Calvin Robinson has become the third GB News presenter to be suspended in the last three days, as the channel struggles to contain the fallout from the misogynistic comments made by Laurence Fox.
Robinson, a regular presenter on the rightwing TV channel, issued a statement on Friday expressing solidarity with the suspended presenter Dan Wootton, declaring: “Standing up for Dan is standing up for the very idea of GB News. If he falls, we all fall.”
Two hours later Robinson also fell, with GB News confirming he had joined Fox and Wootton in being suspended.
One staff member at the channel commented on Robinson’s removal: “Three for the price of one.”
The latest suspension lays bare a schism between staff at GB News who want to lean fully into more extreme culture war rhetoric and those who are embarrassed by the damage caused by Fox and Wootton’s exchange. The channel is now facing 12 active Ofcom investigations, as the media regulator struggles to handle the GB News approach to broadcasting.
Robinson, who wears a dog collar on air due to his role as a deacon in the breakaway Free Church of England, presents a religious show on the channel and is a regular pundit on other shows. During the Covid pandemic he achieved notoriety for his promotion of alternative treatments for the disease.
Prior to his suspension he criticised “careerist” staff at GB News who wanted Wootton’s presenting slot. “These people are worse than the woke mob, because these vultures are giving the mob ammunition and essentially escalating the channel’s demise,” he said.
He added that GB News would be on “borrowed time” if it did not stand by Wootton. “I get that people have to pay the bills. But GB News is more than a job. It’s certainly more than a chance to be on the telly. It is a mission,” he continued. “An opportunity to shift the dial in public discourse. To have the conversations the shills on other channels cannot or will not have. We must do all we can to avoid GB News becoming just another MSM [mainstream media] outlet. Which it will, if we let it.”
He claimed that the bosses of GB News were “afraid” and that if someone took Wootton’s slot it would not be a promotion but “making space alongside his corpse for your own”.
Wootton and the actor turned politician Fox had earlier been suspended from the channel after Fox made a series of remarks about the political correspondent Ava Evans, including asking “Who would want to shag that?”, during Wootton’s show on Tuesday.
On Friday the boss of GB News signalled that Fox was likely to be sacked for making comments that he said went “way past the limits of acceptance”.
Angelos Frangopoulos, the station’s chief executive, said he was “appalled” by Fox’s comments. Asked by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme why Fox had not been sacked already, Frangopoulos said: “We have due process to follow.” But he said he expected an internal investigation to be “resolved very quickly”.
On Friday, Fox gave an interview to the TRIGGERnometry podcast, saying GB News was “full of snakes” and “about the most toxic place you can ever spend time”.
