A campaigner for “migration and racial justice” has been employed to shape storylines for EastEnders – Britain’s long-running BBC flagship soap opera set in London’s East End – featuring plots about exploited African migrants and racially motivated murders, it has been revealed.
It is clear evidence of such activists operating inside the UK’s national broadcaster.
The revelation also fits a deepening pattern where institutions, from the BBC to schools to shadowy government units, work to reframe mass immigration as an unquestionable good while suppressing public concerns over its costs.
EastEnders, the BBC’s flagship soap opera that has aired for decades and draws millions of UK viewers, has run plots about an autistic Ghanaian repeatedly exploited and the racist murder of another African immigrant since the hiring of campaigner Ade Lamuye in 2022.
Lamuye also serves on the advisory board of the Power of Pop Fund, launched by Comic Relief. The fund has directed almost £5 million to narrative change organisations seeking to use media to reframe the debate on migration.
She has confirmed her role in her own writing and stated that “entertainment and media holds influence and power to make real change”.
She has additionally acted as a facilitator for Media Movers, a migration messaging group run by the charity Heard.
Heard has received funding from the Power of Pop scheme and previously lobbied producers of a BBC children’s show to “impact the framing of migration”.
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