Nigel Farage has slammed the BBC after refusing to take a question from one of the corporation’s reporters at a Reform UK conference this afternoon.
“No, I’m done with you,” the Reform chiefly bluntly snapped after he delivered a scathing spiel before the journalist.
Mr Farage was taking questions from Westminster’s top reporters after delivering a speech about the decision to delay four mayoral elections.
However, the Brexit supremo had appeared to have enough of entertaining the BBC reporter’s question on allegations of racism, which he categorically denied last week.
The reporter asked Mr Farage if he was in agreement with his deputy Richard Tice that those who were laying the claims of racism against the leader were lying, Mr Farage said the framing was “despicable”.
The question then prompted the leader to launch into a vicious tirade against the corporation which is burdened with a multitude of bias claims, claiming it holds “double standards”.
He further accused the national broadcaster of “double standards and hypocrisy” because of the television shows it aired 50 years ago, including Are You Being Served? and It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.
Mr Farage said: “I cannot put up with the double standards of the BBC about what I’m alleged to have said 49 years ago and what you were putting out on mainstream content.
Nigel Farage slammed the BBC reporter’s question, giving him a serious dressing-down in the heart of Westminster
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“So, I want an apology from the BBC for virtually everything you did throughout the 1970s and 80s.
“Until you apologise… I’m not speaking to you.”
He accused the BBC of giving a platform to blackface, racism and homophobia, in sitcoms including The Black and White Minstrel Show, which aired from 1958 to 1978.
“I am sick to death of the double standards and hypocrisy above all of your organisation. I’m done with you,” Mr Farage finished off.
The MPthen used the opportunity to read out a letter he said he had been sent from a former school peer, who wrote that he had never heard the Clacton MP racially abuse anyone.
Mr Farage delivered a scathing shutdown
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Mr Farage read: “I was a Jewish pupil at Dulwich College at the same time and I remember him very well.
“While there was plenty of macho tongue-in-cheek schoolboy banter, it was humour, and yes, sometimes it was offensive … but never with malice. I never heard him racially abuse anyone.
“If he had, he would have been reported and punished. He wasn’t. The news stories are without evidence, except for belatedly, politically dubious recollections from nearly half a century ago.
“Back in the 1970s the culture was very different … especially at Dulwich.
He accused the BBC of historic racism and homophobia, demanding an apology from the corporation
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“Lots of boys said things they’d regret today or just laugh at.
“Whilst Nigel stood out, he was neither aggressive nor a racist.”
He further claimed that he had received “plenty” of such messages since the allegations were first reported in The Guardian.
At the weekend, Zia Yusuf and Mr Tice appeared on GB News to present a report compiled by Reform staffers, claiming that data, sourced from publicly accessible outlets, proved Reform’s negative coverage was covered more often than that of Labour and the Tories.
“These are hard numbers,” Zia Yusuf insisted, speaking with Dawn Neesom about the data.
The broadcaster is said to have focused on losses and departures of Reform’s representatives from local authorities more than they did for those belonging to Labour and the Tories.
“The BBC seems to be absolutely obsessed with reporting negative news about Reform Council – they are six times more likely to report when a Reform councillor loses the whip, relative to Labour or Tories,” the policy chief explained.
“That is despite four times as many Tory councillors having lost the whip and five times more from Labour having lost the whip since May 1.
“It follows a very long pattern of hostility of the BBC against Nigel Farage,” he added.