No 10 under attack over Brexit media ban
MPS demanded an official investigation last night after no 10 banned selected reporters from a media briefing on Brexit.
Ministers also faced an urgent question in the Commons yesterday over why the media organisations were excluded from Monday’s event at Downing Street.
A confrontation took place inside no 10 after a senior communications adviser tried to exclude some reporters from a technical briefing on Brexit trade talks.
Political correspondents were separated into two groups, one of which was asked to leave.
Labour leadership hopeful Sir Keir Starmer called for an investigation by the Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill, the head of the civil service. He said the actions of the prime ministerial aide involved, who is a political appointee, were ‘deeply disturbing’.
Responding to an urgent question in the Commons, Cabinet Secretary Chloe Smith insisted it was standard practice to give additional technical briefings to certain journalists.
The briefing at the centre of the row was to have been given by the Prime Minister’s Europe adviser David Frost. When political correspondents arrived at no 10 they were asked their names and told to stand apart.
One group was then asked to leave. When journalists protested about what was happening, no 10’s director of communications Lee Cain told them: ‘We are welcome to brief whoever we want whenever we want.’
In protest at the treatment of colleagues from rival organisations, the journalists who had been allowed to attend walked out.
They included the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, ITV’s Robert Peston and the political editors of national newspapers, including the Daily Mail’s Jason Groves.
Representatives of publications including the Daily Mirror, HuffPost, the Independent and the i were among those who were refused access. While successive governments have given political briefings to selected journalists, these have always been carried out by politically-appointed advisers on political issues.
But in the past fortnight, no 10 has held two ‘technical briefings’ on major areas of government policy to which news outlets deemed critical of the Government were not invited. The briefings have involved senior civil servants – raising questions about whether the civil service duty of impartiality has been breached.
A no 10 source later insisted that eight or nine organisations from ‘across the political spectrum’ were invited to the briefing.
But Ian Murray, executive director of the Society of Editors, said there were ‘very real’ concerns for Press freedom. He added: ‘The Society of Editors commends the collective action of lobby journalists to walk out of the briefing and all eyes are on no 10 to make a swift turnaround of their decision.’
Sir Keir said the actions of Mr Cain had ‘undermined the civil service’s ability to comply with its core values of integrity, objectivity and impartiality’.