We want to know your thoughts after Rylan Clark provoked angry backlash with his rant about small boat crossings on ITV’s This Morning – have your say by voting in our poll
Rylan Clark has faced angry backlash after his migrant rant on This Morning. The TV star has since rolled back on his claims, but we want to know whether you think ITV should have pushed back on his comments.
Rylan, 36, said that there was “something wrong” with the way small boat arrivals are treated during an appearance on ITV on Wednesday. He said there was a narrative that people who cross the Channel are told “welcome, come on in”.
The comments came after he said the country is built on immigration and praised medics from overseas who had treated his mum. He went on to say that he found it “absolutely insane” that people were risking their lives to make the dangerous journey.
The This Morning star said: “Legal immigration — a lot of the nurses, the doctors that have saved my mum’s life have come over here from other countries. They’re living a great life, they’re paying into this tax system, they’re helping this country thrive.”
He went on: “I find it absolutely insane that all these people are risking their lives coming across the Channel. And when they get here, it does seem, and I think this is why a lot of Labour voters as well are saying there’s something wrong, it feels like, ‘Welcome, come on in’. That’s the narrative we’re being fed.
“Here’s the iPad. Here’s the NHS in reception of your hotel. Here’s three meals a day. Here’s a games room in the hotel. Have a lovely time and welcome.” If you can’t see the poll, click here.
Hours later, Rylan took to his Instagram where he wrote: “You can be pro immigration and against illegal routes. You can support trans people and have the utmost respect for women.
“You can be heterosexual and still support gay rights. The list continues. Stop with this putting everyone in a box exercise and maybe have conversations instead of shouting on twitter.”
The Mirror has since fact-checked Rylan’s comments, with many of the points – surrounding iPads, NHS in hotel receptions, ratings of hotels and claims about being handed three meals a day – being proven wrong. Rylan’s comments come as a swarm of anti-immigration protests have spread across the UK over the asylum hotels row.
Writing in the Mirror, Assistant Editor Darren Lewis slammed ITV, saying the broadcaster should be ‘ashamed’. He wrote: “Rylan is a symptom of the poisonous rhetoric infecting the broadcast narrative around asylum seekers and refugees.
“This Morning has questions to answer for green-lighting and amplifying an ill-informed perspective for which a Premier League footballer would have been vilified.
“ITV is the channel that normalised Nigel Farage on its flagship reality TV show, I’m A Celebrity. Now this, an outburst seized upon and clipped up on social media by Far Right racists as a badge of honour.”
What do you think? Should ITV have pushed back on Rylan’s migrant comments? Take our poll above and have your say in the comments below.
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