Political opinion with John Milne MP: An attack on the BBC is an attack on Britain

Trump’s tactic throughout all his many lawsuits in the past is hyper-aggression. He tries to intimidate his opponent into paying him off without fighting the case. However, in this case, it’s far from certain he can bring a case at all. He will have to use the Florida courts, even though the programme itself never aired in Florida, and plainly had no impact whatsoever on the outcome of the US election.

But we can’t take anything for granted. Since winning a second term of office, Trump has loaded the Supreme Court with his own political appointees, and he is going after any state or government official who dared to hold him to account in the past. The US legal system simply cannot be trusted. The great principle of the separation of powers between the executive and the judiciary no longer holds firm.

I’m hugely disappointed to see the BBC could even consider making such a stupid editorial error. But right now, the most significant BBC political bias is in favour of Reform, who are given airtime far in excess of normal quotas, considering their handful of MPs. (Yes, they have a higher poll rating, but that argument was never enough to win airtime for smaller parties in the past.) The BBC are literally the only news business who are even trying to be neutral, and that is not easy.

If it turns out, as alleged, that Robbie Gibb, a Conservative political appointee to the BBC board, was responsible for leaking the internal report that has led to this assault, then there must be repercussions. Given the speculation, he should make it clear himself whether he had a role. We cannot have UK public figures acting effectively like a fifth column, just because they see some kind of affinity with Trump’s brand of right-wing populism.

Separately, I joined the people of Horsham last week in paying tribute to those who gave their lives defending this country. This year on Armistice Day, we were joined by the Portuguese Military Charges d’Affaires, following the surprising discovery that a Portuguese WW1 soldier is buried in Hills Farm cemetery. He died in a tragic training incident at Roffey Camp, killed by the accidental discharge of a gun being cleaned by a fellow Portuguese soldier. Truly, this was a World War in every sense.