Brexitwatch: BBC fails to address my complaint

In my post for April 19, I put up the letter I sent to the BBC complaining about its failure to challenge the constant lies trotted out by pro-Brexit speakers. I particulary wanted to know why BBC interviewers never ask:

1. Why should we have to obey the result of a referendum that was won by lying, cheating and criminality?

2. Why should we have to obey the result of a referendum in which voters were promised a Brexit that is not being and cannot be delivered?

3. Why are we pretending we have to obey the result of a referendum that was explicitly non-binding and advisory?

I received a reply which did not address any of these points: 

Dear Mr Withington

Thank you for contacting the BBC.

I understand you feel BBC News has shown a consistent bias in favour of Brexit and failed to properly question the assertions of those who are in favour of Brexit.

Naturally we regret when any member of our audience is unhappy with any aspect of what we do. We have received a wide range of feedback about our coverage of this story across our news programmes and bulletins. Keeping in mind pressures on licence fee resources, this response seeks to address the key points raised. That said, we apologise in advance if your complaint has not been specifically addressed here.

We aim to cover the ongoing Brexit negotiations with due impartiality. This means we carry a wide range of views about the European Union from across the political spectrum on our output.

We approach the story with the required level of impartiality, with input from various commentators and experts. 'Feedback' on BBC Radio 4 has addressed the issue of complaints about how we cover the story. Our Chief Political Adviser and the controller of the BBC's daily news programming joined Today presenter Nick Robinson, to discuss the common complaints from all sides. You may be interested in the sections at 3mins and 13mins especially:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09z688x

As with any story we cover, BBC News does not have an opinion on the European Union, or on the UK’s position within it. Instead we try to explain the different and sometimes complex issues affecting our audience during Brexit. Our aim is to give them the information they need in order to follow the process clearly.

We appreciate your concerns and hope this helps to explain how we approach our reporting of this subject. Nonetheless, I understand this is something you feel strongly about and I’ve included your points on our audience feedback report that is sent to senior management and programme makers each morning and ensures that your complaint has been seen by the right people quickly. This helps inform their decisions about current and future output.

We appreciate you taking the time to register your views on this matter as it is greatly helpful in informing future decisions at the BBC.

Thanks again for getting in touch.

Kind regards

John Hamill

BBC Complaints Team

I have now complained about this response as follows:

I made a very specific complaint about how interviews with Brexit supporters are conducted on BBC programmes, and about how interviewers appear to constantly suppress crucial facts. I asked you whether this was because they were ignorant or because they were instructed not to raise certain issues inconvenient for the Brexit case. I also asked you if there was an instruction, from whom did it come.

You did not address any of these points, and instead delivered a standard, generic response claiming: 'we try to be fair'. The key points are below. I would be grateful if this time you address them.

Day after day, Brexit supporters are allowed to spout that the UK has to leave the EU because 'people voted for it'. (Most of them have by now given up any pretence that Brexit has any benefits.)

I used to work for the BBC as well as other broadcasting organisations, and I would have been asking these interviewees:

1. Why should we have to obey the result of a referendum that was won by lying, cheating and criminality?

2. Why should we have to obey the result of a referendum in which voters were promised a Brexit that is not being and cannot be delivered?

3. Why are we pretending we have to obey the result of a referendum that was explicitly non-binding and advisory?

I have heard many, many Brexiters being interviewed on your programmes, but I have NEVER heard one of your interviewers putting these points. Why is that? Is it because they are ignorant of the facts or is it because an edict has come from on high forbidding them from raising these inconvenient facts. If it is the latter, from whom does it come?

Brexitwatch: another complaint to the BBC

The BBC's performance has been so lamentable that I could complain every day about the way pro-Brexit interviewees are allowed to spout their lies on programme after programme without even a token challenge.

But I've finally lost patience, and written to them again:

Last night a journalist was killed in N Ireland as Brexit undermines the peace process, and unfortunately the BBC has played its part in this sorry state of affairs by failing to expose systematic lying by pro-Brexit speakers on its news and current affairs programmes.

Day after day, they are allowed to spout that the UK has to leave the EU because 'people voted for it'. (Most of them have by now given up any pretence that Brexit has any benefits.)

I used to work for the BBC as well as other broadcasting organisations, and I would have been asking these interviewees:

1. Why should we have to obey the result of a referendum that was won by lying, cheating and criminality?

2. Why should we have to obey the result of a referendum in which voters were promised a Brexit that is not being and cannot be delivered?

3. Why are we pretending we have to obey the result of a referendum that was explicitly non-binding and advisory?

I have heard many, many Brexiters being interviewed on your programmes, but I have NEVER heard one of your interviewers putting these points. Why is that? Is it because they are ignorant of the facts or is it because an edict has come from on high forbidding them from raising these inconvenient facts. If it is the latter, from whom does it come?

Brexitwatch: it's not just Theresa May. Are the police also running down the clock?

Last May - yes, 9 months ago, the police were given evidence of widespread law-breaking by the Leave Campaign in the 2016 referendum. In October, I wrote to the Metropolitan Police asking why they had taken no action (see my post of 15 October 2018). The Met replied:

The electoral commission has made referrals to the MPS. The special Enquiry Team are assessing a number of documents in order to make an informed decision as to whether a criminal investigation is required.

Since then another four precious months have elapsed and it is now just six weeks before we are due to leave the EU. A good reason, you might think, for the Met to get its skates on. Instead - silence. So I have written to them again (see my post of 9 Feb). On 9 Feb, I got a reply saying:

Currently The document [sic] are being assessed by specialist investigators, supported with advice from the Crown Prosecution Service, in order to make an informed decision as to whether a criminal investigation is required.

Anyone who didn't know better might conclude the Met had done absolutely nothing and was just waiting for 29 March in the hope that if there was a criminal conspirancy, the criminals concerned would have safely achieved their objective, with their crime having paid, long before any 'investigation' got underway.

Then perhaps somebody at the Met spotted that they might not be creating the right impression, because on 11 February I got another reply, which seems to be a longer-winded way of saying the same thing: after 9 months and with Brexit six weeks away, the police STILL have not decided whether to mount an investigation:

The Electoral Commission has made two referrals to the MPS in relation to the EU Referendum regarding potential criminal offences under section 123(4) Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.  The first referral was received on 11 May 2019 and concerns Leave.EU, the second referral was received on 17 July 2018 and concerns Vote Leave and BeLeave.

A referral from the Electoral Commission does not automatically mean a criminal offence has been committed, it is the role of the MPS to decide whether there is evidence of a criminal offence that requires investigations.

There has been reporting that the MPS enquiries have made no progress, inferring this was due to ‘political sensitivities’.  This is not the case.  Having received over 2,000 documents, it is absolutely imperative we assess the evidential material that is available in order to make an informed decision as to whether there are matters that require a criminal investigation by the MPS.

We will not provide a running commentary of how we are progressing our enquiries however as with previous referrals form the Electoral Commission, the MPS will make public the outcome of our assessment.

Brexitwatch: the question every MP should be asking themself

There are some honourable exceptions, but the performance of most MPs during the Brexit shambles - the worst political crisis in the UK since World War Two - has been shameful.

Among the items on the charge sheet:-

1. Never bothering to have a proper debate on the implications of the 2016 referendum result
2. Pretending that an advisory, non-binding referendum was binding and giving it a status equivalent to the word of God.
3. Deliberately ignoring the fact that the referendum was won by lies, cheating and law-breaking.
4. Voting to trigger Article 50 when it was plain that Theresa May's government did not have (and still does not have) the faintest idea what it wanted.

For the last two and a half years, most MPs have fecklessly kicked the can down the road, but now they are nearly out of road. Now every MP needs to look in the mirror and ask themself this question:

Do I really want to be remembered for knowingly damaging jobs, public services, businesses, people's savings and pensions, and the UK's standing in the world because I did not have the guts to tell the British people the truth: that Brexit is a terrible mistake and must be stopped immediately?

Good luck getting the right answer.

Brexitwatch: lies, damned lies and Theresa May's government

Along with 189,491 other people, (that's more than 5 times the number who voted that Theresa May should be elected an MP) I signed a petition to the UK government and parliament saying: 'If Vote Leave has broken any laws regarding overspending in 2016 EU referendum then Article 50 should be immediately withdrawn and full EU membership continued.'

The most striking thing about the government's response, from Brexit fanatic Dominic Raab's 'Department for Exiting the EU', is that it NEVER MENTIONS the Leave Campaign breaking the law, even though this is now clearly established. So the government simply ignores the key point of the petition.

The rest of the reply is packed with the usual Brexit lies: the referendum result is described time and time again as an 'instruction' to MPs, while actually it was advice which, as was made clear in the legislation setting up the referendum, parliament is perfectly entitled to reject. 

It claims that 80% of voters in the General Election of 2016 backed Brexit. Arrant nonsense. Labour and Tory parties each offered dozens of policies. No one knows how many people voted for the parties because of their Brexit 'plans' and how many in spite of them. They were also voting on whether Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn should be running the country. Their answer? Neither.

Then says Raab: 'we are committed to making a success' of Brexit. Yes, and I really want to play centre forward for Manchester United. Unfortunately, just like the government with Brexit, I have no credible plan for achieving my aim.

Perhaps most striking is this sentence: 'There can be no attempt to stay in the EU'. So there you have it. Official government policy: no matter what damage Brexit will do, no matter how many jobs, businesses, public services are destroyed, no matter how much cheating procured the result, the government will continue to drag us out of the EU. 

The full text of the government response is here: 

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/223729

Brexitwatch: get your MP to support demand for proper investigation of Leave cheating

Labour MP Ben Bradshaw has written to the Metropolitan Police and the National Crime Agency, demanding they mount a 'full and comprehensive' investigation into cheating by the Leave campaign during the EU referendum.

It is hard to overstate the importance of this. Most people now believe Brexit will damage the UK, but Tory and Labour leaderships are insisting we proceed with it because it is the 'will of the people'. Except it isn't, because the referendum was bent, as the Electoral Commission has already demonstrated.

But, as Mr Bradshaw points out, the Commission has limited powers to investigate and none to prosecute. It is, therefore, vital that the police pursue the matter vigorously. Otherwise we will be giving a green light to cheating in all future UK elections.

I am astonished and disappointed that only 31 MPs (plus 19 MEPs and Lords) have signed the letter. They do not appear to include mine - Labour's Brexit spokesperson, Sir Keir Starmer. This is what I have written to him:

Dear Sir Keir,

I do not seem to see your name among the list of MPs who have signed your colleague, Ben Bradshaw's demand for the Metropolitan Police and the NCA to investigate law-breaking by the Leave Campaign. I am very disappointed, and I urge you to add your signature  without delay.

You have admitted that Brexit has no benefits and that Labour is continuing to support it only because it is the 'will of the people'. As you know from previous emails, I have always rejected the 'will of the people' argument, but as you continue to accept it, you have an obligation to ensure that we discover to what degree the endorsement of the 'people' for Brexit was secured by a criminal conspiracy.

If Labour fails to do this, it will be giving a green light to cheating in all subsequent UK elections.

I look forward to hearing that you have signed the letter and given your support to Mr Bradshaw's efforts.

Yours sincerely,

John Withington

Brexitwatch: demand your MP takes action over Leave campaign cheating

For the second time, the Leave campaign has been found to have cheated in the Brexit referendum. The law lays down spending limits to ensure elections are fair. The official Leave campaign broke the law by spending nearly £500,000 more than it was allowed to.

This is the second time the Leave campaign has been caught cheating. In May, Arron Banks's mysteriously financed Leave.EU group was also fined for spending too much. With a gap of less than 4% between the votes cast for the two sides, surely the referendum result should now be regarded as null and void, but bizarrely the Labour and Tory front benches seem determined to look the other way and pretend none of this has happened. 

This cannot go on. It is the duty of MPs to stop Brexit NOW because 1) it will damage our country. 2) allowing this result to stand will give a green light to cheating in all future UK elections.

My MP happens to be Labour's Brexit spokesperson, Sir Keir Starmer. I wrote to him twice about Leave.EU's cheating (see my post of May 14), and I have never received a reply.

Now that further law-breaking has been revealed, I have written to him again:

Dear Sir Keir,

I cannot believe that Labour has not called for an immediate halt to Brexit in view of the evidence provided today of yet more law-breaking by the Leave campaign. I have already written to you twice on this issue (see below) but you have ignored me. What is Labour's strategy here? Stick your fingers in your ears, cover your eyes, pretend none of this has happened, and then hopefully it will all go away?

You yourself have admitted that Brexit has no benefits, and that Labour was supporting it only because it was the 'will of the people'. Now it is clear that the referendum was won by serial law-breaking, this excuse will no longer wash.

If Labour fails to act, not only will it impoverish our country, and in particular the people Labour are supposed to care most about, destroying jobs, businesses, public services, savings,people's rights to live and work in Europe etc, it will also give a green light to any party that wants to cheat in future elections in our country. 

Take action to stop Brexit now. I appeal to you and Labour not to continue in this gross dereliction of your duty.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

John Withington

Brexitwatch: People's Vote NOW

Many people are demanding a 'People's Vote' at some point in the future - a referendum on any final terms negotiated with the EU for Brexit, but I am going to argue that we need a referendum now.

There is, apparently, no Parliamentary majority for the approach to Brexit set out in Theresa May's White Paper, nor for the 'no deal' approach supported by the Brexit fanatics, nor for dropping Brexit even though the Leave campaign broke the law and so invalidated the referendum result. 

The problem we have is that in the referendum, people voted to 'leave the EU'. That is all. But many Brexiters, including Theresa May, claim falsely that they have some mystical knowledge that people also voted to leave the Customs Union and the Single Market.

MPs appear to have no strategy, and certainly no resolve, for dealing with the present impasse. So I propose we go back to the people, and find out what they want, asking: do you wish to

1) Leave the EU, the Customs Union and the Single Market
2) Leave the EU and the Customs Union
3) Leave the EU and the Single Market
4) Leave the EU but remain in the Customs Union and the Single Market
5) Remain in the EU.

It would be made clear that, unlike the 2016 referendum, this one would be BINDING, with MPs guaranteeing they would implement the result however damaging they believed it would be. (This would also mean that key groups such as 16-18 year olds, UK citizens living abroad, etc could not be prevented from voting as they were in 2016.)

If any of the five options won more than 50% of the vote, then parliament would implement it. If none achieved this, then the bottom three would be eliminated, and the top two would go forward to a second, final round of voting.

There would obviously need to be better safeguards against cheating than there were in 2016, and newspapers would have to be required to observe the same standards of fairness and accuracy as broadcasters.

Some might complain that having to choose between one of five options is too complicated, but leaving the EU is a highly complicated business, and those who cannot be bothered to understand the detail should not really be voting.