The BBC has brutally shut down a Labour minister’s claims about Nigel Farage not appearing on a Question Time debate in Clacton.The political debate programme was broadcast from the Reform UK leader’s constituency on Thursday night.Justice Minister Jake Richards, Tory MP Tom Tugendhat, Lib Dem MP Layla Moran and TV personality Tom Skinner all took to the panel.But despite its broadcast from the Essex seaside town, the show featured no Reform MPs – including Mr Farage himself.
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The Reform chief confirmed the reason he did not appear on the show was because he was told MPs were not allowed to appear on the show in their own constituencies.He added: “I’m sure I’ll be back on before too long!”Home Office Minister Mike Tapp was quick to claim that he had been invited on to a similar debate in his own Dover seat a few months earlier.”I seem to remember being on Question Time, a few months ago, in Dover… my constituency,” Mr Tapp crowed.”You were too scared to even put a Reform MP up for tonight it seems. Weak.”He was then corrected by BBC Question Time itself, which pointed out that he had only appeared in Dover in his ministerial capacity for a controversial “immigration special”.”There is a longstanding policy on Question Time not to invite MPs on in their local constituencies unless it’s for a single-issue special programme,” the broadcaster confirmed.The BBC’s extraordinary intervention then saw Mr Tapp subjected to cross-party mockery.BBC QUESTION TIME ROWS – READ MORE:BBC Question Time crowd breaks into applause after audience member warns ‘radical left’ Greens are ‘danger to society’BBC viewers outraged over ‘bias’ as they blast Fiona Bruce’s Question Time remarkNigel Farage blasts BBC Question Time’s ‘absolute set up job’ as he defends Zia YusufTop Tory Alicia Kearns observed that he had to be “fact-checked” – while Reform’s Zia Yusuf asked: “How does it feel to be publicly corrected by the BBC in your slander of Nigel?”Mr Tapp has not yet responded to the pair’s remarks.Thursday’s debacle is the latest twist in an ongoing row between the weekly debate show and Reform UK.In December, the party lodged a complaint against the BBC after two audience members were revealed to be illegal migrants.Mr Yusuf asked GB News at the time: “How on Earth it can be deemed appropriate that people who broke into this country illegally should have a seat at the table?”What’s next? On Budget day, is the BBC going to bring us the viewpoint of tax evaders? I don’t know where we go from here,” he added.The broadcaster was then bombarded with more than 1,000 bias complaints over the special.A BBC spokesman told The People’s Channel: “All the parties represented on the panel were told the day before the show that there would be people in the audience who had been through the asylum system.”
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