Where does the Daily Mirror stand on Brexit? Since February 2016, when the then prime minister, David Cameron, announced the date for the EU referendum, it has been fascinating to monitor the way in which the paper has downplayed its belief in the virtues of remain.
The reason? While the Mirror, going back to the 1960s, has been consistently pro-EU, its editors are aware that a great swathe of its largely northern-based working-class readership is known to be antipathetic to the EU.
So throughout the campaign leading up to the vote, it stuck to its pledge “to cover the debate with an objectivity absent in the din generated by fanatics”. Its leading articles favoured remain, as did its political columnist Kevin Maguire, who countered the Brexiters’ “project fear” mantra by rightly calling their campaign claims “project fib”.
But the Mirror’s overall coverage was low-key. It did not fight the remain corner with anything like the passion and commitment evident among the pro-leave titles. Unless it wished to antagonise a large slice of its audience, it had little choice but to sit on the fence.
It greeted the referendum result by urging “reconciliation rather than recrimination” after, according to the Mirror’s editor, Alison Phillips, its readers voted “by a fairly small margin” in favour of remain. Maybe. I am assuming that’s a guesstimate, but I think it fair to assume it was close to the mark and explains why she also says Brexit “has been really tricky for us”. It has also proved tricky for the Labour party.
There, of course, is the other major headache for the Mirror. For the best part of 70 years it has been Fleet Street’s most loyal supporter of the Labour party and became a fervent cheerleader for Tony Blair’s New Labour. Now, with Blair’s nemesis, Jeremy Corbyn, as leader, the paper has tried to avoid raining on his parade by refusing to condemn his radical agenda while daring to criticise him when it thinks appropriate, such as his failure to act more swiftly and effectively over accusations of antisemitism.
To deal with the deep schism among its readers over Brexit and to negotiate Labour’s bitter internal struggle Phillips has had to turn into a journalistic tightrope walker, a tough act for any editor, but especially so in a red-top tabloid that has traded in the past on political single-mindedness. (I know that all too well because it was the case when I edited the Mirror almost 30 years ago.)
How then does Phillips perform her double feat of funambulism? In a Media Masters podcast interview last week, when asked if there is a Daily Mirror view of Brexit, she wobbled slightly, but there was no hint of falling off.
She stressed that the paper, despite its remain sympathies, had refused to adopt “a narrative where leavers are demonised as racist, stupid and parochial”. She claimed to understand why people voted to leave, asserting that “populism was fuelled by people who felt they were ignored”.
Her concern throughout recent months, she said, has been to avoid what she deems the “elite thinking” that the masses are bigoted, unkind and vulgar. “It is vital that we enable their voices and views to be heard,” she said, “because they find their home in the Mirror.”
This acceptance of the leave voters’ beliefs has made Phillips cautious about supporting calls for a new referendum. “We are very nervous about a second vote,” she said. That nervousness is evident in the paper’s avoidance of the issue. Instead, it has chosen to concentrate its fire on rightwing Tories, such as Boris Johnson, who favour a hard Brexit or the no-deal option.
An editorial two weeks ago about “the Brexit fiasco” was scathing about Theresa May’s “discredited Chequers proposals” and demanded new thinking in the negotiations, but it made no reference to the insistent calls for another vote. Similarly, after EU leaders rejected May’s plans, the paper reiterated the need for the referendum result to be respected, which happens to have been Corbyn’s long-held position.
Last week, during the Labour party conference, there were signs, albeit reluctant, of a change of direction by the Labour leader. These had been signalled in Maguire’s column in which he pointed to the wisdom of Corbyn supporting a second referendum. However, no leading Mirror article touched on the subject. As with all papers, its print audience is dwindling, but it has no wish to hasten the desertion by telling half its current 558,457 buyers that they should vote on EU membership all over again.
Jumping across to Phillips’s other tightrope, coping with the Labour party division, she has managed to keep her paper faithful to Corbyn. She concedes there are “issues that divide the two sides of the party” but believes there is “still a lot that unites them”.
She said, adopting a familiar partisan position: “The first thing we always keep in the front and centre of our mind is that a Tory government is bad for our readers because they’ve been on the wrong end of austerity for 10 years … A Labour government would be good for them.”
If that sounds wishy-washy, she would say that, wouldn’t she. Phillips actually goes further by scorning the Blair “project” as “too slick and too professional”. In her view, that was a major contribution to “ordinary people” (AKA Mirror readers) turning away from politics.
“There is something to be said for a bit of reality, for authenticity. That’s what Jeremy Corbyn offers,” she said. “What we need is a popular left in both print and politics, a sense that we understand real people’s lives, we talk like they do, we shop in the shops they shop in, we know what normal people are thinking and feeling.”
On Friday came yet another reminder about the Mirror’s particular concern for its circulation heartland. After it was revealed that the government spent £40,000 trying to conceal how rarely its northern powerhouse minister, James Wharton, visited the north of England, the paper contended that “the Tories’ commitment to the north has always been skin deep”. It said: “If Wharton had spent more time there, he would have realised how it is starved of funds compared with the south.”
There, in a couple of sentences, is the reality Phillips is seeking to address. It may be based in London, its senior editorial staff may want to remain in the EU and it may not be wholeheartedly behind Corbyn, but it must not cut itself off from a readership that lives outside the capital, favours Brexit and is keen to give Corbyn a try.
