An immigration special on Question Time last night has sparked furious backlash thanks to two audience members.
Nigel Farage has slammed the BBC (Image: Getty)
Nigel Farage has accused the BBC of sinking to “new depths” after last night’s episode of Question Time featured questions from illegal migrants. The broadcaster has been accused of planting the migrants in the audience, who criticised Reform UK’s policy to quit the ECHR.
Fiona Bruce, the host, called on an Afghan man who described how he had failed to secure asylum in six other European countries before coming across the Channel. Another man from Iran said leaving the ECHR would harm “ordinary people”. This afternoon Nigel Farage reignited a blazing row with the BBC, after a furious outburst yesterday at one of their reporters.
Mr Farage blasted: “Both of those individuals should not even be in the United Kingdom.
“They’ve broken in illegally, they should have been deported. Yet they’ve been given a platform on the BBC in an effort to get the great British public to sympathise with them.
“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.
“Frankly, Question Time has been – over the years – a great programme. After last night it is utterly discredited.”
Mr Farage added: “No wonder half a million people refuse to pay the license fee every year.”
The attack on last night’s Question Time episode came just after Mr Farage launched into a blazing rant about the state broadcaster at a press conference yesterday.
In a major deterioration of relations between Reform and the BBC, Mr Farage was once again asked about alleged racist comments made when he was a schoolboy.
One of the illegal migrants in last night’s Question Time audience (Image: BBC)
He slammed: “The double standards and hypocrisy of the BBC are absolutely astonishing.
Farage stated that the comments he made at school took place decades ago while the BBC were “very happy to use blackface”, he continued to label all the shows the BBC aired at the time that would no longer be deemed suitable today.
He said: “What about Alf Garnett? Remember that word he used describe Marigold on prime time, national TV? I better not repeat that word, otherwise you will use it and say that I used it. Homophobia? Perfectly happy at the exact same time for Bernard Manning to appear on prime time national BBC comedy telling jokes which these days you’d probably get a knock at the door from the police and a 31-month prison sentence.
“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.”
He demanded an apology from the corporation, before concluding: “I’m done with you, until you apologise I’m not speaking to you.”
Mr Farage has boycotted sit-down BBC interviews since the last general election, prompted by another row about audience bias during a Question Time leaders special.
