Nigel Farage Attacks British Broadcasters During Bad-Tempered Weekend & Says His Party Will “Campaign Vigorously To Abolish The Licence Fee”

deadline.com:

Nigel Farage has ended a bad-tempered weekend on the campaign trail attacking a pair of national broadcasters and saying his party will “campaign vigorously to abolish the licence fee.” The Reform UK leader and friend of Donald Trump yesterday said he would boycott the BBC over audience bias on its Question Time leaders’ special, which took place Friday night.

Meanwhile, he is continuing to insist that Channel 4 hired an actor to spout highly offensive language for a Channel 4 News investigation on Reform campaigners, and the party has said it has reported Channel 4 to the UK’s electoral commission.

Farage wrote on X yesterday that he had been invited but refused to appear on the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg Show because of a “dishonest Question Time audience.” “Our state broadcaster has behaved like a political actor throughout this election,” he said. “Reform will be campaigning vigorously to abolish the licence fee.” Farage, who became leader of Reform several weeks back and stepped down from his GB News presenting job, took umbrage with what he deemed a critical, biased audience, one of whom called him a racist and another asked why his party attracted extremists.

Farage said he won’t appear on the BBC again until the national broadcaster apologizes but a BBC spokesman refuted his claims. “Last night’s Question Time audience was made up of broadly similar levels of representation from Reform UK and the Green Party, with the other parties represented too,” it said in a statement. “There were also a number of people, with a range of political views, who were still making up their mind.” The BBC has long been challenged for the make-up of its Question Time audiences.