THE BBC has rejected complaints about an edition of Question Time which featured an audience filled exclusively with people who voted for Brexit.
The broadcaster’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) said there was “no bias” inherent in the audience’s composition – and added that there was no need for a second Question Time to be broadcast featuring Remain voters.
The decision was revealed on Thursday as the BBC published its fortnightly complaints report.
The complaints had raised concerns about a broadcast of Question Time on June 22 from Clacton-on-Sea, one of the areas of England with the strongest Leave vote in the 2016 referendum.
The ECU reported: “Two people complained that the decision to have an audience composed entirely of Leave voters gave the programme a biased premise, with a suggestion from one viewer that it should be balanced by a programme with an audience of Remain voters.
“The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the BBC’s editorial standards of impartiality.”
The complaints team concluded: “The composition of the audience was not intended to weight the discussion in favour of Brexit, but to reflect the extent to which the views of Leave voters had changed and to give an opportunity to explore whether their hopes had been realised or confounded by events since the vote.
“In the ECU’s judgment there was no bias inherent in the particular composition of the audience (and consequently no occasion for a mirroring exercise involving Remain voters), and the composition of the panel represented an appropriate range of views.”
The complaint was therefore dismissed.
The BBC Question Time episode polled its Brexit-voting audience and found that one in five of them would vote differently if given the chance.
In total, 70% of the audience said they would vote for Brexit again while 10% said they were unsure.
One audience member who said they would now vote Remain told the BBC they did not see “any benefit from [Brexit] at all”, while another claimed politicians had been trying to “frustrate” the process.
The BBC’s latest complaints report covers the period between August 14-27. It said the corporation received 2123 complaints about programmes and 4500 complaints in total over the period.
However, no single issue received more than 100 complaints.
