No Migrants in Wiltshire Military Bases; Newsquest Journalist Challenges Mail’s Falsehoods

Local reporter of the month award, if I had a local reporter of the month award, which I don’t, but based on this, perhaps I should have a local reporter of the month award, goes to Newsquest senior reporter Sarah Dalton, whether she wants the award or not, not that there even is one!!

Credit where it’s due, even if we do take the occasional satirical stab in the dark at Newsquest, this week Sarah wrote a brilliant piece in The Wiltshire Gazette & Herald, challenging claims by the Mail on Sunday and other national newspapers that there are plans to send migrants to six military camps across the UK, including Knook Camp near Warminster. It is not true.

“The Wiltshire Times has put these claims to the Home Office,” she wrote, “which has stated that military bases are being explored as housing options for migrants. The Home Office confirmed that Knook Camp in Wiltshire is not currently being used for this purpose, nor are there any plans to use it to house migrants.”

On social media the share didn’t receive the traction I think it deserved. It sadly seems people would rather believe their own fake narrative, fed to them by rightwing media. It did get a substantial collection of those dubious critters, the angry emoji. I’m left confused as to why; are they angry because migrants are not being housed in Knook Camp, are they angry because they’ve been lied to by the national press, or perhaps they home in on the word “migrant,” don’t even bother to read the article, and it angers them?!

Maybe it suggests precisely why we’re in this disgraceful trend of hatred towards migrants. Word of the lies has been spread on social media as taken as fact. For if those who added the angered emoji actually read it, I would have thought they’d surely send it a smiling one instead. Cheer up, you spanners! 

Sarah contacted the Home Office who said there were no plans for military bases in Wiltshire to be used for housing migrants. It doesn’t matter what your opinions on the base being used are, it matters that misinformation is being spread, and she captured it with its pants down; well done, Sarah. While she must be subtle, we don’t enforce such equitability, and will call out the Mail on Sunday for publishing bollocks, and spreading misinformation to propagate and exaggerate the immigration issue, at least in Wiltshire. But you should note, we think you’re as thick as mince for believing it!

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