A 10-part BBC Radio 4 series examining the United Kingdom's departure from the European Union has been accused of bias by a campaign group, which found that only one of the 20 guests featured supported leaving the EU. The series, "Politically: Ten Years After Brexit," which aired last month to mark the tenth anniversary of the 2016 referendum, featured 19 guests who discussed negative impacts of Brexit, while just one guest spoke of potential benefits.
The analysis was conducted by campaign group News-Watch, which produced a 97-page report detailing its findings. The group alleges that the BBC deliberately downplayed or ignored the benefits of Brexit. According to News-Watch, the sole pro-Brexit voice among the 20 guests was economist Julian Jessop of the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA).
News-Watch also stated that the series failed to disclose the pro-EU affiliations of some guests. For instance, Sam Lowe, introduced as a consultant at Flint Global, was previously employed by the anti-Brexit think-tank the Centre for European Reform. Listeners were not informed of this connection. Similarly, Sarah Main, who formerly headed the Campaign for Science and Engineering, had publicly opposed leaving the EU, a detail also not shared with the audience. Mujtaba Rahman, identified as being from the consulting firm Eurasia Group, was noted to have previously worked as an economist for the European Commission.
The report highlights nine instances where potential benefits of Brexit were mentioned, but these were reportedly rebutted or not thoroughly explored. The group identified areas such as vaccine development, gene-editing divergence, lower US tariffs, and the Turing Scheme as potential positive outcomes that were not adequately discussed.
David Keighley, managing director of News-Watch and a former BBC journalist, criticized the series, stating, "Ten years after the Brexit vote, the BBC has once again shown that it remains pro-EU to the core." He asserted that the Radio 4 series did not present the evidence impartially, instead "burying the benefits of Brexit beneath a deluge of claims about the benefits of EU membership, EU alignment and EU regulation." Keighley further claimed that the bias extended to the presentation, with host Alex Forsyth's summaries allegedly reframing contested anti-Brexit viewpoints as BBC conclusions, violating impartiality rules.
A BBC spokesperson responded to the accusations by affirming that the series was produced in adherence to the BBC's editorial guidelines, emphasizing a commitment to impartiality. The spokesperson stated, "This series was made in line with the BBC's editorial guidelines which require the highest standards of impartiality. It explores how various policy areas and aspects of public and political life have changed since Brexit, with expert contributors putting facts and figures into context and highlighting the positive and negative impacts of Brexit."