A Reform councillor has told the People’s Channel that the BBC “deserves to be in the oblivion” after “offending the British people”.
The British broadcaster has already been bludgeoned with scathing criticism for inviting multiple asylum seekers to grill a Question Time panel.
On the panel was Dover & Deal MP and Migration Minister Mike Tapp, Tory MP for Bexhill & Battle Dr Kieran Mullan, Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper, Green Party leader Zack Polanski and Reform UK’s policy chief Zia Yusuf.
But now Jaymey McIvor has ripped into the broadcaster, adding that Mr Yusuf is a “complete genius” – but added “it doesn’t take a genius to work out that what happened last night was just absolutely outrageous”.
“Isn’t it a damning indictment on our country that in Kent to make the audience be inclusive of the area it has to include some illegal migrants?”, he asked.
“It demonstrates that the BBC really don’t get it, and they deserve to be in the oblivion because you cannot offend the British people, the people that get up in the morning, alarm clock Britain.
“They get up, go to work, pay their taxes, do the right thing.
“They are seeing the huge injustice that there is at the moment when it comes to the fact that these men are put in hotels.”
He cited a casework example he has encountered as a councillor, where a single heavily pregnant mother is staying “in the most horrific hotel”.
“I mean, it was just absolutely awful,” he continued.
“I couldn’t help but think that literally just walking distance from our civic offices, there are a load of unvetted men just sitting there like the man on the TV.
“And what are we supposed to do now?
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“You know, if Question Time is being filmed near a prison, should we go and get someone who’s been convicted of domestic abuse to go and appear on a panel on a women’s safety topic?”
“It’s wrong.”
Mr McIvor’s fury has echoed that of his own party. Straight after appearing on the debate show, Mr Yusuf joined GB News and admitted that he felt “bewildered” by the BBC’s decision.
Speaking to the People’s Channel after the show, the Reform heavyweight said he “could not believe” what he was witnessing and had to “reassure himself” that these events actually took place.
Meanwhile, party chief Nigel Farage branded BBC’s Question Time a “discredited programme”, annihilating the broadcaster’s “absolute set up job” on Mr Yusuf.
Delivering a defiant message in defence of his policy frontman, Mr Farage said: “The BBC sunk to new depths last night on their Question Time show, their flagship politics show for over four decades, where they had two audience members who had illegally come into Britain by boat.
“Both of those individuals should not even be in the United Kingdom, they’ve broken in illegally. They should have been deported.
“The whole thing was a complete, absolute set up job, and we’re seeing this now more and more and more total absolute bias and prejudice from the BBC. And frankly, Question Time had been, over the years, a great programme. After last night, it is utterly discredited.”
And, earlier on GB News, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch hit out at the BBC’s decision too, insisting that Question Time was a chance for Britons to put their questions to politicians – not illegal migrants.
She told presenters Tom Harwood and Dawn Neesom: “It’s not a time for asylum seekers to ask politicians to change the law. That’s a campaign.
“If the BBC wants to platform those voices, it can do it as part of a news programme or a documentary. Not for Question Time.
“I don’t think that was right. I wouldn’t have done it.”
A BBC spokesman told GB News: “All the parties represented on the panel were told the day before the show that there would be people in the audience who had been through the asylum system.”