A look back at 2016- The Sunday Express fail: Turkish scaremongering over Brexit aspirations

In a lengthy page 2 “clarification” on 19 June 2016, the Sunday Express published a story on Turkey regarding its negotiations with the EU, using Turkey as a “justification” for the UK to leave the EU at the historic EU Referendum

The newspaper then, has admitted that a front page story it ran last month, “12m Turks say they’ll come to UK”, was false.

The Express said its report, which stated that “more than 12 million Turkish citizens plan to move to Britain when the country joins the EU”, had been questioned by both statisticians and readers.

It explained that it arrived at the 12m claim following a poll carried out on its behalf by Konda, a Turkish research group, which asked 2,685 people this question:

“If Turkey becomes a full member of the EU, and Britain remains in the EU, would you, or any members of your family, consider relocating to the UK?” Nor did the paper apologise to readers for having misled them by running a prejudicial story during the run-up to the crucial EU referendum.

And it clearly did not think it appropriate to put some kind of reference to its “mistake” on yesterday’s front page, as it should have done, because its “clarification” amounted to a complete retraction of its front page story.