The BBC has been forced to back down and issue an apology to the Nigel Farage-founded Reform UK after asserting that the party is “far-right”.
While establishment media outlets often brand populist political parties in Europe as “far right” despite many of which merely espouse principles and views recently advocated by conservative parties, the BBC has been forced into retracting and apologising for such a characterisation of Reform UK, formerly known as the Brexit Party.
In a statement, the publicly-funded broadcaster said: “In an article about the Liberal Democrats’ spring conference we wrongly described the political party Reform UK as far-right when referring to polling.
“This sentence was subsequently removed from the article as it fell short of our usual editorial standards. While the original wording was based on news agency copy, we take full responsibility and apologise for the error.”
Yet, Reform UK party leader Richard Tice suggested that he may still bring legal action against the broadcaster, writing on social media: The BBC has apologised for the news website referring to Reform UK as ‘Far Right’ following an intervention from my lawyers.
“My lawyers are also in touch with other news organisations who repeated the BBC line. To be clear, I view this as defamatory and libellous”.
It is not the first time that the BBC has been forced to apologise to a member of the party, with the broadcaster coming under fire last year for false reporting claiming that Nigel Farage’s debanking was a result of falling below the financial threshold for account holders.
This turned out to not be the case, with the Brexit leader and honorary president of Reform UK publishing internal documents from Coutts owner NatWest showing that the bank had shut down his accounts for political reasons.
BBC News CEO Deborah Turness and business editor Simon Jack both apologised to Farage, with Jack writing that he had obtained the information from a “trusted and senior source” — later revealed to have been ousted NatWest CEO Dame Alison Rose — but that “the information turned out to be incomplete and inaccurate. Therefore, I would like to apologise to Mr Farage”.
The BBC has long been accused of bias in its reporting, which is expressly against its own rules. In exchange for impartial reporting, the broadcaster is given special status in the UK, being supported financially by the imposition of a licence fee tax on anyone who watches broadcast television in the country, upon pain of fines or even jail time.
Yet, both the left and right in Britain have accused the neo-liberal broadcaster of being biased in favour of the Westminster elitist establishment.