Rupert Lowe has said he is considering taking legal action against the BBC after Restore Britain was not invited to appear on BBC Question Time for a Makerfield by-election special tonight.
The episode will feature candidates from five parties: Labour’s Andy Burnham, Michael Winstanley from the Conservatives, the Lib Dem candidate Jake Austin, Sarah Wakefield from the Greens and Reform UK’s Robert Kenyon.
A BBC spokesperson said that Question Time has invited five parties to take part in the debate, a decision which is “based – as is always the case – on their past and current electoral support”.
A message posted on Restore Britain’s X account says: “This is blatant election interference and deliberately designed to suppress the Restore Britain vote.”
A Survation poll ahead of the Makerfield by-election put support for Restore Britain at 7%, behind Labour on 43% and Reform on 40%.
In a post on his X profile yesterday, Lowe wrote: “Deliberately excluding Restore Britain is outrageous – I will be consulting our legal team this morning.”
Restore Britain’s leader and founder, Rupert Lowe, has referred to the BBC as “a destructive cancer at the heart of Britain”, and said that a Restore Britain Government would defund the BBC, scrap the licence fee and make it a subscription service.
Labour MPs highlighted the irony of Lowe’s response, pointing to his past comments about the broadcaster.
Labour MP Andrew Western wrote: “He hates the BBC. I’m surprised he’d want their candidate to appear.”
Luke Charters, MP for York Outer, said: “Hang on a minute. I thought Restore Britain want to defund the BBC, but are now throwing a tantrum because they’re not on it?
Reform’s candidate in the Makerfield by-election, Robert Kenyon, struggled to answer questions about offensive comments he previously made on social media in a disastrous interview.
Kenyon was challenged by the BBC’s political editor Chris Mason over comments suggesting Russia was justified in invading Crimea, as well as derogatory comments about women and posts appearing to suggest he didn’t vote for Brexit.
Mason said that the Reform candidate’s comments about Crimea could make people think he was sympathetic to Vladimir Putin.
Kenyon said he was against the illegal annexation of Crimea. He then tried to justify his comment saying “things had changed since” and that “people change their minds”.
Grilled over his remarks that Brexiteer politicians has “peddled nationalistic pish”, Kenyon claimed he didn’t know what “nationalistic pish” meant and said he didn’t recall writing it.
The BBC journalist pointed out that Kenyon had written the comment on a rugby league forum.
In another post, Kenyon quote-tweeted a Sky News post in which Professor Chris Whitty urged the public to get Covid-19 booster vaccines, and wrote that Whitty “can f*** right off”.
“But I think you got the jabs yourself, so is it responsible to have been saying that kind of stuff whilst you were getting the jabs?,” Mason asked.
Kenyon said he wanted to “make clear” that he wasn’t anti-vaccines or jabs, and that he got his first set of covid jabs. He also said his comment about Whitty “wasn’t polite”, but that he wasn’t involved in politics when he said it, and that he speaks “like a normal bloke”.
He added: “You go into a pub […] and speak with local people and I think you’ll hear a lot worse than what I’ve said on Twitter.”
Mason then questioned Kenyon on his sexual remarks about Carol Vorderman.
The Reform candidate said he hadn’t made sexual comments about Vorderman, claiming “Someone else did but I responded with the crass joke about that comment so personally I didn’t make the comment”.
Mason said: “Carol Vorderman said what you had said was disgusting”, adding: “There’s a pattern around some of the remarks you’ve said in the past that have sounded like they were degrading women.”
Kenyon stumbled over his words, before saying “There might have been a few crass comments. You know as an elected public official which I am now, I wouldn’t make any crass comments because everything you do say is under a microscope.”
Reacting to the interview, one X user wrote: “This might be the worst performance from a political candidate I have ever seen in my life.”
Labour MP Luke Charters commented: “Worst political interview in history.”
Journalist Don McGowan wrote: “Robert Kenyon is trying to mould himself into the Farage ‘Man of the People Template’ but it isn’t working.
“He was clearly preloaded with the questions and told what to say, but still managed to bungle it at every opportunity.
“Drinking pints in pubs and telling the BBC that most folk swear just isn’t a high enough benchmark for a role in Parliament representing his constituents.”
Nigel Farage has been roasted for claiming he was ‘banned’ from featuring on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs.
In response to not being invited onto the show, he called for the BBC’s licence fee, which is the primary source of the broadcaster’s funding, to be abolished.
While Reform has claimed he has been ‘banned’ from the show, according to a new biography on Farage by Tory peer Lord Ashcroft, Reform asked the BBC if he could be a guest, as Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch have been in the past, but were told they had no space in their schedule.
Yesterday, the Daily Mail reported that Desert Island Discs has “banned” Farage.
A Reform source told The Times: “We approached the BBC as we thought it would be a no-brainer with Keir and Kemi going on, but it would appear they have a ban on Reform — the party has led in the opinion polls for well over a year. This is the typical BBC bias we have come to expect.”
In a statement, the BBC said “We do not ban any individuals from appearing on Desert Island Discs and that includes Mr Farage.”
Online, people noted that Farage had turned down 12 requests to appear on Newsnight to answer questions about the undeclared £5 million gift he received from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.
Farage has also appeared on BBC Question Time 38 times between 2000 and 2024, placing him among the show’s most regular panellists.
Farage has been ridiculed for claiming he has been banned from Desert Island Discs and for calling for the BBC licence fee to be abolished.
One X user, Adam Boulton commented: “Seems a bit extreme since there is no actual evidence that there is any Desert Island Disc ban on @Nigel_Farage (there certainly should not be). He appears frequently elsewhere @BBC”.
Journalist Nick Cohen reacted by saying: “For goodness sake, this whining narcissist is never off the BBC but he’s still complaining. Imagine what he would do to free media if he took power.”
David Yelland wrote: “Reality is Nigel Farage is on the BBC so often that this itself has become an issue according to his opponents and many in the media. A RIDICULOUS story.”
Dr Iain Overton said: “Farage wants to destroy the BBC because he hasn’t been invited onto Desert Island Discs. What sort of fragile egomaniac is he?”.
The BBC recently faced criticism over a report described as “misleading” in its portrayal of asylum seekers. The report centred on what it called a “shadow industry,” allegedly helping migrants “pretend to be gay” in order to secure asylum in the UK.
According to the BBC, this was the first instalment of a major undercover investigation into how individuals nearing the end of their visas are coached to fabricate asylum claims, complete with supporting letters, photographs, and even medical documentation.
The investigation uncovered instances of legal firms charging up to £7,000 to construct such claims, sometimes assuring clients that their chances of refusal by the home office were “very low.” Those implicated were often individuals already in the UK on expired student, work, or tourist visas, not people arriving through irregular routes such as small boat crossings.
Taken at face value, the BBC’s focus seems directed less at asylum seekers as a whole and more at the intermediaries profiting from and potentially manipulating vulnerable people.
But critics argue that the report risks distorting public understanding, saying it “massively distorts” reality by presenting what may be a very small set of cases as broadly representative of the asylum system. Such critics include the campaign group Rainbow Migration, which highlighted government data suggesting that only around 2% of asylum claims cite sexual orientation as grounds for protection.
Yet predictably, the report was seized upon by commentators and politicians advancing a nationalist, anti-migrant agenda.
Conservative MP Nick Timothy used the story to argue that human rights laws have undermined immigration control, accusing lawyers and charities of “abetting thousands of crimes.”
Similarly, Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin described the asylum system as “a complete and utter joke,” using the report to reinforce calls for sweeping reform.
But the most hysterical reaction came from Sun columnist Julie Hartley-Brewer, who framed the BBC’s investigation as validation of long-standing claims about widespread abuse of the asylum system. In a celebratory column, she argued that the broadcaster had finally acknowledged what she called the “Great British Asylum Scam,” and provocatively suggested that the BBC had effectively joined the “far-right bandwagon.”
She ended: “So to those at the BBC who have finally woken up to the Great British Asylum Scam, welcome on board the far-right bandwagon! We’ve been expecting you.”
We’ve seen it time and time again. What begins as a story about limited abuse within the system is quickly sold as proof that the entire system is broken, less an exercise in scrutiny than a case study in how narratives are bent to fit political ends. In that sense, the BBC’s reporting, however intended, risks being folded into the same kind of agenda-driven framing it is meant to interrogate.
Questions are once again being raised about the standards of the journalism at the Daily Mail, after fresh allegations of intrusive conduct.
Reports that a reporter was seen peering through the post in the porch of a bereaved family’s home, have renewed concerns that parts of the press continue to prioritise access over basic decency.
According to the allegations, the reporter also repeatedly knocked on the door at the family’s home over several days and waited in their car outside the property. Such actions, if accurate, go well beyond persistent reporting and edge into harassment, particularly given the vulnerability of those involved.
The episode follows earlier controversies involving the Daily Mail. Several weeks ago, a family who had lost their daughter in a meningitis outbreak shared information with the BBC on the condition that her surname remain private. While other outlets respected this request, the Daily Mail chose to publish the identifying detail regardless.
Concerns about press conduct extend beyond individual cases. There have also been judicial criticisms of media behaviour toward child victims of crime, suggesting a broader pattern in which vulnerable individuals are subjected to aggressive reporting tactics.
The campaign group Hacked Off, which was established in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal to advocate for a more accountable press, argues that such incidents demonstrate a failure of reform. In its view, press standards have not only stagnated but may, in some respects, be deteriorating.
The campaigners are set to meet the prime minister and say they look forward to “bringing these concerns directly to him and learning what the government intend to do to protect the public from these abuses.”
These developments sit uneasily alongside claims by former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre, who told the High Court earlier this year that he had “brought the shutters down” on unlawful newsgathering practices during his tenure. That assertion was made during the ongoing privacy case brought against Associated Newspapers Limited, publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, by several high-profile figures, including Prince Harry and Sir Elton John, alleging serious invasions of privacy.
The persistence of new allegations inevitably raises doubts about how far internal reforms have gone, and how effectively they are enforced.
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Some rare good news emerged this week. Swiss voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposal backed by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party to reduce the licence fee that funds the country’s public broadcaster, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC).
The result represents a clear public endorsement of public service broadcasting. It also acts as a message for far-right movements across Europe, which are increasingly targeting national broadcasters.
In many countries these institutions are accused of political bias or of operating with outdated funding models. Yet the real political objective behind many of these campaigns is less about reform and more about weakening independent media institutions.
BBC in the firing line
Nowhere is this debate more intense than in the UK. For years, right-wing politicians, commentators and think tanks have argued that the BBC’s mandatory licence-fee funding model is outdated and unfair. Their criticism frequently centres on alleged political bias, despite the BBC’s longstanding global reputation as one of the most respected public broadcasters in the world.
The BBC is not immune from criticism, of course. No large media institution is. It has long been accused of both left and right-wing bias. Critics on the right point to what they see as liberal, metropolitan values, while critics on the left argue it too often privileges government narratives and establishment voices. Reuters Institute research shows that, overall, the BBC is less trusted by the political right than people on the left.
But the current wave of attacks is part of a broader political strategy aimed at delegitimising public-service media altogether.
Even figures outside the UK have joined the anti-BBC chorus. In November, Donald Trump claimed he had an “obligation” to sue the BBC over the editing of a section of his speech in an episode of Panorama.
The deeper danger is not criticism itself, but what comes next. Across Europe, far-right parties seek not merely to weaken public broadcasters financially but to reshape them politically, either by forcing them into commercial dependence or by bringing them under direct political influence if they gain power.
A playbook spreading across Europe
If such forces were ever able to exert real control over the BBC, the consequences would be profound. The occasional grumble about paying the licence fee would quickly seem trivial compared with the prospect of political interference in one of the world’s most prestigious media institutions.
Just imagine if Nigel Farage or his allies held meaningful influence over the BBC. A broadcaster historically associated with rigorous editorial standards could be transformed into something closer to a partisan outlet, something resembling GB News, but with vastly greater reach and influence.
And Farage’s ideological allies across Europe are pursuing similar strategies, seeking to undermine the independence of public broadcasters in their own countries.
In France, the far-right National Rally has threatened to privatise the country’s public television and radio networks. Ahead of the snap general election in 2024, the party’s president, Jordan Bardella, said his ambition was to privatise public broadcasters “in order to make savings,” adding that they would operate under a set of specifications.
The party’s vice president Sebastien Chénu said that public television and radio needed “a bit of liberty, some oxygen,” while criticising radio programmes he claimed, “lean to the left or far left.”
Similar pressures are emerging elsewhere in Europe. Speaking to the Spanish newspaper El Pais earlier this year, Luis Menéndez, head of the development committee of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), warned that threats to public service media are gaining ground in Poland, Slovakia, Malta and Hungary.
“It’s a wind that brings not only cold, but also waves of disinformation, sinister gusts of espionage, bursts of hybrid-digital warfare, and gales against free journalism and democracy,” Menéndez said, warning that such conditions create fertile ground for far-right political conspiracy theories that target public media.
Hungary’s warning
Hungary offers perhaps has the most depressing and worrying example of how political power can reshape a country’s media landscape. For more than a decade, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has presided over the expansion of a vast pro-government media ecosystem that dominates much of the national conversation.
Péter Magyar, leader of Respect and Freedom (TISZA) party, has described what he sees as the corrosive effects of what he calls Orbán’s “propaganda factory.”
“It might be very difficult to imagine from America or Western Europe what the propaganda and the state machinery is like here,” Magyar said in an interview with the Associated Press. “This parallel reality is like the Truman Show. People believe that it’s reality.”
America’s parallel crisis
Yet such pressures facing independent media are not confined to Central and Eastern Europe, or indeed the wider continent.
The dynamics echo developments in the United States. Budget cuts under Donald Trump have already led to the closure of the US Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the body created in 1967 to support the country’s public radio and television system. After nearly six decades in operation, the non-profit announced earlier this year that it would dissolve following severe federal funding reductions.
Trump and his MAGA allies have long targeted NPR (National Public Radio) and PBS (Public Broadcasting Service), the two main networks supported by the CPB. Plans to eliminate their funding were outlined in the right-wing blueprint for a second Trump administration, Project 2025.
The policy memo said: “For years taxpayers have been on the hook for subsidising [NPR and PBS], which spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news’.”
Last July, Trump wrote on social media that any Republican who voted against funding cuts “to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or endorsement.”
Announcing the organisation’s dissolution, CPB president and CEO Patricia Harrison said its “final act would be to protect the integrity of the public media system and the democratic values by dissolving, rather than allowing the organisation to remain defunded and vulnerable to additional attack.”
The growing power of media billionaires
The drawing of public broadcasters into wider political battles over information, influence and democratic accountability, comes at a time when ownership of the US media landscape is already highly concentrated in the hands of a small number of billionaires.
The world’s richest man owns X, the family of the second-richest controls Paramount, which owns CBS, the third richest owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, the fourth richest owns the Washington Post and Amazon MGM Studios, and another billionaire controls Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.
Many of these powerful media barons have, to varying degrees, accommodated the demands of a combative president who has simultaneously stripped public broadcasting of federal support.
As the magazine Prospectobserved in a recent paper on the state of US media: “Increasingly, Americans say they no longer know who or what to believe.”
Why the Swiss vote matters
The picture is uncomfortably familiar in the UK. Here, too, a small group of wealthy owners dominates much of the national newspaper industry. The BBC remains a frequent target of political attack from the right, even as openly partisan broadcasters and new populist news websites enter the market.
Meanwhile Nigel Farage, whose far-right party is gaining ground electorally, has repeatedly pledged to abolish the licence fee and replace it with a subscription model, arguing that the broadcaster is “institutionally biased.”
It’s not difficult to see how fragile and susceptible to manipulation the information environment can become, even in countries that still like to think of themselves as stable western democracies.
Viewers may often be frustrated with aspects of the BBC’s coverage, such as disproportionate attention given to figures like Farage. But abolishing the licence fee could concentrate even greater power in the hands of wealthy private media owners, many of them based outside the UK.
Weakening public broadcasting would also accelerate a shift toward subscription-based media, forcing households to rely on multiple private platforms simply to access news and live television. By contrast, the current licence fee, around £180 a year, funds a wide range of news, cultural programming and entertainment that remains universally available.
Against that backdrop, the Swiss vote takes on wider significance. By rejecting an attempt to weaken the country’s public broadcaster, voters signalled that, when given the choice, citizens may still recognise the value of independent public-service media, and may be willing to defend it.
Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch
Left Foot Forward doesn't have the backing of big business or billionaires. We rely on the kind and generous support of ordinary people like you.
You can support hard-hitting journalism that holds the right to account, provides a forum for debate among progressives, and covers the stories the rest of the media ignore. Donate today.
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