BBC Scotland, cheerleaders for Farage

On Wednesday evening BBC Scotland’s flagship evening news programme Och Aye the News, AKA Reporting Scotlandshire carried its second puff piece about Reform UK’s recent narrow council by-election victory in West Lothian in which a Reform candidate with a questionable past scraped his way into a council seat on a 22% turnout. BBC Scotland never usually bothers itself with mentioning the result of a council by election, but this particular by election received not one but two reports on the channel.

A poorly publicised local council by election in which 78% of eligible voters don’t bother to cast a vote tells us practically nothing about the outcome of next year’s Scottish Parliament election, but that didn’t stop BBC Scotland treating this as a pivotal political development. The result provided a gleeful Pacific Quay with all the evidence it needed to paint a picture of a Scotland which is politically much the same as England, and if that’s the case, the implication is – What’s the point of all this independence carry on? BBC Scotland is desperate to minimise meaningful political differences between Scotland and the rest of the UK, and if that means platforming a far right party because voters in England are being seduced by its lies, then that’s what BBC Scotland is going to do. BBC Scotland is so opposed to independence that it would rather see Scotland ruled by far right English nationalists than decide its own future for itself.

Never mind that Reform UK still lacks any Scottish specific policies. Even former Tory MSP Graham Simpson, who defected to Reform in August, has admitted that his party has not given much thought to Scotland or devolved matters and only has two policies, opposition to immigration and opposition to net zero, the first of which is wholly controlled by Westminster as is energy policy, which has a major impact on efforts to attain net zero.

Of course there was no mention of Reform’s dearth of Scottish policies in BBC Scotland’s puff piece. The disgraceful report was essentially a party political broadcast for Reform, the second by BBC Scotland in as many weeks. There was no mention of the controversy around the new Reform councillor’s past. Shortly after the by election it came to light that David McLennan left his job as a police officer with Lothian and Borders Police in the early 1980s after being charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice following a car crash in which he was involved. The outcome of these charges is unknown. Given recent concerns about Reform UK’s apparently weak vetting procedures, which has led the party to select some highly questionable individuals as candidates, you might have thought it would have been worthy of mention, but apparently not according to BBC Scotland.

Neither did BBC Scotland feel any need to mention other, far more damning, controversies in which Reform UK has recently become embroiled. There was no mention of the conviction and sentencing of former Brexit Party MEP Nathan Gill, described as Farage’s right hand man, for taking bribes from a Russian agent in return for making pro-Russian statements in the European Parliament. BBC Scotland was equally silent about the accusations which no less than thirty former schoolmates have levied against Farage. The Reform leader and owner of Reform UK PLC has been accused of a long standing pattern of racist, antisemitic, and bullying behaviour from the ages of 13 to 18.

While no one should be judged on their actions or the opinions they voiced while still a child. It’s Farage’s reaction to the allegations which is telling about his character as an adult. Not only has he expressed no remorse and repeatedly refused to apologise, he has cast aspersions on his accusers and attempted to equate his behaviour with that of the infamously racist comedians of the 1970s. But even Bernard Manning didn’t hiss “Hitler was right, sssssssss!” into the ear of a Jewish child, as Farage is alleged to have done.

Farage is incapable of owning his own words and actions, in his telling, he’s the real victim here. The aggressive, entitled, and bullying behaviour he has exhibited in response to allegations made by thirty individuals will only worsen if he ever gets into Downing Street. Farage is dangerously unfit to become Prime Minister, yet he has been preferentially platformed by the BBC for years.

On Friday yet another Reform UK racism scandal came to light. Chris Parry, the party’s mayoral candidate Chris Parry, a retired naval rear admiral, said that Justice Secretary David Lammy should “go home to the Caribbean”. Reform has refused to condemn Parry’s comments. It has now come to light that Parry has also made racist comments about three Scottish MSPs of Asian descent, Labour’s Anas Sarwar and the SNP’s Kaukab Stewart, claiming that these three politicians plus five other minority ethnic politicians from England do not do not have primary loyalty to the UK, or any UK nation. Parry’s only basis for this claim seems to be the colour of the politicians’ skin.

But despite a growing mountain of evidence that Reform is a party of racists, the BBC will not call Farage and his party out. BBC bosses have ruled that the Corporation can describe Stephen Yaxley-Lennon as far right, but not Nigel Farage and Reform. Of course the BBC wants to placate Farage, it’s concerned for its own future should he become Prime Minister,

BBC editorial policy in Scotland, like elsewhere, reflects the prejudices of the English establishment. And in this respect, Reform UK is welcome and parties like the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Greens which threaten the interests of that establishment are routinely marginalised and ignored when they are not being subjected to an obsessive degree of criticism. Farage might threaten the BBC as it is currently set up, but he does not threaten the English establishment of which he is as much a part as the chiefs of the BBC.

Farage exists to defend and enrich that establishment, which is why he got so much favourable coverage from the BBC to begin with. Farage is first and foremost a creature of the BBC’s making. the BBC has created a monster, and will let us all be eaten by it as it tries to save its own skin.

We can expect a lot more platforming of Reform UK by BBC Scotland as we approach the Scottish elections. It’s obvious now that Labour and Anas Sarwar are a busted flush while the Tories in Scotland are even more of an irrelevance than they are in the rest of the UK. BBC Scotland is in desperate need of a new Saviour of the Union. In desperate times, they’ll turn to far right English nationalists. It will be the undoing both of BBC Scotland, and of the UK itself.

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