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The BBC’s Director General Tim Davie and other senior bosses at the corporation have drawn up plans to win over voters of Reform UK, due to a belief that their news and drama output is creating “low trust issues” with supporters of Nigel Farage’s party.
Minutes of a meeting of the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee in March, seen by Byline Times, show that BBC News CEO Deborah Turness gave a presentation in which she discussed plans to alter “story selection” and “other types of output, such as drama” in order to win the trust of Reform voters.
The committee also identified “the importance of local BBC teams” to their plan to win over supporters of Farage.
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Members of the committee, which includes former GB News executive Robbie Gibb, discussed the presentation and agreed to give an “update on progress” towards their aim at a later date.
“The CEO, News and Current Affairs provided the Committee with a presentation on plans to address low trust issues with Reform voters” the minutes state.
“The Committee discussed the presentation. Committee members recognised the importance of local BBC teams in the plan, given their closeness to audiences.
“Directors discussed how story selection and other types of output, such as drama, also had a role to play. An update on progress would return to a future meeting”.
Farage has repeatedly used his own GB News platform to attack the BBC, calling it a “political actor” and threatening to boycott the corporation. In language also used by the BBC Editorial Committee, the Reform leader suggested that BBC editors were using “story selection” in order to target his party.
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The Editorial Guidelines Committee has also been the source of significant internal disquiet at the BBC, due to concerns over the influence of BBC Board Member Robbie Gibb.
Gibb was appointed to the board by former Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2021.
He was identified by former BBC Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis in 2022 as an “active agent of the Conservative party” and also drew controversy for his role at the Reform-supporting GB News.
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BBC staffers spoken to by this paper privately expressed their concern about the new plan to win over Reform voters, due to the risk of increasing allegations of bias at the corporation.
The BBC has previously been criticised by some viewers for heavily featuring Reform UK politicians on its programmes, despite the party only having five elected members of Parliament. Previous research has identified Nigel Farage as being among the most invited guests on the BBC’s flagship Question Time discussion programme.
The BBC were asked by this paper whether there had been any similar discussions about securing the support of voters for other parties in the UK, but they did not identify any examples.
A BBC spokesperson said: “Our Royal Charter requires us to reflect and represent all the communities of the UK, and our Editorial Guidelines require that we must take account of the different political parties with electoral support across the UK to achieve due impartiality.”