Two leading politicians from the Green Party have written a strongly-worded letter to Ofcom, asking the UK’s media regulator to revoke the broadcasting licence given to GB News after its official launch in 2021.
Why are there calls for GB News to lose its broadcasting licence?
Leading party spokespeople, Molly Scott Cato and Jack Lenox, have both reached the end of their tether with the controversial channel. Earlier this week, GB News were summoned to a meeting with Ofcom, after repeatedly breaking editorial rules.
Broadcasts of the Mark Steyn Show fell foul of the guidelines TWICE, after guests were allowed to make outrageous claims regarding the COVID-19 vaccines without being properly debated. However, it’s now Jacob Rees-Mogg who finds himself in the firing line.
While hosting his own current affairs programme on Tuesday evening, the senior Tory presided over an incredibly biased segment regarding the latest legal battle involving Donald Trump. Neither he nor his panel did anything but cheerlead for the divisive tycoon.
On-air backing for Trump after sexual assault verdict
Kari Lake, a top Republican and well-known 2020 Election denier, was joined by Trump superfan Nigel Farage. Rees-Mogg emphasised that Trump had been found ‘not guilty of rape’, but largely skirted over the charges that were upheld. Contentious claims of ‘political witch-hunts’ and ‘media biased’ went unchallenged.
The former US president was ruled to have sexually abused magazine writer E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s and then defamed her by branding her a liar by a jury in Manhattan last night. Trump has been told pay his victim $5 million in damages.
Carroll, 79, testified during the civil trial that Trump, 76, raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in New York, then harmed her reputation by writing in an October 2022 post on his Truth Social platform that her claims were a “complete con job”.
Green Party demand retribution for GB News and Rees-Mogg
The two representatives from the Green Party have publicly shared the letter they sent-off on Wednesday. They have branded the on-air defence of Trump’s sexual assault as ‘disgusting’, referring to it as a ‘grotesque abuse of broadcasting regulations’.
Scott Cato and Lenox are demanding that Ofcom treat last night’s unbalanced discussions as a third-strike – and they are now actively campaigning for GB News to lose its broadcasting licence.
“Comments made [during the show] were designed to undermine the rule of law. On the basis of this segment, and many other violations, we are requesting that Ofcom revokes GB News’ broadcasting licence.”
“All three people involved spoke in Trump’s favour, and are long-term Trump apologists. Rees-Mogg himself… has engaged in partisan broadcasting, masquerading as news. Here, Ofcom have created a grey area that is being exploited.” | Green Party statement
- You can read their full statement here:
