British Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned Wednesday that the BBC must “get their house in order,” following US President Donald Trump’s threat to sue the broadcaster for $1 billion over a misleading edit of his speech.
Speaking in parliament and quoted by AFP, Starmer reiterated support for a “strong and independent BBC,” but stressed the need for accountability: “Where mistakes are made, they do need to get their house in order.” His remarks came in response to a question urging him to ask Trump to drop the legal threat.
Trump’s lawyers sent a letter to the BBC on Monday, seen by AFP, threatening legal action over a documentary edit that allegedly gave the impression the president had incited violence ahead of the January 6, 2021 Capitol violence.
The BBC has since apologized for the edit, but the misrepresentation came with a price, as the broadcaster’s Director-General, Tim Davie, and CEO of News and Current Affairs, Deborah Turness, both resigned on Sunday following a public outcry over the incident.
In a Fox News interview which aired on Tuesday, Trump said, “I think I have an obligation to do it because you can't allow people to do that. They defrauded the public and they've admitted it.”
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Trump was “deeply concerned” by the “purposeful and dishonest editing,” but noted he maintains a good relationship with the UK prime minister.
In addition to the incident involving Trump’s speech, the BBC has continuously come under fire over its anti-Israel bias, which has reared its head even more since October 7, 2023.
In November of 2023, the corporation published an apology after falsely claiming that IDF troops were targeting medical teams in battles in and around the Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
Before that, the BBC falsely accused Israel of being responsible for an explosion at a hospital in Gaza, which the IDF proved was caused by an Islamic Jihad rocket. The network later acknowledged that “it was false to speculate” on the explosion.
Earlier this year, the BBC faced mounting scrutiny for using the son of a senior Hamas official as a narrator in its documentary “Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone.”
Following the criticism, the British broadcaster acknowledged that there were “serious flaws” in the program.
Several weeks ago, the BBC issued an apology after internal backlash over an email sent to staff referring to Hamas’s October 7 massacre as an “escalation.”