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GB News has repeatedly platformed Conservative and Reform candidates, councillors, and activists under the guise of being members of the public – often without informing viewers of their political affiliations, a Byline Times investigation has found.
The findings raise questions about how the channel acts as a potential springboard for prospective parliamentary and council candidates on the political right.
‘People’s Panel’
The phenomenon goes back to the channel’s earlier days. A Sunday show hosted by Camilla Tominey, first aired in January 2023, featured a “people’s panel”.
Announcing the show’s launch, Tominey said it would “take opinions from people across the country, not just the Westminster bubble”, and in the first episode, aired 8th January, Tominey described how “we feel that political shows take too long to preach at you as an audience and that you don’t get to have your say”, directing people to apply to attend through the GB News website.
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However, analysis of the “People’s Panel”, during the time it was active under the Sunak Government, reveals that it often platformed Conservative councillors and future Reform prospective parliamentary candidates, as well as an assortment of other individuals with ties to political parties, often without naming them as such in the show.
In one episode, shot in Birmingham on 15 January, interviewer Olivia Utley introduces a young guest, “Jay”, or Jay Chan, described by Utley as “a student” and by himself as “a young student and patriot”.
But Byline Times has found that between August 2022 and May 2023, Chan was social media manager and graphic designer for Birmingham Young Conservatives, as well as having been a campaigner for ‘Liz [Truss] for Leader’.
Between February 2023, the month after the episode was aired, through to present, her LinkedIn profile shows he also held various other party positions, including Deputy Chair of Royal Sutton Coldfield Young Conservatives and Deputy for Birmingham Young Conservatives respectively, and was formerly an assistant to Marco Longhi MP.
On the same episode, Olivia interviewed “Mark”, a “business owner here in Birmingham”. The following year Mark Hoath, the businessman in question, would go on to stand as the Reform candidate for Sutton Coldfield.
During the episode he described the biggest challenge facing the country as “the useless Conservative Government we’ve got at the moment”, before talking about how the NHS needs “reform” to remove “waste” in the organisation and bemoans “some of the woke projects it gets involved in”. He has since appeared as a commentator on GB News multiple times.
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In another episode, from June 2023 and filmed in Leighton Buzzard, Patrick, or ‘Pat’, is quizzed on the topic of immigration, advocating for housing migrants in army bases “where there’s a security fence that surrounds those bases”, adding “we’ve got to protect our citizens and we’re not doing it at the moment”. He thinks that “we’re letting the world in with no consequences”.
Not revealed to viewers is that Patrick Hamill is a former UKIP councillor, and at the time was an independent for central Bedfordshire. In May 2025, he joined Reform, stating “Only Nigel Farage’s party have the answers to the biggest problems facing the country.”
Speaking to Byline Times, Hamill confirmed that he was “an independent at the time of being on the panel and I do have my own opinions”, adding that “GB News knew I was a councillor and I was given specific questions to answer as I recall”.
Launch Pad
The trend of unnamed candidates appearing on GB News as ‘normal’ punters continues. As first reported byThe New World, in January 2025 the channel platformed one Kieran Mishchuk as an unnamed local man.
Presenter Patrick Christys failed to inform viewers that he was in fact Reform’s 18-year-old councillor for Milton Regis on Swale Borough Council. Mishchuk has now defected to Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain.
The channel has also featured guests and background audience members who have, following their media appearances, gone on to become political candidates representing Reform UK.
Again, this is not a new phenomenon for the channel. Back in November 2021, during an episode of ‘Farage at Large’, the Reform leader took questions from local business leaders, including Paul Donaghy, a local Conservative councillor since May of that year.
By 2023, Donaghy had defected to Reform UK, where he remains chairman of Washington & Gateshead South. He stood for Reform in the 2024 North East Mayoral election, and is understood to be standing in the May 2026 elections for Sunderland City Council. A recent Byline Times investigation found that Donaghy, who boasts of skills in business ‘compliance’ had ten firms struck off for breaking company law.
(Paul, talking with Nigel Farage on ‘Farage at Large’, in Sunderland, November 2021).
Donaghy declined to comment on-record for this article, instead referring Byline Times to the Reform Party media team.
During an episode of Tominey’s People’s Panel aired on 19th February 2023, shot in Reading, correspondent Katherine Foster interviews three people, among them “George… a property developer from Wokingham” who was described as a “Conservative Party member”.
Within a month, a Facebook group established for George Evans stated that he was “standing as Barkham’s Conservative Candidate in the upcoming local council election on 4th May’. While failing to get elected at that time, he successfully stood a year later as a Conservative councillor in the area.
During the 2023 Spring Budget Special, filmed in Doncaster and hosted by Farage, Surjit Duhre was sitting behind him. Duhre was a 2019 Brexit Party candidate who would later go on to become Reform’s 2021 mayoral contender for Doncaster, and Reform 2024 prospective candidate for Doncaster Central.
Similarly, one-time Reform 2024 candidate Andrea Whitehead, who stood in Leeds, also pops up in the background of a GB News segment from June 2023, filmed in Barnsley, prior to her candidacy, which featured Miriam Cates discussing “gender ideology” in schools with Nigel Farage. Whitehead was eventually dropped by the party after accusations of racism regarding her social media activity.
It is not known how many Reform candidates and councillors have appeared in GB News audiences since its launch, but the channel has platformed a striking number of politicians for the party, even discounting the MPs who take a salary from the channel.
Partisan Pundits
The political affiliations of some prominent GB News presenters, like former Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, husband and wife duo Esther McVey and Philip Davies, or Reform Party MPs Lee Anderson and Nigel Farage are well-documented.
On-air presenters have also included Reform deputy leader Richard Tice MP and his Dubai-based partner Isabel Oakeshott and, until recently, former Brexit activist Darren Grimes, who is now deputy leader of Durham County Council. Grimes has said he “gave up a well-paid national media job because I simply couldn’t stomach watching my country being run into the ground any longer.”
Also featured prominently has been Alexandra Philips, who joined Reform in 2023, after previously serving as a Brexit Party member of the European Parliament for the South East of England from 2019 to 2020, and current GB News presenter Matthew Goodwin, who stood unsuccessfully for Reform in the recent Gorton and Denton by-election. Martin Daubney too, another regular presenter, was a Brexit Party MEP, and Michelle Dewberry is a former Brexit Party candidate.
While that is all well known, what has not been clear until now is that the channel appears to have been acting as a springboard for prospective Reform Party candidates, un-named Conservative councillors, and far right activists since at least 2022, a trend which continued throughout the 2024 General Election cycle, and today.
In some instances, the candidates were in fact named as such. But the majority were not, and had their views broadcast to viewers under the guise of impartiality.
While it is not uncommon for politicians to be given slots to air their opinions, many individuals have featured on the channel, apparent as ordinary members of the public, when they were in fact far-right party activists.
Campaign group HOPE not hate noted in its most recent ‘State of Hate’ 2025 report: “GB News is increasingly the mouthpiece for Reform UK, something which now seems even more true than had been previously assumed.”
There is no suggestion those appearing deliberately hid their political affiliations.
GB News and Reform UK were contacted for comment.
An Ofcom spokesperson said: “Whether or not a programme participant’s political affiliation needs to be referred to on-air will depend on the nature of that affiliation and the context in which the contributor is appearing. Editorial decisions, including the selection and description of contributors, are matters for broadcasters, provided they comply with the Broadcasting Code.
“Our broadcasting rules strike a careful balance between protecting viewers from harm and preserving broadcasters’ and audiences’ rights to freedom of expression. Under these rules, broadcasters must also ensure that their programmes do not materially mislead audiences so as to cause harm. We apply these standards fairly and equally to all Ofcom licensees. When they fall short, we take action – as we have with GB News in recent years.”
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