly, about its present scale.
‘Yet the overall impression of the video is that anyone who questions its current scale is unreasonable and prejudiced … the video seems designed not to inform and stimulate discussion but to promote a particular opinion.’
Following the decision to pull the film he added: ‘It is refreshing that Sir David Clementi saw immediately that the material was unacceptably biased and ordered its withdrawal and revision.’