THE BBC has been called out for “disgraceful” platforming of Nigel Farage on the Laura Kuenssberg show in the aftermath of an assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
The Reform UK leader was interviewed on Sunday morning after he claimed on Twitter/X the “mainstream media” had spread “a narrative of hatred against my friend Donald Trump”.
Former US President Trump was shot at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday and was quickly bundled off stage by Secret Service agents. The FBI has said it is treating the incident as an assassination attempt.
Blood was clearly visible on Trump's ear and face as protection officers rushed him away. The suspect was shot dead at the scene by a US Secret Service sniper.
When interviewed by Kuenssberg, Farage said he was “not shocked” by the incident and spoke of a “nasty narrative” he felt the media put out there about Trump.
But his appearance on the BBC was met with fury by many on social media.
Former MEP Richard Corbett said: “Panellists on #bbclaurak rightly decry the deterioration of political discourse, leading to intimidation and violence – yet @bbclaurak invite prime culprit Nigel Farage on the show. Disgraceful.”
Back in 2017 Farage threatened to “pick up a rifle” if he didn’t get the exact form of Brexit that he wanted, yet he claimed violent language by BBC comedians and commentators has “encouraged” what happened to Trump.
"I'm obviously very pleased that my friend Donald's got away with it - only just" Reform UK leader Nigel Farage says he is "not shocked" at the assassination attempt on Donald Trump because of the "nasty" narrative put out by liberals#BBCLauraK https://t.co/viFZGs0OkG pic.twitter.com/HDdebN1AMc
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) July 14, 2024
Farage has said he will be flying out to the US to see Trump this week.
Following his appearance on the BBC, Anna Soubry posted: “Disgraceful. Nigel Farage is one of the most deliberately divisive politicians ever but yet again he is interviewed on #BBC #BBCLauraK without challenge; he was not held to account.
“Death and rape threats became the norm in 2016 #Brexit and yet it never features in these debates.”
Another Twitter user posted: “For god’s sake. Nigel Farage again. The man gets more airtime than a Go Compare advert.”
Academic Tom Mills, author of The BBC: The Myth of a Public Service, told The National earlier this month that the broadcaster had been “really bad” at robustly questioning the now MP in the run-up to the election.
He claimed the reason behind this is that the BBC is more comfortable with an anti-establishment figure on the right than on the left.
He told this paper: “He’s on their political spectrum and the political spectrum for the BBC runs from the centrists out to Nigel Farage.
“I think they’ve been really bad [at questioning Farage]. To my mind they’ve never questioned him in a way that really undermines the nature of his support.”
The BBC was found to have been disproportionately platforming people from right-wing media outlets on Question Time over the past decade by researchers at Cardiff University.
They analysed a total of 352 programmes with 1734 guest slots, which were filled by 661 different people.
However, while they found that the BBC had “broadly balanced” appearances from representatives of the UK’s main political parties, when it came to members of the media a right-wing bias became evident.
