Ofcom drops investigations after GB News ruling

Ofcom has dropped all of its remaining impartiality investigations into politicians’ TV and radio programmes, following a High Court decision to overturn the media regulator’s past rulings against Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg’s GB News show.

Last month, a judge decided that Ofcom had unlawfully ruled that Sir Jacob’s programme had broken its impartiality code.

Ofcom has now discontinued the remaining six investigations into possible breaches of rules prohibiting politicians from presenting news programmes.

It has dropped probes into Reform UK leader Nigel Farage on GB News, Foreign Secretary David Lammy on LBC, and Conservative former minister Jake Berry on TalkTV and Local TV.

It has also discontinued investigations into a show hosted by former Brexit Party MEP Alex Phillips on TalkTV, and another fronted by former Reform UK deputy leader David Bull when he was guest host of Morning Glory on the same channel.

Last week, Ofcom also withdrew three previous rulings against GB News programmes hosted by Conservative MP Esther McVey and her husband, former MP Philip Davies.

GB News chief executive Angelos Frangopoulos said: “Since the recent landmark High Court ruling finding that Ofcom acted unlawfully, a total of 11 cases against GB News and other UK broadcasters have now either been quashed, unwound or abandoned.

“Following the withdrawal of five breach decisions against GB News, now Ofcom has revealed that it is ‘not pursuing’ the case against the GB News programme, Farage and five others from other UK broadcasters – another vindication of GB News editorial decision making.”

He added that the broadcaster would “vigorously defend the channel and our presenters’ freedom of speech rights”.

Following the High Court ruling, Ofcom said it would consult on changes to its broadcasting code, which says a politician can’t be a newsreader, interviewer or reporter in a news programme “unless, exceptionally, it is editorially justified”. The current rules say they can, however, front current affairs shows.

Meanwhile, Ofcom has launched an investigation into comments a GB News presenter made about the LGBT community.

During an episode of Headliners on 22 January, while discussing a sermon given by a US bishop, presenter Josh Howie appeared to suggest the LGBT community included paedophiles.

Howie has since said his programme is a comedy show and his comment was intended as a “joke about paedophilia in the church”.

Ofcom said it had received 1,382 complaints directly, while The Good Law Project had gathered 71,851 complaints.

An Ofcom spokesperson said: “We are investigating whether this programme broke our rule which requires that material which may cause offence must be justified by the context.”

Mr Frangopoulos said he did “not believe there was a breach of the rules” in the programme.