Former BBC Journalist Calls on Broadcaster to End Ties With Political Trade Body

A former senior BBC journalist told Sputnik on Friday that the British state-funded broadcaster’s decision to continue membership of the controversial trade body, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), is “inimical” to maintaining its journalistic independence and should be stopped.

EDINBURGH (Sputnik) — On Friday, Sputnik revealed that despite concerns raised by BBC staff over two years ago that membership of the CBI was undermining the broadcaster’s “impartiality” the Corporation has continued to be actively involved with the trade body. In 2014, the CBI openly campaigned against Scottish independence and in 2016 it backed the Remain campaign during the EU referendum campaign in June.

“The BBC engages with the CBI because of its wider role as a cultural institution and employer…. However, it is clearly inimical to the key role of political neutrality and journalistic independence. They wouldn't join CND [Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament], would they? It harms the perception of the news operation and should be stopped,” Derek Bateman, who worked as a BBC journalist for 20 years, said.

“That doesn't mean it can't engage with business separately. It's another example of last century thinking in a public organisation supposed to be a leader in Scottish society,” the broadcast journalist added.

But Bateman told Sputnik the BBC staff concern over the issue of neutrality and CBI membership had subsequently been overtaken by a series of incidents and reorganizations at the British-state funded broadcaster.

“I doubt if any journalist at Pacific Quay [the BBC’s headquarters in Glasgow] is remotely concerned about CBI membership given what they've been through with management bullying, redundancies and stripped down resources,” Bateman said.

All organizations and companies are required under existing UK law to register with the elections regulator, the Electoral Commission, if they are actively campaigning in an election or referendum. Yet Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp, chief executive of Business for Scotland that represents over 4000 trade members, told Sputnik that registration with the Electoral Commission did not automatically guarantee neutrality.

“The BBC, whether they register to be supporter of a referendum or a political campaign is irrelevant if they are campaigning for one side or the other. If you don’t spend £10,000 [$13,000] you don’t need to register but that doesn’t mean you are neutral simply because you haven’t registered,” MacIntyre-Kemp said.

A spokeswoman for the BBC, Kim Hayman, told Sputnik that the BBC’s decision to continue its membership of the CBI resulted from the “significant role” the trade body played in the creative sector in the United Kingdom.

Hayman went onto stress that only BBC Worldwide maintained membership of the CBI and not the corporation as a whole but the BBC spokeswoman conceded BBC Worldwide is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC whose chairman, Tony Hall, is also director general of the entire BBC.